Avengers Endgame Review
- Riley Golden
- May 5, 2019
- 16 min read
Following the events of Avengers Infinity War, Earth’s Mightiest Heroes are in shambles. The most resilient beings in the galaxy lost. They lost the battles. They lost the war. They lost friends. They lost hope.
And that’s really the tone of the story going into Avengers Endgame — the culmination of 22 films spread across 11 years of storytelling, that released on April 27.
The movie begins with Clint Barton, AKA Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner), spending time with his family on their farm. His wife is preparing lunch, his two sons are playing, and he's training his daughter to shoot a bow and arrow.
Then, they all disappear, except for Barton. While the Avengers were fighting Thanos (Josh Brolin) and his army, trying to prevent the snap that took half of all beings in the universe, Clint had accepted the terms of the Sokovia Accords (after the evens of Captain America: Civil War) and was therefore sidelined.
But, with the loss of his family, Clint joined the rest of the Avengers on the path to the 'endgame.'
Tony Stark, AKA Iron Man (Robert Downy Jr.), and Nebula (Karen Gillan), daughter of Thanos, are adrift in space aboard the Milano, the Guardians' ship. Being the only survivors of the battle on Titan, things are looking bleak for them. Tony starts to drift off, when he sees a bright light coming from outside the ship.
The light is revealed to be Captain Marvel, AKA Carol Danvers (Brie Larson), who takes the Milano and its occupants to the Avengers HQ on Earth, where they are greeted by who's left after the battle in Wakanda (Captain America, Rocket Raccoon, Bruce Banner, and Thor).
The first time I watched Endgame, this part kind of confused me. I was like, 'so did Captain Marvel just happen to pull up on Tony and Nebula and take them exactly where they needed to go?' Then, I realized I had forgotten the end-credits scene of Captain Marvel, which documented her first meeting the Avengers. But, I had this in mind on my second viewing of the movie, and I was far less caught-off-guard.
There's also a part in this scene when Rocket (Bradley Cooper) and Nebula take each other’s hands. This is just the beginning of the emotional rollercoaster this movie takes us on. These two Guardians of the Galaxy that were at sharp odds not too long ago, have lost the only family they've ever known and they need each other.
The following scene has Earth's and Titan's survivors comparing notes, when Tony freaks out on Cap, AKA Steve Rogers (Chris Evans), bringing the note-sharing to an end.
Shortly after, they locate Thanos because of an energy surge on a planet that matches the surge that rippled through the galaxy when the Mad Titan first snapped his fingers on Earth.
The disheveled Avengers hunt down Thanos, and after discovering that he "used the Stones to destroy the Stones," their only hope of getting their friends back is gone... and Thor (Chris Hemsworth) goes for the head, decapitating the Mad Titan.
We then see Thor, in slow-motion, retreat out of Thanos' hut, which is really a fitting transition into the sad reality that our heroes live for the next five years, especially Thor.
5 Years Later
Captain Rogers is leading a support group, trying to help people move on after having lost those close to them. Director Joe Russo plays a gay man in this scene, and while I appreciate Marvel taking this first (teeny-tiny) step into including the LGBTQIA community in the franchise, I did not like Russo's appearance in the film.
My reason being that it really took me out of the immersion of the film. Russo's only relation to these films is that he directs them, so for me it just instantly reminded me that what I was watching was fictional, and it just really pulled me out of it.
Then, we see Scott Lang's (Paul Rudd) van parked in an impound locker, and a rat turns on the quantum tunnel. Scott flies out of the back of the van, leaves the impound locker, and sets out to discover what happened while he was in the quantum realm, and why the Van Dyke family wasn't there to greet him.
Walking around an almost dystopian San Francisco, Lang's biggest revelation comes when he visits a memorial to all of the people that vanished. He sees his name and realizes that his daughter Cassie has been without him for however long he's been gone. He finds her five years older than when he left, living on her own. It's a heartwarming reunion, but it’s also sad because you start to wonder what the young girl has endured in the lapsed time.
The next scene sees Natasha Romanoff, AKA Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), digitally communicating with some of the remaining heroes, trying to stay on top of everything going on in a world that's lost a lot of its heroes and a lot of its people.
Captain Marvel is one of the people that Natasha is communicating with, and she makes a statement that basically says, 'there's stuff going on all around the galaxy and I don't have time for y'all.' Wow, you're so cool, Carol. We get it. You’re a cosmic hero.
Once everyone disconnects, Steve enters the scene, and while him and Nat are talking about needing to move on, Scott Lang starts buzzing into the Avengers compound.
Lang then presents evidence of his time in the quantum realm as a possibility for time travel, and the crew heads to the smartest guy they know to try and convince him to explore the possibility.
They roll up on Tony and Pepper's (Gwyneth Paltrow) cabin, where the lucky couple have been apparently raising a daughter, Morgan, since Tony's return from Titan.
Tony having already gotten his second chance with Pepper and his daughter, he doesn't sympathize with the rest of the remaining Avengers seeking a second chance.
So, then, they turn to the biggest brain they know, the now Professor Hulk, AKA Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo). Apparently, Banner spent 18 months in a gamma lab and gave himself the best of both worlds, brains and brawn.
And, honestly, I hated it the first time I watched the movie. They played Hulk for a joke, having him take selfies and dab with kids -- don't get me wrong, it's hilarious -- but I think they really did a disservice to the character.
That being said, this is when the movie really opens up. The Avengers start doing time travel tests, to no avail. Banner is out of his area of expertise. But, then, Tony -- having found a theory for potential time travel -- rolls up at Avengers HQ, gives Cap his shield, and gets to work.
In the meantime, Nat hunts down Ronin, AKA, Hawkeye, somewhere in Asia, and Rocket and Hulk head to New Asgard to bring Thor into the fold.
Barton has gone rogue since the death of his family, killing criminals all over the world. He was hopeless, until Nat showed up to offer him the first sliver of hope he's had in half of a decade.
But things in New Asgard are arguably worse. Thor is hold up with Korg (Taika Waititi) and Miek, drinking his figure away and yelling at kids in Fortnite.
While this scene is hilarious, Thor's character development goes much deeper than the butt of a joke. This God of Thunder is depressed. Thor lost his mother, then his father, then his brother, then half of all the friends he's ever had. Then he took Thanos' head off with the swing of his axe, Stormbreaker. The loss of his friends and family -- and the taking of Thanos' life -- is weighing heavily on this god's shoulders.
With Thor and Hawkeye back in the fold, and the ability to now time-travel, the Avengers now need to figure out the how, when, and where of their plan.
They can't just go back and stop Thanos from snapping -- this would create a diverging timeline (if I understand the MCU's time travel rules correctly) -- their only option is to just bring everybody back to the now, and they're going to have to go back in time and grab the stones from specific locations before Thanos got them in the first place.
Limited by the amount of Pym Particles they have, they have to be very strategic about when and where they travel to.
New York
Ant-Man, Professor Hulk, Iron Man, and Captain America return to 2012 at the end of the Battle of New York with the goal of retrieving the Space Stone, which is inside the Tesseract -- the Mind Stone, which is in Loki's (Tom Hiddleston) scepter -- and the Time Stone, which is in the Eye of Agomoto.
This trip back provides a ton of situational humor, seeing Cap step into the elevator with several of the same shield agents he ended up fighting in Winter Soldier in an elevator.
It seems like Cap is about to relive the elevator fight scene, but instead he leans over to Jasper Sitwell (Maximilano Hernandez) and whispers "Hail Hydra." This totally caught me off-guard and it's a pretty cool call-back to a recent arc in the comics that saw Captain America reveal his allegiance to Hydra, only for it to be revealed that it was a clone of Cap the whole time.
A lot of older fans were displeased by Hydra Cap because it offended his Jewish creators, those who fought in World War II, and all of those who died in concentration camps. While I totally see the symbolism and validity there, I think it is a little dramatic. That being said, I thought the movie's acknowledgement of the arc was cool, funny, and unexpected.
At the same time, Ant-Man and Tony nearly get their hands on the Tesseract, when 2012 Hulk accidentally clobbers Tony. 2012 Loki was in the process of being arrested when this happened, but the Tesseract fell right at his feet. Of course, Loki grabbed it, opened a portal, and stepped through it.
Before Endgame came out, Marvel announced a Loki show for Disney+, and Loki having died in Infinity War, I wondered how they would do it. But, after he walked through that portal, I instantly knew that the show would follow 2012 Loki. The MCU portrayal of Loki is perfect because you never know what he's going to do next, and with Rick & Morty's Michael Waldron serving as showrunner and executive producer, as well as writing the pilot, I'm thoroughly excited to see what is in-store for the show.
While all of the drama went on at Avengers Tower, Bruce went to the Sanctum Sanctorum to get the Time Stone from Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch), but who he actually finds is the Ancient One (Tilda Swinton). She informs Banner that he's (I think) 5 years early to catch Strange because he hasn't become Sorcerer Supreme yet.
It takes a lot of persuasion for the Ancient One to hand over the Stone, but she eventually does. Again, we're seeing Hulk and he's doing no smashing, only talking. But whatever, it's O.K. I guess.
Anyway, Stark was not successful in retrieving the Tesseract so Cap sends Lang back to the present with Loki's scepter, and with only enough Pym Particles for one round-trip each, their only option is to go to the 80s (I think), when Hank Pym (Michael Douglas), his Particles, and the Tesseract are at the Shield headquarters.
Once they get there, Cap grabs the Pym Particles and ends up stepping into an office to hide, and it turns out to be none other than Peggy Carter's (Hayley Atwell) office. Tempted as he was, Steve's sense of duty did not allow him to do something as selfish as interact with her at such a critical moment.
Tony broke off to go after the Tesseract, and he ends up running into his father, Howard Stark (John Slattery), who is expecting... him? This makes for some heartwarming dialogue between Tony and his late father, before him and Cap have to return to the present.
Asgard
Rocket and Thor head to Asgard in what I believe is 2014 to retrieve the Aether, which is actually the Power Stone. The Aether is inside Jane Foster (Natalie Portman), and right when their plan is about to set in motion, Thor sees his mom and has a panic attack, telling himself that he can't do this.
Rocket tries to slap Thor into controlling himself, to no avail, and Thor ends up running into his mother, Frigga (Rene Russo). Having been raised by witches, after all, she can tell that this Thor is older, and has been through a lot since 2014.
This is one of my favorite parts of Endgame. While Thor's panic attack and desperate need to speak to his mother provide comedic relief on the surface, this in turn, goes much deeper than the humor.
The God of Thunder has been beaten down by life, and doesn't really have anyone to turn to for real emotional support.
I say this often, but most of the time in the comics, Thor is just this Norse God, and there isn't much to him. When Thor Odinson becomes unworthy to wield Mjolnir in the comics, Jane Foster picks up the hammer and becomes Thor.
While this arc really takes Odinson on a new path, Lady Thor is my favorite Thor arc that I have ever read. Not only because the art is gorgeous, but because she has cancer, and the dynamic humanizes someone with so much power.
Similarly, The MCU Thor has always been given obstacles that make him seem more like everyone else, but as someone that battles anxiety fairly often, I never felt a stronger connection to a superhero than I did with 'Fat Thor' in Endgame. Sometimes all of us, including the God of Thunder, need our moms to remind us that we are just like everyone else, and that's perfectly fine.
While Thor talks with his mom, Rocket extracts the Aether from Jane. Thor, having been revitalized by the much-needed conversation with his mom, reaches out for 2014 Mjolnir -- the present-day hammer having been destroyed be Hela (Cate Blanchett) in Thor: Ragnarok -- and it comes to him, meaning that with everything Thor has been through and done, he is still worthy to wield the cosmic storm that is Mjolnir.
Having accomplished their task, Rocket and Thor return to the present, Power Stone and Mjolnir in tow.
Vormir
Clint and Natasha travel to Vormir -- in 2014, I believe -- in search of the Soul Stone, and it didn't hit me until they actually made it there and started climbing to the top of the mountain that one of them was about to die. It went completely over my head, but I think that's because it went over the Avengers heads too.
When speaking of Vormir, Nebula said that it was there that Thanos murdered Gamora (Zoe Saldana), but she didn't explain that he had to do that to get the Soul Stone, which may be just because Nebula doesn't exactly know what transpired.
So, Clint and Nat are climbing to the top when Red Skull (Ross Marquand) tells them he is the guide for everyone that ever goes to Vormir in search of the Stone.
He tells the close friends that to get the Stone, they must trade one of their souls in exchange for it, permanently.
Clint and Nat fight each other on who will be the one to give their life, and ultimately Natasha makes the choice for them that she will be the one to go. Black Widow is naturally not my favorite Avenger, but she is still an Avenger, and she's been with us since Iron Man 2. This 'infinity war' has taken everything from everyone, and Nat giving her life to restore the galaxy is a sad and fitting end to her arc.
That being said, Marvel is still making a solo Black Widow movie, and I can see it playing out one of two ways, or even a third way that combines the first two options. The movie could be a prequel, basically giving us a Black Widow origin story, which would likely document her time in the Red Room. The second option would line up with her recent arc in the comics where she died, but was basically brought back to life via a Red Room clone of her that was 'uploaded' with all of her memories. And the third option could see an origin story movie, that ends with a present-day Natasha that's actually a clone of the original.
The third option is my preferred route, and I don't see Marvel squandering the chance to make more money off another trilogy.
Morag
Nebula and Rhodey, AKA War Machine (Don Cheadle), go to Morag in 2014 in search of the Power Stone to steal it from the same place that Peter Quill, AKA Starlord (Chris Pratt), takes it from in the first Guardians of the Galaxy. This provides us with a few hilarious moments of Nebula and Rhodey watching Quill dance and sing from afar, followed by Rhodey knocking him out.
But, this is when things get very dicey, very quickly. Of course, Nebula failed to mention anything before they jumped through time, but the pair are not the only ones looking for Stones in 2014, because Thanos and his daughters are also searching for them.
Cut to the 2014 happy family, and Nebula's brain and memories become fragmented right in front of Thanos, because present-day Nebula and 2014 Nebula share the same network. While talking to Gamora and their father, a memory of present day Nebula talking to Rhodey about the Stones projects a digital image from 2014 Nebula's eye.
Thanos learns that in 2019 he gathers all of the Infinity Stones and fulfills his destiny, but he also learns of the fate that awaits him after the snap.
The Avengers have already been giving Thanos grief by making it extremely hard for him to execute his goals and capture the Stones. Fed up, he sends 2014 Nebula to the present day, disguised as her present-day counterpart.
Final Battle
Everyone -- well almost everyone -- having returned to the present with all 6 Stones, they compile them onto a Stark-made Nano-gauntlet, give it to Professor Hulk, who then snaps his fingers and brings back half of the universe. Directly after, 2014 Nebula uses the quantum realm time travel machine to bring 2014 Thanos, Gamora, the Black Order, and Thanos' army raining hell on Avengers HQ.
Thanos just pulls up and takes a seat amid the destructed headquarters and tells Nebula to find the Stones. He was waiting for the Avengers, and here comes the Marvel Trinity: Captain America, Iron Man, and (fat, dual-wielding) Thor.
These three, teaming up one last time, tag-teaming the Mad Titan. How satisfying. And you just know it gets crazier from here.
One of the coolest combo attacks occurs when Thor juices Iron Man up with lightning as he fires beams at Thanos.
Then, Thanos tosses Tony away and starts laying into Thor. The God of Thunder summons his trusty hammer, only for Thanos to interfere and the hammer keeps going.
But, suddenly the hammer starts to get pulled back, then it hits Thanos, and the next thing you know is CAPTAIN FREAKING AMERICA IS WIELDING MJOLNIR!!!!
He does some crazy combo moves using the hammer and the shield, and Mjolnir is basically Cap's for the rest of the battle.
Him and Thor hit Thanos with some awesome tag-team lightning, and it is just so cool to watch. One of my favorite scenes from Infinity War is when Thor pulls up on Wakanda and starts wrecking shop with Stormbreaker, and they doubled-down on that with Cap and Thor's 'lightning storm' in Endgame.
Of course, all of that is still not enough to defeat Thanos, and just as Cap is getting up to "do this all day," he starts hearing Sam Wilson, AKA Falcon (Anthony Mackie), on his communicator, and EVERYBODY starts pulling up to join the battle via the inter-dimensional portals that Strange and friends are conjuring up.
And it all starts when Cap gives, possibly his last ever, "Avengers Assemble!"
This battle has so many different satisfying team-ups, but one of my favorites -- next to seeing Iron Man and Rescue, AKA suited-up Pepper Potts, blasting goons alongside each other -- has to be the A-Force team-up.
Captain Marvel joins the battle, and everyone is working together to keep the gauntlet away from Thanos, when she gets it from Spider-Man, AKA Peter Parker (Tom Holland).
Captain America tasks Captain Marvel with taking the gauntlet to the quantum tunnel in the back of Scott's van, and as soon as she can say that she'll need some assistance, all of the powerful women in the MCU -- Rescue, Wasp (Evangeline Lilly), Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson), and Gamora, to name a few -- join Danvers and go head-to-head with Thanos.
I've heard a lot of people (men) say that this scene felt forced and that Marvel was just pandering to the feminist crowd. While I would consider it fan service, it was no more forced than any other scene in that movie. No one says it feels forced when three white men team up?
In my opinion, if you don't like the A-Force scene, you're just hater, because it's badass.
After several other key battle points, Tony takes the Stones from Thanos, assembles them on the gauntlet of his Bleeding Edge armor, and snaps his fingers.
Thanos' army begins to disappear, and then the Mad Titan along with them.
But Thanos is not the last casualty of this war. Tony snapped, and gave his life to save everyone from Thanos. Iron Man dies a hero’s death, and drifts off with Pepper, Rhodey, and Spidey by his side.
The End of an Era
Next is Tony's funeral, and every hero that's still alive -- including Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) and Harley Keener (Ty Simpkins), the kid from Iron Man 2 -- is in attendance.
Following the send-off, Hulk sends Captain America back in time to return the Infinity Stones and Mjolnir. Sam and Bucky, AKA Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan) are waiting nearby for Steve to return, and when he doesn't instantly return when Hulk says he should, Bucky looks off into the distance and sees an old man sitting on a bench.
That old man is Steve Rogers. After he returned everything where it belonged, he stayed in an earlier time to spend his life with the love of it, Peggy Carter.
Some have said that this was out of character for Cap, but I disagree. While Captain Rogers is a dutiful soldier, his job was done. This below average boy from Brooklyn, who became a super soldier, and ended up being frozen for 70 years, has battled aliens, been to space, traveled through time, and helped stop an "inevitable" alien threat called Thanos.
This man's arc had to end with him getting the one thing he never got: the girl. I, for one, was very happy for Cap.
At this point, Cap also gives his shield over to Sam, who looks at Bucky for assurance that it’s okay to take it.
It has already been announced that there is a Falcon & Winter Soldier show coming to Disney+, and my prediction is that we're going to see Sam and Bucky trying cope with the legacy of Captain America on their shoulders. I think we will see Sam struggling to accept the mantle, but come the end of the show, he will reach the point of acceptance and officially become the next Captain America.
After that scene, we see Thor hand the rule of New Asgard over to Valkyrie, and take off with the Guardians of the Galaxy.
Peter can be seen searching for Gamora on a star map when Thor enters the Milano, thus, setting up the story for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3.
With present day Gamora dead and 2014 Gamora somewhere out there, I predict that Guardians Vol. 3 will be partially about finding Gamora, but I also think -- like a recent arc in the comics -- that Gamora will feel like a part of herself is still in Soul World, and the Guardians' goal will be to figure out how to retrieve that missing part of Gamora.
I also predict that one of the first scenes of Guardians Vol. 3 will show Thor already back in shape, working out on the Milano -- and maybe even Quill will join him after the comments about his weight in Infinity War.
Conclusion
Infinity War and Endgame is the two-part culmination of 10 years and 20+ plus films, and it was executed nearly perfectly.
My only issue with the movie being the Hulk's arc, it’s not enough to drop any points off of the review score, effectively giving Endgame a perfect 10-out-of-10 score.
10/10
Afterthoughts
The MCU is being set up to look very different over the next 2 phases and beyond. I think the next top-5 members of the team will be Sam's Captain America, T'Chala, AKA Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman), Spider-Man, Dr. Strange, and maybe Captain Marvel, Valkyrie, or Scarlett Witch (Elizabeth Olsen).
There's also a Hawkeye show on the horizon of Disney+, which I think will be about him training his daughter to be the next Hawkeye. And, finally, I believe that it is inevitable that the X-Men and Fantastic Four enter the Marvel Universe.
For more on comics and the Avengers, keep it here at RED News, True Believers!
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