Avengers: Endgame Review

It has come to this, after 21 films over 11 years Marvel Studios has now developed their most ambitious film yet with Avengers: Endgame.

Avengers: Endgame takes place five years after The Snap, the event that wiped out half of all living things. The remaining Avengers are divided and at their lowest ebb. When Scott Lang/Ant-Man (Paul Rudd) returns he comes up with a wild plan – travel back in time and find the Infinity Stone before Thanos (Josh Brolin) got them. But there is only a one in 14,600,500 chance it might work.

That is as far as the plot description can go without going into spoilers. That synopsis covers the setup and the first 30 to 45 minutes of the film. Marvel themselves have tried to keep the film under wraps as much as possible – some actors only received a partial script and the trailers gave little away. It makes a change from trailers that are abridged version of the film they’re promoting or blow their load.

Endgame is a different beast to Infinity War despite both films being made back-to-back. There is a risk when filming sequels back-to-back because the finale might be a letdown. This was the case with The Matrix Revolutions and Pirates at the Caribbean: At World’s End. This doesn’t happen with Endgame because it manages to be different from its predecessor whilst also acting as a continuation. Nor does it go the Harry Potter and the Deadly Hallows Part 2 route which was mostly a battle scene.

Infinity War was pretty much relentless action and viewers required in-depth knowledge of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Endgame deliberately slows things down, especially during the first act. This was the darkest and most sombre moment in the MCU. The world is suffering collective grief, including the Avengers, and the trademark humour was mostly absent. It does come back but the filmmakers were setting up the scenario.

Due to this bleak scenario, some characters struggle emotionally and some go to very dark places. Yet for others, if the mission is successful they could lose everything they gained since The Snap. This is the case for Clint (Jeremy Renner) and Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.)

The action was also reduced in the first act. Scott described the mission as a ‘time heist’ and the first third is like a heist film. The characters have to figure out the mechanics of time travel, bring together the team, and make a detailed plan. Even though the characters have figured out time travel they only have one shot because they have a limited supply of time travel fuel, adding to the stakes. It was similar to what Christopher Nolan’s Inception which was a heist film in a dream world and if characters are killed they are trapped in limbo.

There were also shades of X-Men: Days of Future Past where the mutants only had one shot to change the past. Even if the Avengers were successful they could only bring back people killed from The Snap, no one else so prevents time travel from being a reset button.

When the film moves to the time travel part of the film it was basically the Marvel version of Back to the Future Part II. The Avengers revisit events in their past but cannot directly interfere. And the setting the past allows for a lot of fan service, bringing back loads of characters, and draws on the large continuity the MCU has developed over the years. The time travel element allows for the possibility for alternative universes and timelines which can lead to a soft reboot or Elseworld stories.

The final arc was when the film becomes a big comic book delight. It was both a big action spectacle and brings together some many elements and storylines from the MCU. It is fan service but its fan service done right and every fanboy and girl will squeal with joy. It was a Lord of the Rings scale epic.

Endgame is an end of an era within the Marvel Cinematic Universe, being a fantastic end to the Infinity arc. Both as a standalone and a part of the wider franchise because it was more character and story driven than its predecessor. The MCU will continue but the future films will be smaller scale adventures.

On a final note Endgame is the first MCU film which doesn’t have a post-credit scene or even a mid-scene.