Welcome to the Rumble

Rating: 9/10 (29 April 2019)

It's been a long old journey since Robert Downey Jr started to build the MCU in a desert cave with nothing more than a trademark smirk and a high-powered quip. Back then the Iron Man suit was bodged together from scrap and imagination, a clunky knight's armour that clanked with destructive heavy metal weight rather than the fizz and pop weapon of mass entertainment it later became. Endgame is a fitting tribute to the journey this unlikeliest of superheroes (genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist) has brought us all on.
All the things you might have speculated about to make this grandest of finales work probably doesn't happen, of course, but enough of the chit chat was on the mark to let the fanboys pat themselves on the back. After Infinity War everyone left alive is dealing with things in their own way and the world has moved on as best it can with the leftovers scattered and scarred; given how the universe ended up with 50% of living things disappeared from existence this was always going to be a film about how to fix things so that the MCU could move on with its film and TV and merch slate intact - you don't kill the franchise that lays the universe's first billion-dollar weekend.
The mission, should our superheroes accept it, means some assembling and avengering has to be done again so they can do the improbable against the impossible to take on the inevitable. How it's done doesn't matter as much as the nostalgia ride it takes us on. It's an accomplished bit of story-telling that manages to bring 11 years of franchise work together in a way that propels the action forward without getting too bogged down with unnecessary filler - everyone has their part to play, and true to their characters there are plenty of thrills and more than enough laughs to keep things light.
However, there are so many nods to so many characters that it does descend into a spot the cameo competition at times. While it can be fun to play along it's also the point at which things flounder slightly, feeling more like a necessary roll call to check who's attending the Endgame CGI bish bash boshery. That said, and with only one or two minor exceptions, there is a very satisfying sense of completion to this heroic journey.
In the beginning there was one man in a cave with an iron will to survive, now there's a universe where everyone's lives have been touched, character arcs have been fulfilled, technology in the stories exists at the point of being magical, and everything is possible. So, what next?