Review: Avengers: Endgame is a staggering send-off to this era of the MCU

The below review discusses some plot elements of Avengers: Endgame. While no major spoilers are revealed, if you want to go into the film completely cold please return after you’ve seen the film.

Avengers: Infinity War ended on a total stunner. While superhero films often wrap-up with a cliffhanger ending to tease the next installment of the franchise, no superhero film has ever ended with stakes like these. With Thanos in full possession of the 6 Infinity Stones, with a simple snap of his massive fingers he was able to carry out his perverted sense of population control by wiping out 50% of Earth’s population, including a number of beloved Marvel characters like Black Panther and Spider-Man, who turned to dust before our eyes. Just one year later comes Avengers: Endgame, the massive follow-up film that serves as a finale to this era of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, while pointing to where the franchise might go in the inevitable future installments.

Endgame opens directly following the shocking ending of Infinity War. With 50% of the MCU heroes gone, the remaining few Avengers band together with the recently returned to Earth Captain Marvel (Brie Larson) to track down Thanos (Josh Brolin) on a remote planet. Without delving into spoilers, that initial encounter is over much sooner than one would expect, leaving the Avengers to pick up the pieces of a life without their teammates and loved ones.

In a surprising move for a film like this, we then jump 5 years ahead to witness a dystopian version of Earth coming to grips with the loss of half the world’s population. Cities lie in ruins, and the helpless Avengers are trying to assist in any way they can, with Captain America (Chris Evans) leading a therapy group for those trying to move on, and Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) trying to hold onto any of the Avengers’ worldwide tasks with her few reaming teammates scattered across the globe (and the universe).

Things are looking pretty bleak (the first hour of Endgame is about as sunny as an episode of The Leftovers) until Ant-Man (Paul Rudd) is accidentally released from the Quantum Realm, where he’s been stranded for the past five years. Returning with no understanding that he’s been away so long, he heads to the Avengers mansion to pitch an elaborate way to potentially turn back the clock on Thanos’ diabolical actions. Ant-Man’s plan is essentially a “Time Heist,” a way to travel back in time to secure the Infinity Gems before Thanos ever gets his hands on them, which in turn should re-populate the missing 50% of the population who disappeared following Thanos’ actions.

While the marketing for Endgame would have you believe the film is simply 3-hours of doom and gloom, the biggest surprise is just how funny and heartfelt this film is. The time travel element is nothing new (something the rest of the Avengers repeatedly point out to Ant-Man), but it’s handled in a fun way that also serves as a nostalgic look back at some of the MCU’s greatest moments. Because the Infinity Gems have appeared in nearly every MCU film in some capacity, having the heroes return to the actual scenes in earlier films shows just how long ago the seeds of the current events of Endgame were planted, though watching slightly re-created scenes most are extremely familiar with does get old fairly fast. It’s an interesting conceit, but re-watching moments like the Peter Quill (Chris Pratt) dance scene from Guardians of the Galaxy in the midst of a 3-hour film really begins to drain the film’s momentum at a certain point.

With some minor pacing issues aside, Avengers: Endgame is really a staggering send-off to this era of the MCU. If you’ve seen every film in the MCU even once (and many of us have seen some of them many more times than that), you’ve invested over 50 hours with these characters already by the time this film opens. There has never been a shared cinematic universe with that kind of depth and connectivity — even Star Wars pales in comparison, if we’re looking at just the theatrical releases. We’ve seen these characters grow and evolve so much over the years, that Endgame can get away with doing so much with very little at times, because we already know how these characters interact with each other. That deep familiarity makes some of the emotional beats of this film hit at a much deeper level than one would expect from a blockbuster superhero film. There are a number of unexpected character moments here that are truly impactful — it wouldn’t be surprising to see Chris Evans and Robert Downey Jr. up for Oscars for their work here.

Apart from offering some great heartfelt character moments and a twisty plot, Endgame totally delivers on the action front. The first half of the film is filled with high drama and the complexities of the time travel story, but the final act of this movie delivers some of the best action sequences we’ve ever seen in the MCU. There are moments here that comic book fans have dreamed of their entire life, and seeing them executed in such a thrilling way is a total joy to behold.

Directors Anthony and Joe Russo had a ton to accomplish with Endgame — they not only had to wrap up the biggest superhero team-up film of all time, but were also tasked with crafting a worthwhile send-off to this era of the MCU for fans in a meaningful way, while also setting up the franchise for the future. It’s an almost impossible task, and the fact that Endgame is so touching and thrilling is a testament not only to their filmmaking, but also to the strong relationships fans have developed with these characters over the course of 20+ movies. We say goodbye to some characters in Endgame, but witness the torch being passed to the next generation of heroes who will undoubtedly lead this franchise for years to come. This may be the conclusion of this era of the MCU, but we’re far from done with the Avengers yet.

Avengers: Endgame opens in theatres on April 25.