Avengers: Endgame

Rating: 9/10 (6 May 2019)

So, it all came to this, the Marvel Cinematic Universe is the most financially and commercially successful superhero franchise for the last 12 years, and this was the conclusion to the Avengers storyline, the most anticipated, and highest-grossing movie of 2019 (it made $2 billion in 11 days, faster than Avatar, and surpassed the record of Titanic), it's the highest-grossing superhero movie of all time, directed by the Russo brothers (Welcome to Collinwood, You, Me and Dupree, Captain America: The Winter Soldier & Civil War). Basically half of all life on Earth was disintegrated by Thanos (Josh Brolin) and the Infinity Gauntlet. Carol Danvers aka Captain Marvel (Brie Larson) rescues Tony Stark aka Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) and Nebula (Karen Gillan), who were stranded in space following their defeat by Thanos on Titan. They reunite with the remaining Avengers: Bruce Banner aka Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), Steve Rogers aka Captain America (Chris Evans), Rocket (Bradley Cooper), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Natasha Romanoff aka Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), and James Rhodes aka War Machine (Don Cheadle). They plan to retake the Infinity Stones and reverse the disintegrations, they locate and confront Thanos, but find that he has destroyed the Stones, in anger Thor kills Thanos. Five years later, Scott Lang aka Ant-Man (Paul Rudd) is returned (by chance) from the quantum realm to find the world devastated and half of the population disappeared in a snap. Scott finds Hope van Dyne aka The Wasp (Evangeline Lilly) and her father Dr. Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) have vanished but finds his daughter Cassie (Emma Fuhrmann) is now a teenager. Meanwhile, Rogers is attending grief counselling sessions for survivors still struggling following the wipe out, while Romanoff is at the Avengers' compound tirelessly keeping watch over both Earth and the rest of the universe with the help of Rhodes, Danvers, Okoye (Danai Gurira), Rocket, and Nebula. Lang returns to the compound; he explains that five years had only five hours for him in the quantum realm and theorises that it may be possible to build a time machine to reverse the annihilation. Stark refuses to help out of fear that he will lose his daughter Morgan (Lexi Rabe), who was born after the disintegration, but he talks with his wife Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow), and does his own experiments. Banner has embraced the Hulk part of him, and melded himself and Hulk together as one, he agrees that it is possible to go back in time and steal the Infinity Stones before Thanos is able to collect them. Banner and Rocket travel to the small town of New Asgard, where Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson) and the last survivors of Asgard have settled, they are shocked to Thor overwhelmed by guilt, with overgrown hair and overweight, eating junk, drinking, and playing video games with his friends Korg (Taika Waititi) and Miek, but they eventually convince him to return. Romanoff recruits Clint Barton aka Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner), now a ruthless vigilante after his family was disintegrated. Initial experiments with the time machine with Lang go awry, but Stark arrives to shows them his findings to perfect it, and testing it with Barton, it is confirmed that it works. The Avengers plan which places in time to travel to where the five Infinity Stones are located. Banner, Lang, Rogers, and Stark travel to the battle of New York City in 2012 (Avengers Assemble) to retrieve the Time, Mind, and Space Stones. Banner visits the Sanctum Sanctorum and convinces the Ancient One (Tilda Swinton) to give him the Time Stone. Rogers successfully retrieves the Mind Stone, after battling with himself. Stark and Lang's interference inadvertently allows Loki (Tom Hiddleston) to escape with the Space Stone. But Stark remembers the Space Stone being in S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters in 1970, he and Rogers travel back to retrieve it, Rogers sights Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell), and Stark has a meaningful conversation with his father Howard (John Slattery). Rocket and Thor travel to Asgard in 2013 (Thor: The Dark World) to extract the Reality Stone from Jane Foster (Natalie Portman), while there Thor has a conversation with his mother Frigga (Rene Russo), as it is the day she will be killed, which he cannot reverse, and he retrieves his hammer Mjolnir. Nebula and Rhodes travel to Morag in 2014 (Guardians of the Galaxy) and steal the Power Stone before Peter Quill aka Star-Lord (Chris Pratt) can. Rhodes returns to the present with the Power Stone, but Nebula is unable to return, her cybernetic interface has connected with that of her past self. Through this connection, the past version of Thanos learns of his future success and the plan of the Avengers to undo it. Thanos captures Nebula and sends past Nebula to the present day disguised as her future self. Barton and Romanoff travel to Vormir in the same year and learn that the Soul Stone requires the death of a loved one, they argue which of them should sacrifice themselves, but ultimately Romanoff falls to her death, allowing Barton to obtain the Soul Stone. Reuniting in the present, the Avengers fit the five Stones into a Stark-created gauntlet. Banner volunteers himself to wield the gauntlet, reasoning that he can withstand the radiation poisoning and the immense pain brought on by using the Stones. The snap of Banner's fingers is successful, all those disintegrated are resurrected, and one of the two of the group reunite with loved ones. However, past Nebula uses the time machine to transport past Thanos and his warship to the present, he attacks the Avengers compound. Nebula convinces past Gamora (Zoe Saldana) to turn against Thanos, and kills her past self, while Stark, Rogers and Thor battle Thanos. Doctor Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) arrives with other sorcerers, the Avengers: T'Challa aka Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman), Peter Parker aka Spider-Man (Tom Holland), Wanda Maximoff aka Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen) and Sam Wilson aka Falcon (Anthony Mackie), the Guardians of the Galaxy: Drax (Dave Bautista) and Groot (Vin Diesel), and the armies of Wakanda, Asgard, and the Ravagers. The fight between good and evil begins, Danvers arrives and destroys Thanos' warship, and Thanos seizes the gauntlet, but Stark maneuvers the Infinity Stones from his hand to his own, clicks his fingers, turning Thanos and his entire army into dust. Parker and Potts console Stark as he dies from radioactive overexposure to the Stones. A funeral is held for Stark, with all the Avengers, including leader Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), the Guardians of the Galaxy, Wakandans, Asgardians, and all other associated characters, attending. Barton and Wanda take solace in the fact that Romanoff and Vision did not return in the snap. Thor makes Valkyrie the Queen of Asgard, he joins the Guardians of the Galaxy to find his true purpose, free of the burden of royalty and leadership. Barton returns home to his family and Parker returns to school, where he is reunited with his best friend Ned (Jacob Batalon). Meanwhile, Rogers is tasked to go into the past to return the Infinity Stones and Thor's hammer to their original time lines, but after doing so, he chose to remain in the past to live a full life. Rogers appears before Wilson and his friend Bucky Barnes aka Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan) as an old man, he passes his shield and the mantle of Captain America on to Wilson, and a flashback reveals that he finally found happiness with Peggy Carter. By the way, there is no post-credits sequence, only some sound effects. Also starring Benedict Wong as Wong, Pom Klementieff as Mantis, Letitia Wright as Shuri, Jon Favreau as Happy Hogan, Marisa Tomei as Aunt May, Angela Bassett as Ramonda, Michelle Pfeiffer as Janet Van Dyne, William Hurt as Secretary of State Thaddeus Ross, Cobie Smulders as Maria Hill, Winston Duke as M'Baku, Linda Cardellini as Laura Barton, Maximiliano Hernández as Agent Sitwell, Frank Grillo as Brock Rumlow, Ring's Hiroyuki Sanada as Akihiko, Tom Vaughan-Lawlor as Ebony Maw, James D'Arcy as Jarvis, Robert Redford as Alexander Pierce, Ross Marquand as Red Skull (Stonekeeper) and a posthumous cameo by Stan Lee as a 1970s Driver. You will almost not notice or care about the three hour running time, it is a story in three acts: the devastation of the world, time travelling to reverse it all, and the battle to save the world, the cast playing the superheroes and the villains are all great, it is the characters that really add to it all, it has good humour, it has amazing special effects, fight sequences and spectacle, and it gets you emotionally as well, a fantastic and fitting conclusion to the saga, a brilliant fantasy action adventure. It was nominated the Oscar for Best Visual Effects, and it was nominated the BAFTA for Best Special Visual Effects. Very good!