Avengers- The End(game)

A spoiler free review:

Whoah!

Without spoilers, there isn’t much else I can say.

Star Trek IV still holds the record for the greatest audience uniting opening night movie cheer I've ever been part of, but this film came dangerously close to taking the title for multiple scenes, and definitely surpassed it in length and number of cheers. Anabelle and I were hoarse and emotionally drained for over a day after it ended.

It truly lived up to its title, ending the current arc of the Marvel films started back in 2008’s Iron Man.

Its amazing how much they kept out of the advertising, at least until the, “Woo! We broke every financial opening record in history,”  victory lap trailer.  

Considering the sheer number of surprises and twists, that was an impressive feat on its own.

This is the twenty second film they’ve linked up, similar to the comic book source material, and they’ve brought all the threads together for this one.

Infinity War was a huge crossover film, focusing on an enormous number of characters.  Endgame, while still heavily populated, had the focus on the original six Avengers, specifically the “Big Three” of that team RDJ and the Two Chris's. (Which sounds llike a rap group.) They had multiple outings in their own films, and drove the franchise, making the focus as it should be.  Theirs were the strongest threads connecting to the past, and theirs was the supporting casts that had the greatest presence.

Although due to the way these movies were constructed and interconnected, most of the hero and villain population could fall under “supporting cast” for one of those characters.

Do I have complaints?  Of course, I’m a comic book fan. That’s what we do.

But overall, it was a highly satisfying group of endings both to this overall section of the myth and the individual multiple arc resolutions passed by along the way.

The three hours flew by in three distinct, but in no way padded feeling, acts.

Stan Lee’s final cameo was perfectly timeless.

The amount of little hints and references dropped around should fuel the myths for years…

Meaning there are still plenty of possibilities for the future with the new characters and the new starting point.

And because - comic books- there are still possibilities for the future of the old characters too, should a day unlike (almost) any other arise, when Earth's Mightiest Heroes must re-unite against a common threat!

Maybe with new actors, and maybe with surprise returns, but as for endings being completely final, more important than the never ending serialized fiction nature of comic books,  a much wiser man than I has said:

“Don’t be square, mon cher! Movies is magic!”

There will unquestionably be a spoiler filled post (or two), once I repair my mental damage from the overuse of emotions after watching this thing and get my thoughts straight. (click here for it eventually)