***** outta *****

5 outta 5

An unprecedented effort of franchise building involving 11 years and 22 movies of the Marvel Cinematic Universe has led to Avengers: Endgame. Happily, like last year’s Avengers: Infinity War, even with many crazy disparate pieces of lore thrown together it is still a singular film. Infinity War and Endgame are directly connected to each other, and every movie before it, but each has a distinct narrative and tone. This is finale is a sprawling epic that looks back on the entire series. It is three whole hours but none of it is wasted as Endgame is basically becomes a different movie every hour. Even though there will be more MCU movies, this is the end for the Marvel movies that has been coined The Infinity Saga. There isn’t even a post-credit scene which means they’re serious about wrapping it up. When it comes to finales, Avengers: Endgame an incredibly worthy send off.

After the Mad Titan Thanos (Josh Brolin) snapped his fingers and used the Infinity Stones to wipe out half of all life in the universe, the Avengers are distraught. The God of Thunder, the Mighty Thor (Chris Hemsworth), has left, Clint Barton aka Hawkeye (Jeremy Runner) has become a bloodthirsty vigilante, and others are in a daze. Steve Rogers aka Captain America (Chris Evans) and Black Widow aka Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson) are surprised when the presumed snapped Scott Lang aka Ant-Man (Paul Rudd) shows up. He has discovered a method of travelling through time but they need the help of the Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) and Tony Stark aka Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) to harness it. Their plan is to go back in time and grab all the Infinity Stones to undo the horror that Thanos committed but messing about with the fabric of reality may prove to be very complicated.

This movie is a bit more leisurely paced than the intentionally frantic Infinity War. That movie was basically two and a half hours of a chase to get all the stones that ends shockingly with the snap. If Infinity War is the kinetic start of the story, Endgame kicks off with everyone reeling, letting the climax of the previous movie settle in, showing the characters enduring survivor’s guilt. The last movie was about the war and this is about dealing with loss. Since they’re The Avengers, they don’t accept the loss and need to change it.

The most interesting, and unexpected, thing that happened to the characters involve Thor and Hulk and both Ruffalo and Hemsworth get to put different spins on characters they’ve played for years. Hemsworth’s Thor has yet another gigantic tonal change from previous iterations and he totally nails it. Also, later on, he gets another design update that looks way cool. Ruffalo gets play a version of Hulk which is extremely unexpected. There’re a couple characters from space in the movie, Nebula (Karen Gillan), Rocket (Bradley Cooper) and Captain Marvel (Brie Larson), that add to the weird crossover comic book flavour and each of them get in a great bit, especially Gillan’s Nebula who gets a very dark and complex story. Rudd’s Ant-Man is deployed for comedic relief with some of the best lines.

After the heavy first act, it gets more lighthearted with a grand tour of previous settings in the Marvel Cinematic Universe as everyone is off on a mission that Scott somewhat sheepishly dubs “the time heist”. For people who have watched (and re-watched) the entire series, it is a joy to see, and for newbies it’s just a very cool time travel story. There’s a whole lot of madcap hide and seek as the characters are split off on separate journeys. It’s like three different movies happening at once; one crew is in heist flick, another crew is in a screwball character comedy, and another one is in a space drama. The stuff with Clint and Natasha is very emotional as the two non-superpowered Avengers get a big moment together.

Emotionally, the film calls back to Civil War with a great journey for the two main characters, Tony Stark and Steve Rogers. Both Downey Jr. and Evans put the depth of their years into the performances and the big moments they have at the climax are jaw dropping. Brolin’s Thanos appears again and gets in some neat variations. The Thanos at the start of the movie is very different from the Thanos at the end and the character depth Brolin conveys is remarkable.

This movie saves its biggest action set piece for the end as the last hour as the Avengers face off against Thanos. The scale is enormous and there are some amazing bits of action scattered throughout as things continually become more challenging for the Avengers. As huge as it is, it is easy to follow what the goal is which is key in big action spectacles. Seeing the multiple characters assembled as one adds weight so the spectacle and character works together with one amazing scene after another. Directors Anthony and Joe Russo have created a sprawling film that continually unspools other genres inside of it with lots of moments of humour.

Avengers: Endgame is fantastic filmmaking, taking pieces from over the years for the payoff. It is both looking back on the MCU and telling a new story for a satisfying and emotionally resonant end.