It is finally here: the culmination of 11 years worth of storytelling, action, crossovers and the rewriting of the superhero film lanscape as we know it today. After last year’s Infinity War the Russo brothers had a lot to live up to. Did they manage it? Were they able to make a satisfying continuation to what was probably the most daring film Marvel had ever made, while at the same time delivering on the promise that this would be the final installment in an 11-year saga? Was all the wait and hype and set ups worth it? Well, there are several ways to answer those questions, but I’m gonna go with a somewhat reserved yes. As someone pointed out in another review, this film cannot be viewed as a stand alone piece, instead it has to be considered in context with “Infinity War”, and well, there’s lots that can be said about that, so let’s get started, shall we? But first of all, I’m issuing here a spoiler warning for those of you who haven’t seen the movie and want to go in as in the dark as possible, so proceed with caution.

Okay, so “Endgame” takes place almost immediately after the last film left off: Thanos completed his quest for the Infinity Stones and effectively wiped out half of life in the universe. The Avengers failed to stop him and now they have to deal with the consequences of their failure. Tony Stark is stranded in space with Nebula, until they’re rescued by Captain Marvel, who brings them to Earth to Rendezvous with the rest of the survivors. They’ve been tracking Thanos for a little while now, so they device a plan to go after him and get the stones from him, yet he reveals he destroyed the stones so no one could undo his work. Flashforward five years into the future and Ant-Man finally manages to get out of the Quantum realm (where he was stranded at the end of “Ant-Man and the Wasp”) and he comes up with a plan that could actually undo Thanos’ snap. So the team of now broken heroes team up one final time to bring everybody back from the dead.

I firmly believe that the reason why “Infinity War” worked so well was because the Russos realized that what needed to be done was to shift the focus towards the antagonist of the movie and make it all about him, his quest, his arc, etc. With all the different characters running around and so many heroes and protagonists vying for the spotlight, they correctly realized that the film needed to be all about Thanos. That’s why it got to be so daring and compelling, it was after all part one of a two part series, what allowed them the freedom to go all out on their crazy ideas. Of course, with “Endgame” being part two of two this time they couldn’t get away with the villain winning and everybody dying in one of the most shocking scenes in mainstream superhero cinema. That means that in order to live up to the expectations they themselves created by lying the focus on their villain they had to come up with a different approach that didn’t put the villain at the center of it all. Nevertheless, before it being a sequel to “Infinity War” it is first and foremost an Avengers film, a sequel to every other film the franchise has produced up until this point, so the answer to the conundrum was actually quite simple: make it all about the Avengers themselves and their adventures through the years.

I’ve gotta say that I wasn’t too pleased at first with the introduction of time travel into the MCU (other franchises do tend to get unecessarily muddled and convoluted when this device comes into play), and even more so when it was clear that they were basically going into their own past movies to retrieve the stones in the past. A little alarm was raised at the back of my head when it became obvious that they were going for the nostalgia trip, but fortunately it wasn’t as bad as I expected it. The scenes in the past (which includes them travelling to the original “Avengers”, to the first “Guardians of the Galaxy”, to “Thor: Dark World”, and even to “Infinity War” you may argue, with other callbacks to “Doctor Strange” and “Winter Soldier”) weren’t as self-indulgent as I expected, they showed a very interesting and sometimes subversive side to classic MCU scenes, added a good amount of humour and they didn’t overstay its welcome. It was fan-service, sure, but at least it was done right, and considering this was the culmination of such a huge saga, I guess its justified to revisit some of its biggest hits. Plus I’ve gotta say that I was pleasantly surprised to see Tilda Swinton in her role as the ancient one once again, thought I’d never see her again like that.

Back to the characters, Thanos aside this film does a better job than its predecessor with its character work. Whereas in “Infinity War” there were som many moving pieces to juggle to the point that some characters were sidelined and don’t undergo through any arc whatsoever or this is just minimal (Cap and Black Widow included), in this film because for the most part the cast was mainly reduced to the core players, the characters do end up getting the resolutions they deserved. Iron Man’s final sacrifice fits perfectly with his arc that started way back in 2008 with the first MCU film, and Captain America going back in time to grow old with Peggy Carter was very touching and a closure that the character did earn. While in the previous Avengers film Black Widow was just kind of there, here we do see her struggling with the aftermath and the feeling of responsibility she gets towards herself and the rest of the heroes, so when she finally sacfrifices herself you do get the feeling that her character work finally paid off after so many films where she played second roster to the main hero. Then there’s Hawkeye, who’s had a huge transformation since we last saw him, now a vengeful shadowy figure after the loss of his family, he gets his redemption and his much deserved happy ending. Bruce Banner has finally learned how to coexist with the Hulk, an interesting concept that produced lots of funny moments, though I did feel like he was sidelined after he himself undid the snap. And then there’s Thor, a character that’s been thorugh quite a lot in the past couple of films, now turned into an alcoholic sporting a beer belly dealing with PTSD (which was mostly played for laughs, something that undermines the great potential of his development frankly), who at the end goes off with the Guardians to explore the galaxy. While I loved what they did with Thor in this film and the idea of him and the Guardians getting into all sorts of whacky adventures is too good to resist, by the end as he renounces the rule of Asgard it kind of feels like the Russos going back on his development from “Ragnarok”, but hey, we still got lots of golden moments from him.

It goes without saying that this film was visually and technically stunning, and of course the final battle was huge, breathtaking and epic in scale. Everybody gets to show off their powers and there are many realy great moments during the climax (Cap raising Thor’s hammer anyone?). Yet, beyond all the flashy spectacle one does get the sense to be in a Marvel climax, and that means one where the stakes aren’t that high. Whereas in the finaly battle in “Infinity War” the urgency was real and you didn’t really know what was going to happen, here it ultimately feels like the battles in the original “Avengers” or “Age of Ultron” on a much bigger scale: it may look hairy for our protagonists, but we all know the heroes are gonna win in the end. Though to be fair how they framed that victory was very well done and serves a feeling of poetic justice. Then there’s that moment that apparently has been somewhat controversial, the Ladies of Marvel scene: Captain Marvel takes the gauntlet from Peter Parker, who asks her how she’ll be able to take it way across the battlefield alone, to which Okoye replies “she’s not alone” and then every single living female marvel hero shows up in the same shot displaying their powers. While there’s nothing intrinsically wrong here I’ve got a couple of issues with this scene: first of all, it is blatantly obvious what they’re trying to do, Disney pushing their liberal agenda again, and while I do believe that more female heroes are needed in mainstream superhero cinema, they could at least try to make it more subtle; my biggest issue here, however, is that this is clearly a case of a shot that looks cool but doesn’t really makes sense narratively: its as if every single female hero was just standing around near that place, waiting for their cue to show up and show how awesome they are. Lets not forget there’s a huge battle going on at the moment, it would be impossible that geographically they’d be so near to each other and that none of them would be engaged in some sort of combat or task in that exact same moment. Anyway, its just that one scene, but I’m already seeing lots of people (mainly males) who find this particularly troubling

There are tons of great moments in the film: from Tony Stark meeting his father in the past to Captain America fighting himself, Hawkeye’s and Black Widow’s trip to Vormir, the arrival of all the resurrected heroes to the battlefield reminiscent to Gandalf showing up with the Rohirim in “Lord of the Rings”, and who could forget Korg’s cameo as he plays fortnite, there’s a lot to be treasured by Marvel fans. There’s something that “Endgame” offers its followers that none other MCU film had done before, and that’s a sense of closure. Its been 11 years full of ups and downs, great heroes, some great villain and others not so great. In those 11 years they’ve made billions at the box office and have perfected a winning formula that puts them on the top of Hollywood filmmaking. While the MCU will go on, with the Disney-Fox merger on the horizon enabling to get back most of their beloved properties, there’s a real sense that this is the end of an era, accentuated by the fact that there was no post credit scene (though when you remember that “Spider Man: Far from home” is coming in about three months all that gets undone). I think I kind of like “Infinity War” better just because it was so unexpected, but there’s no denying that “Endgame” is the perfect farewell to all these great characters and this era defined by the Juggernaut that Marvel Studios has become.

Thanks for reading and I hope you liked it. I haven’t been able to write and post as much recently, frankly time is getting ever more limited and demanding, I’m entering my final year at the university now so that means there’s gonna be less and less chances to write just for fun. I’ve considered giving blogging up, but there are still other stuff that I’d like to talk about before closing this chapter, so I think I’ll be doing this for at least until next year, though it will certainly be less often than it has been so far. I’ve also considered expanding my repertoire and talking about other stuff besides film (though that would still be my main focus), but I’m still not sure how to go about that, so I don’t know just yet. Anyway, if you liked this review it would be great if you shared it with your friends and family and other Marvel fans that might enjoy it, and if you want to keep up to date with this blog hit that follow button. Until next time!