‘Avengers: Endgame’ Review: The Resounding and Satisfying Farewell of the Decade

Warning: Major spoilers ahead for the Avengers: Endgame. Read at your own risk.

22 movies. 11 years. And it all ends in the thrilling, powerful, touching, and satisfying tapestry of storytelling by the Russo brothers in the Avengers: Endgame. The promise in the film’s trailer was “Whatever it takes.” It not only pledges the heroes’ redemption but, it also echoes the commitment put into what is perhaps the movie of the decade. And in one of the most admirable spectacular feats of the decade, they undoubtedly got their endgame.

Through all of the MCU’s films, nothing and I mean nothing ever really prepares you for the endgame. But, it seems that like Tony Stark, the MCU managed to pull off one last trick for this chapter at least. It’s everything you could ever want to the end of a long-running superhero saga. Lives must be lost. Mantles must be passed on. But, it leaves you satisfied and even happy (and a little emotionally unstable for some) for something as bitter as an end. If Infinity War was the devastation, Endgame is the tranquility.

Tribute to the Past

Starting off with the good bits, one of the sequences I found quite pleasing was the travel back to the last part. Though the premise of the sequence was quite troubling (I’ll get to that part later), it gave me a serious dose of spine-tingling nostalgia. It was the drive down memory lane I didn’t know I needed with all this grief and ending. And it’s where most of the trademark MCU humor was centralized for the film. Everyone’s just seeing their past selves. And they’re all in this hilarious and relatable “I was THAT?” phase of discovery and humiliation. While some were sort of disgusted, some were luckier, ahem cue America’s ass ahem.  

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All fun and games aside, I felt like I was watching these movie bits with a new pair of eyes and a new brain. I know what happens when and where. But this time around, I know it’s the teaser to the main event, the appetizer to the main course, and the feel-good before the devastating emotional climax. It’s a sweet, huge, and obvious fan-service but, it also sets you up real good for the real pain to follow.

Heroes Update

Given that the Avengers were facing their worst enemy to date and that half the universe had just been wiped out, character developments were due. In fact, a huge part of the film focused on character dynamics in between all the action and fighting. We’re just seeing all these heroes in their most raw and vulnerable moments. And thanks to the near-perfect casting, these moments were justified to the dot.

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With Tony (Robert Downey Jr.) lost in space, Natasha (Scarlett Johansson) had to take up his place. And she did it all the while being the emotional core of the film. Her best friend Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner), on the other hand, turned the opposite, going rogue and losing hope. Upon getting back to Earth, Tony flat out denies helping anyone and settles for a simple life. Bruce (Mark Ruffalo) finally gets to be one with the Hulk. Thor, on the other hand, grows a huge belly and a chicken attitude. Character-wise, he is one of the most disappointing just for the fact that his actions didn’t seem to align with his reasons. He blamed himself for Thanos and he watched his brother die. And yet, not once did he ever mention Loki’s name. And there didn’t seem to be any emotional register when he was in his brother’s presence in the Dark World Era time travel.

Apart from the original six, we also get a glimpse of the newer surviving heroes. The highly anticipated return of Carol Danvers (Brie Larson) has come. And Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) and the rest of the Galaxy crew has finally set foot in the Avengers headquarters. These characters didn’t have enough time to shift in this film but, it has set them on interesting precedents for their futures.

Heroes Lost

Now, here comes the emotional part. With everyone from Marvel keeping the tightest of lips, no one even got a hint of what the world was going to lose. In all honesty, in all 22 MCU films, the deaths in Avengers: Endgame was the most surprising. We even got a couple of tear-jerking lines that are sure to go down in history. However, they were well deserved, in a good way. And they were written well enough to hit us all in the gut and leave us breathless. These goodbyes weren’t all pain and tears though, because the way they were laid out made them feel right, especially for one of them. The other, well, that’s still up for debate.

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Those two deaths easily let other conclusions slip. Though there isn’t many, they still felt like the surrounding ornaments to those two shockers. Well, except for a confusing singularity. Apart from all others, Captain America’s (Chris Evans) ending was unique because he actually got to use their newly-found time traveling knowledge for personal reasons. And instead of passing the mantle of Captain America to his best friend Bucky, he chose to give it to Falcon (Anthony Mackie). That absolutely vague turnover right there begs for serious questions. And unfortunately, none of them will be answered until the next phase of the MCU rolls out or even later.

Time Travel Hitches

Unfortunately, through all its good points, the biggest pitfall of the Avengers: Endgame seems to stem from the very solution to the problem: time travel. Dealing with this topic is utterly tricky especially when it’s used to such grand a scale as in Endgame. And in the film, it’s shaky grounds are somewhat covered up by the eye-catching war sequence, the emotional exchanges in between, and the overall anticipation of that final showdown. But, the hitches remain.

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To separate the film’s version of time travel from other preconceived notions from other films, there was a portion of banter among the team about time travel movies. And in this film, the base premise was that once they partially disrupt a timeline, all they had to do was put everything back in place and the timeline continues on without a hitch. But, it gets terribly confusing from then on.

For example, take the battle of New York from the first Avengers. At the end of it, Loki was captured and sent back to Asgard. But, when Tony, Cap, and Ant-Man travel back to retrieve the Tesseract and Loki’s spear, the Tesseract accidentally falls to Loki’s hands. And he uses it to jet off somewhere else. That’s one timeline already greatly disturbed.

Then, also take the past Thanos’s jump to the future. Does that mean that he skipped over destroying and terrorizing dozens if not hundreds of planets? And of course, we have the deal with Captain America. After putting the infinity stones back in their respective timelines (which were already disturbed), he returned old and gray. If he did hang back in the past in the same reality, won’t there be a lot of continuity errors? One running theory I found somehow explaining this is that these events didn’t actually destroy their timelines. Instead, they happened in alternate realities. But, then it begs the question of how these realities are then connected.

Time travel is a huge mess. It makes my head hurt just thinking about it. Hopefully, Marvel has something up their sleeves to clear this up. Because this hitch is an ever growing problem the more you probe into the film as it encompasses the entire premise of the film.

‘Avengers: Endgame’ Overall Verdict

Avengers: Endgame is a promise fulfilled. It gives you the marvelous cinematic experience of stunning visuals equipped with witty humor like any other MCU film. But it’s prime is in the grandiose culmination of decades worth of incredible storytelling. All hitches and glitches aside, this is what you call going out with a bang.

It’s a fitting close to all those stories told many years ago. But, it also shares it’s grandiose to the new beginnings that will come after it. Now that the MCU phase that the current generations have grown up with is over, it’s actually quite exciting to think of what’s next and what’s new. It’s actually a teaser to think if the next MCU generation is going to trump this one. All in all, Avengers: Endgame isn’t the perfect superhero blastoff. But, it’s one of the most gratifying and satisfying cinematic experiences to date.