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Avengers: Endgame “Assembles” An Emotionally Charged, Satisfying “End”ing (Movie Review)

Avengers: Endgame is the culmination of 11 years in the making, which spawned some 21 shared universe films before it.  It seems like so long ago, but really it has only been a decade and minus only a few lowlights the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) has continued to fire on all proverbial cylinders.  Despite my love for the DC Comics Expanded Universe (DCEU) even they can’t say the same as MCU’s lucky lightning did not strike twice in their shared universe.  I blame the critics and studio on that, but I digress.  There will be no more talk of the DCEU, but instead we’re going to focus here on out solely on the MCU and the conclusion of the third phase of the film franchise.  Phase 1 ended with 2012’s The Avengers and Phase 2 concluded with the first Ant–Man.  And now we’re gathered here to wrap up a bombastic Phase 3 that gave us a whopping 9 entries so far: Captain America: Civil War, Doctor Strange, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Spider-Man: Homecoming, Thor: Ragnarok, Black Panther, Avengers: Infinity War, Ant-Man and the Wasp and most recently Captain Marvel.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock the past year or so, then you’ll know Endgame is the direct sequel to 2018’s Avengers: Infinity War.  The film is once again directed by Anthony and Joe Russo, otherwise known as the Russo Brothers from my home town of Cleveland, OH.  Screenplay duties were handled by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely.  Once again we have an ensemble cast assembled here with the likes of Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Hemsworth, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner, Don Cheadle, Paul Rudd, Brie Larson, Karen Gillan, Danai Gurira, Bradley Cooper, Josh Brolin and many more.  In our sequel here the surviving members of the Avengers “assemble” together to brainstorm a way to reverse the damage caused by Thanos in Infinity War.  You remember what happened in that flick, right?  With a click of a finger…poof!  Where did everyone go and who was on the other side of that pager of Fury’s?

If you’ve seen Captain Marvel, then you obviously know who’s on the other side of that pager.  Also because of the recent wave of advertised new Funko Pop collectible figures from this movie I warned all my Marvel friends to brush up on 2018’s Ant-Man and Wasp, which for me was my favorite MCU feature last year.  Those new uniforms in the trailers here for me were bordering on the cusp of spoiler territory, but I hoped all along they were just trying to mislead me, toys and all.  Rest assured I was both completely smitten and pleasantly surprised by how things all went down in Endgame.  It was truly E-P-I-C from beginning to end and despite the long runtime of 3 plus hours not once did it feel dragging.  It was cut effectively with inventive and sometimes very playful storylines that kept me invested, wide awake and completely unaware of the fact that I even had a bladder.  Go figure!  I’m a superhero!

I really don’t even know where to begin here.  I explain this as take all your preconceptions about what you think is going to go down here and throw them out the window because I’m willing to bet you’re wrong on a number of them.  I know I was and for once I was very happy to see that the theatrical trailers, at least the ones I saw, gave little to nothing away about the fun you’ll have here.  There were so many surprises throughout that I felt like a kid opening presents on Christmas morning.  Now I’m not saying it was a perfect film, but I do feel like it was desirable wrap up to a culmination of 12 years, 22 films and many cherished memories with these rich Marvel characters.  It’s really hard to defend all these statements too because doing so would invoke spilling spoilers and I’m not about to do that here.  So until you see this one you’ll just have to take my word for it.  I will, however, break it down a little personally like this.  I liked it so much that I actually went home and paid advanced booking fees to see it again this weekend.  If you knew me, you would know I never do that for any film.  

Since I can’t talk about the plot in any which way, shape or form without venturing into spoiler territory let’s tackle it as so.  I liked Infinity War, but I was just a fair weather fan of it.  The film had lots of boring moments, but it felt more complete than when Harry Potter attempted it in its seventh installment (how I despise those movies).  Endgame is leaps and bounds better in its storytelling, pacing and character growth/work.   Best of all, and you would think this couldn’t be the case, they found ways to give every character time to work it and shine.  It’s entertaining, emotional and down right crowd pleasing all the way through its runtime.  It didn’t topple my Top 2 Marvel films, Guardians and Winter Soldier, but I believe it might have pushed the first Avengers out of the coveted third spot.  Only time will tell through repeat viewings of this.  While it is extremely satisfying I got to tell you, and this is all I’ll say, Endgame is one of the most confusing entries of the MCU.  However, rest assured there’s a good reason for it being so.  Did I lose you yet?

Last but certainly not least, I think it goes without saying you can expect a big, epic battle.  Oh yeah!  Along with that you’ll also be very surprised a number of times too.  These surprises are what made me so giddy throughout because I felt like I walked into something bold, adventurous and most importantly fresh (laughing my a$$ off a lot).  We also have multiple storylines going on at once, which I credit in keeping the pace of this 3 hour long film flowing without feeling like you’re actually watching a 3 hour film.  Instead you’re treated to one of the biggest ensemble movies ever that aims to please every which way it can, checks off whatever boxes it can in ways of characters or continuing storylines and most importantly it punches a satisfying, emotionally charged (bring some tissues) conclusion to everything that has come before in the previous 21 films.  Therefore, I do recommend that you’ve seen them all.  I just happened to watch Winter Soldier and Civil War over the weekend because they were released on 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray and I’m very glad I did (I’m not going to help you any further in drawing conclusions to my subtle hints).  I’m excited to see where things go in Phase 4, but humbled and appreciative of where Endgame took us in providing us some much needed closure to hopefully propel us to new heights and beyond (especially since Disney now owns Fox).  Enjoy!