Fish and Cherries Productions

THIS IS YOUR FIRST AND ONLY WARNING: THERE WILL BE UNMARKED SPOILERS FOR EVERY PRECEDING MARVEL CINEMATIC UNIVERSE FILM! IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN THEM AND WANT TO STAY PURE, TURN BACK NOW! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!

Summary: The Avengers have failed. Thanos (Josh Brolin) has succeeded in his plan of wiping out half of all life in the universe with the Infinity Stones and even destroyed them to prevent any of it from being undone. But five years later, by a stroke of fortune, Scott Lang (Paul Rudd), better known as Ant-Man, escapes the microscopic Quantum Realm and goes to the Avengers with a plan: exploit the Quantum Realm’s time-bending properties to go back in time, get copies of the Infinity Stones, and come back to undo the horror inflicted upon the universe. Thus Captain America (Chris Evans), Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), the former Hawkeye now known as Ronin (Jeremy Renner), Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), War Machine (Don Cheadle), Nebula (Karen Gillen), and Rocket Raccoon (Bradley Cooper) embark on a “time heist” that takes them across the history of the Marvel Cinematic Universe to set right what was wrong. But time travel is tricky and their escapades may have unintended consequences as the past comes back to haunt them in a truly deadly way…

Review: Avengers: Endgame is the culmination of 11 years and 22 movies’ worth of story, essentially closing out the first saga arc of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. And if you were worried that it wouldn’t deliver… rest assured, it delivers. It delivers right to your door, even on nights, weekends, and holidays, then stays to help you renovate your house, massage your feet, do your taxes, and help deliver your babies.

So yeah… I guess you could say I enjoyed it.

Just like Infinity War, this movie’s cinematography really pops and evokes the image of the event comics it’s trying to emulate. More than once, I could almost see word balloons popping up in the scenes. Also like the previous movie, Endgame handles its ensemble cast well, probably a lot better than Infinity War considering that it has, er, about half as many characters to juggle. Either way, the smaller cast works well when they all come together for the final showdown.

I was honestly expecting this to be an absolutely bleak movie because of how grim the last movie left things. So imagine my surprise when I found myself laughing at quite a bit throughout the film. In fact, it evoked pretty much every emotion from me while I watched. It was a rollercoaster of emotions, all of them welcome. Seeing characters interact, debate, reconcile, and go through all of their hardships was so rewarding for those of us who have followed them throughout their journeys.

The whole movie reads as one giant love letter to the MCU and all of its fans, from callbacks and payoffs to literally revisiting past movies and eras. It even brings back characters like The Ancient One (Tilda Swinton) and Alexander Pierce (Robert Redford), who weren’t in the original movie, but it totally makes sense that they were there in some capacity. Even Edwin Jarvis (James D’Arcy) from Agent Carter makes an appearance and the movies have tended to outright ignore the Marvel TV shows. It even gives lip-service to Thor: The Dark World, which is widely considered to be the worst MCU movie (yes, back when I reviewed it, I said it was my favorite, but time, experience, and a lack of adrenaline have tempered my enthusiasm). It’s all important in some way, whether to the story or character growth. All of this leads up to a climax that… um… how to describe it…

I do have one really serious complaint: for all of her hype, Captain Marvel (Brie Larson) gets way too little to do. Sure, you could argue that her game-breaking superpowers would have made everything way too easy, but the same arguments don’t apply to Okoye (Danai Gurira) and she has just as much stake in the matters as anyone else. I mean, both of these ladies are even featured on the freaking poster! Despite that pretty significant gripe, this movie was sublime and I would gladly see it again. Even with its three hour running time, it was a breeze to get through. So yeah, anyone who has invested time in the Marvel Cinematic Universe owes it to themselves to see this movie. It’s a great conclusion to the first major story arc of the MCU and I hope we have at least eleven more years of great Marvel stories.

Fun Tidbit: When Scott Lang emerges from the Quantum Realm, he finds himself stuck in a storage unit. The number of the unit is 616, which is the number assigned to the mainstream Marvel Universe in the comics.