Endgame: My Final Thoughts (Spoilers!)

It's actually with mixed feelings that I start this attempt to convey my thoughts about Avengers: Endgame, and especially to try and rank it, because there's simply nothing to compare it with. I've said it in my first reaction a couple of days ago, and I'll repeat it here: it's nothing short of a masterpiece, but with problems.

_{source: Wikimedia Commons}

Where to begin? Ah, of course: do yourself a big favor and stop reading this if you're still planning on seeing this, you definitely don't want anything spoiled. Now that's out of the way, let me tell you what my final opinion is in a sentence: Endgame is a love-letter to the fans who have been with the superhero-cast from the very beginning, as well as a love-letter to all the major characters. I'm willing to forgive the creative team for most of the obvious plot-holes caused by all the time-travel complexities for a variety of reasons, the first being that they're essential in giving some of the characters the farewell they deserved, and we as the audience needed.

In 2008 we got to meet Iron Man for the first time; essentially a spoiled brat who inherited the arms-industry giant Stark Industries from his dad, Howard Stark. In that film he crafts his first Iron Man suit in a cave of Afghanistan where he's being held captive by terrorists. He almost gets killed and uses new technology to power a magnetic device that keeps him alive by preventing metal shrapnel-shards to enter his heart. Later in that film his assistant and future love of his life, makes a present for him: the first version of the device with the text "Proof That Tony Stark Has A Heart"; and this present with this text comes back in Endgame in one of the films many emotional moments. In Endgame there are so many call-backs to the previous 21 films, even some pulled from the after-credits scenes, that you will simply miss if you're not a hardcore fan of the MCU; this is what I mean when I say this is a love-letter to the fans, as you get rewarded for really having payed attention to all the previous films.

This, from the creators' point of view, was a bold gamble, but I guess that the box-office numbers from all these films gave them confidence that enough viewers would have seen enough of the previous films to pull this off. Marvel and Disney already gambled big time with Infinity War by killing so many of the fans' favorite characters and leaving the audience with the biggest cliffhanger in movie history, but now that Endgame is out, we see just how big that gamble was; not only did they have to tie up that mega cliffhanger, but they at the same time had to end the character arcs that have been developing for years. Every journey has an end, and Endgame is it for the original team, the Avengers that defended the earth against Thanos' forces in the battle of New York in 2012.

Endgame picks up right after Infinity War, and the first thing we see is how Hawkeye's entire family turns into dust... The tone is set immediately and we see Hawkeye's demeanor change from surprise to confusion to outright panic. This first scene sets the standard for the acting we'll be treated to for the entirety of the film's three hour run-time; with the exception of newcomer Captain Marvel all the acting is marvelous, especially from Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson and Chris Hemsworth. Throughout the previous films we've seen Iron Man grow from a cocky rich brat to a man who carries the burden of protecting humanity, we've seen him become addicted to the suit, first because of his narcissism but later because he's the one who's able and willing to do the job. In Infinity War he admits that Thanos has been in his head for the past six years, since he first defended the earth in 2012 alongside Captain America, Black Widow, Hawkeye, Hulk and Thor. He's been haunted by the vision of the Avengers' ultimate defeat by Thanos' hand, a vision given to him by Scarlet Witch in Avengers: Age of Ultron.

Speaking of Age of Ultron: in another brilliant move, that film foreshadows one of the very best scenes in Endgame, the moment when Captain America wields Mjolnir, Thor's hammer (the audience cheered when that happened). Remember when they all sit at Iron Man's house and try to lift that hammer? Remember the slightly worried look on Thor's face when Captain America manages to slightly budge his Mjolnir? That moment is payed off now for all of us who have been patiently building up to this final chapter. But there's so much more...

This film has it all, so not only do we get to revel in nostalgia, but we're also treated to some mega surprises. So in Infinity War it was all about Thanos, arguably one of the best antagonists put to screen. Really, he rivals Batman's the Joker (the Heath Ledger version) in my opinion because the Russo's were so bold to dedicate an entire film to him. One of the few criticisms about Infinity War was that our protagonists didn't get enough screen time, but that's because of this choice. Where Joker's point of view was conveyed so effectively through a strong script and marvelous acting, the MCU simply took it's time; Thanos was first teased through the occasional after-credit scene (in which the CGI looked a lot worse: glad they took care of that) and effectively got his own movie in the end. Not only the heroes, but the antagonist as well has been a decade in the making.

_{source: Wikipedia}

Thanos is also Endgame's first big surprise, as he gets his head chopped off in the first 20 minutes or so of the film... WHAT!? That was the first moment when I heard audible gasps in the theater. After making an entire movie for us to get to know Thanos, he gets killed at the very beginning of this movie; no one saw that coming. Everyone expected Thanos to be the final battle, but now he's dead? And on top of that, he destroyed the Infinity Stones, when the plan was to use them to undo what he did and bring back all the people and creatures he killed with a snap of his finger in Infinity War. After Thor chops off his head, Rocket asks "what have you done," and Thor answers "I went for the head." Brilliant, just brilliant.

The next surprise is a few minutes later when, with looooong intervals the words "five years later" appear on a black screen. After building up tension and releasing it with Thanos losing his head, all in half an hour or so, we're ready to start building tension again, and the film does that repeatedly while also maintaining an overall tension-curve that gets released at the very end in the final battle. We now get to see how the world and our heroes deal with losing half the population, and it's a grim sight. Our heroes aren't dealing with it very well; Hawkeye has become Ronin and kills criminals in brutal fashion, Black Widow tries to run the remainder of the Avengers, but is ready to break because she's lost what effectively was the only family she's ever known, and the one that gave her that family was Hawkeye, a special relationship we've known about since the first Avengers movie, but was never really focused on. Well, the Russo's have managed to even remedy that and give these two a lot of screen-time.

Ant Man gets released from the quantum realm he got stuck in at the end of Ant Man and The Wasp; if you haven't seen that movie's after-credit scene, you would have missed that, proving again that this is the ultimate fan movie. Time works different in the quantum realm, as he explains to Captain America, Rocket and Black Widow that for him only 5 hours passed instead of 5 years. They decide to try and build a time-machine to undo Thanos' finger snap. Time-travel has always been a contentious subject, something best avoided because it so often acts like a deus ex machina, and also because it erodes the weight of events in the plot because, hey, if someone dies we just go back in time and prevent the death. Time-travel and other "reset mechanisms" are used often in comics where we see the same heroes come back time after time after time, but in movies a death should be final or else the emotional impact would disappear after the nth time a protagonist dies. Time-travel also opens up the possibility of creating plot-holes of its own, which it does in Endgame.

But, I stated before that I'm willing to forgive this because these plot-holes give us the emotional closing of character arcs we and the characters deserve. But also because the film doesn't take itself serious at all when it comes to this aspect. Although a great deal of effort is taken to explain exactly how time travel works in this film, with explanations by The Ancient One and Bruce Banner, time travel is also constantly joked about in the film and even goes so far as to play out the scene where Ant Man turns into a baby, a teenager and an old man.

It's even made clear that time travel does not work like in so much popular movies, with titles like Back to the Future being referenced in a joking manner. Unlike Back to the Future and so many other time travel films, his film, in yet another surprising twist, avoids the so called "grandfather-paradox." This is the paradox that arises when we imagine traveling back in time to kill our grandfather; if we kill him that means your father would never have been born, so you could not exist, but you must exist in order to be able to go back in time to kill your grandfather... In short: killing Thanos in the past will not change our heroes' future, but instead would create a whole new parallel timeline.

_{Image by AntMan3001 - source: Flickr}

Instead they decide to go back in time to collect the Infinity Stones, bring them back to the year 2023, make a glove and do their own finger-snap to bring back all those who turned to dust, and afterwards travel back in time to put the stones back where they came from. This part of the film is where the fan-service goes into overdrive as we re-visit some of the major events we've seen in the 11 year MCU history. Every character that has ever played any kind of major role in this epic plot was brought back on screen. In brilliantly scripted scenes we witness some of the events of the 2012 New York battle, Asgard in 2013 when Jane Foster is there infected with the Aether from The Dark World, the planet Morag where Peter Quill steals the orb in 2014.

On Morag in 2014 something happens that clears the way for Thanos to return; Nebula from 2014 somehow receives the memory of 2023 Nebula, our Nebula. Through amazing technology Thanos can now see everything that happened, or will happen in his future. He sees that he wins first, gets all the stones, kills half the universe, but also that the Avengers defeat him afterwards and chop off his head... They capture our Nebula, and somehow manage to hitch a ride on her time travel device; eventually we will see that final battle, but it'll be Thanos from 2014 against our superheroes. This is another evident plot-hole because where did Thanos get all the Pim partcles needed to transport his entire army to 2023? Nebula also had only one small device, a time travel GPS as they call it, to navigate the quantum realm correctly... Ultimately though, don't think about it too much I say; we all suspected that time travel would play a part in some way or another, with Dr. Strange willingly giving away the Time Stone after staring into more than 14 million possible futures, of which only one would lead to victory over Thanos. It's just the way they handled time travel that's so surprising and ultimately gives us what we want to see, and also opens up possibilities with parallel universes with endless spin-off opportunities.

When Captain America and Iron Man try to steal the Tesseract, we're even treated to the famous elevator-scene from the Winter Soldier movie; even Rumlowe and secretary Pierce appear and Captain America from the future knows they are actually Hydra agents. With the elevator scene I, and I'm sure most of the audience, fully expected Cap to say "before we get started, is there anyone who wants to get out?" I fully expected Cap to fight them again, but instead he simply whispers "Hail Hydra", after which they allow him to take the Infinity Stone. This is so brilliant. Eventually they don't succeed in taking the Tesseract as it gets stolen by Loki; this must be the creation of the parallel universe for Loki's announced television series on the Disney plus channel, I'm sure.

Stark and Rogers now must travel back to the 1970s to get the tesseract and some more Pim-particles to allow for the extra time-jumps needed; as I said, it gets quite convoluted... But allows our main Avengers to meet some very special people; Tony Stark gets to meet his father. Remember how he told as early as the first Iron Man movie how he never got to say goodbye to his dad? How it took years for him to understand that his father did love him, how we see him as a teenager in Captain America: Civil War, where he complains to his mother about his father? This meeting with Howard Stark gave him the chance to at least partly make amends. By this point in the movie we've already had so many heartstrings pulled at; nobody was prepared for this, or I wasn't at least.

Captain America sees the original Ant Man, a digitally de-aged Michael Douglas as Hank Pym, and even gets to briefly see Peggy Carter, the love of his life who he had to leave behind when he crashed Hydra's plane into the ice in the 1940s. We all remember they promised each other a dance. In the meantime, on planet Vormir in 2013, Black Widow and Hawkeye are out to get the soulstone. I totally forgot that to get the soulstone, someone must die. A soul for a soul. And in a beautiful scene our protagonists fight each other for the honor to sacrifice themselves for the greater good. In the end Black Widow wins this fight and leaves us forever... Or did she? There has been a Black Widow solo movie announced, so will that be a prequel? Regardless, this was a great scene with magnificent acting by both actors.

_{Marvel Studios' Avengers: Endgame - Official Trailer}

When they all return with all six stones collected, everyone has to deal with Natasha Romanoff's final departure, especially Cap and Hulk who both had a special relationship with her. Stark then makes a special nano-tech Iron Glove that can hold the power of all six stones, so one of them can snap their fingers to bring back the vanished. Hulk gets to do it and almost gets killed, or at least half his body is burnt and the wounds don't heal like they normally do. Moments later, after a phone-call from Hawkeye's vanished wife establishes that the finger-snapping was a success, we see Thanos arriving and bombing Avengers headquarters to shreds. Amazingly all our heroes survive, courtesy of some well deserved plot-armor, and the final battle begins... and lasts for almost an hour!

Think of the greatest battles you've ever seen in film and then multiply that by 3000... This final battle is a piece of art of itself; every hero is present and gets their time in the spotlight, but I'm so glad that the three core members, Iron Man, Captain America and Thor take center stage. That moment with Captain America that was foreshadowed in Age of Ultron broke the silence once again in the theater; what a brilliant move to give us a fight scene whit Cap wielding his shield AND Mjolnir. Thor took Mjolnir from Asgard 2013 after he spent some time with his mother, Frieda. I'm really amazed how the Russo's managed to give all the main protagonists closure on so many missed opportunities, and how after a decade of developing these characters still manage to give us something new, show us yet another side of life as a superhero. I mean, who saw Thor Lebowski coming? Who thought he'd be reunited with Korg and Meek from Thor: Ragnarok. Chris Hemsworth deserves a special mention here as he has been able to give us so many different versions of the Norse God of Thunder.

Iron Man is the one who makes the ultimate sacrifice and snaps his finger to defeat Thanos and his entire army by turning them into dust. We come full circle when he says "I am Iron Man" just before he performs the fatal snap; these were his last words in his first movie when he reveals in a press meeting that he indeed is the Iron Man. Perfect. Just perfect. Peter Parker, like half the audience in the theater, including myself, can not hold back his tears, but quickly makes way for Pepper Potter, whom Tony is married to now and has a daughter with. She simply says that "we will be okay" and "you can rest now..." I honestly expected Cap to be the one to make the final sacrifice, but this is perfect; this started with Iron Man and it's only fitting that he ends it.

The only thing left to do now is to return the stones back to the past and Captain America is the one to do it. And this way he gets his own beautiful farewell; when the others try to bring him back to the present, nothing happens. They then see an old man sitting on a bench and it's him; he decided to not come back and finally make good on his promise to dance with Peggy Carter, and lead the life with her he always wanted. Again, a plot-hole strictly speaking, but a highly rewarding one, instead of a jarring one. The final scene is the two love-birds dancing...

For the future of the MCU we now have Falcon as the new Captain America, and in another scene Thor makes Valkyrie the next Queen of New Asgard. Captain Marvel was barely in the movie, but nonetheless was pivotal for the plot; she's the one that rescues Iron Man at the beginning of the movie, and there's a scene with her in the final battle when she effortlessly demolishes Thanos' warship; I really don't know what to think of a future with her at the helm of the Avengers Initiative, but we'll see. For me, I'd be perfectly happy if this was the last film, as it is a perfect ending to a truly special decade of film making. It's not perfect, nothing ever is, but it's a solid 9.5 out of 10 at least. This will be remembered as it's own era in pop culture history. A thousand years from now this will be the stuff of legends as a whole generation has grown up with these movies. Those who were teenagers in 2008 now have their own kids who they will show these movies. I believe it'll even surpass Star Wars in cultural significance and what it has done for film making in general, and it deserves no less.

_{Marvel Studios’ Avengers: Endgame | “To the End”}

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