The undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveller returns.

Rating: 7/10 (12 May 2019)

Avengers: Endgame could accurately be described as a sort of tragedy: a depiction of an action (or a sum of actions) of noble character. The story revolves around men and women that are (super)heroes - individuals who are above the common thought, life and character (ethos) of most people. When we look at them, what we get to see is a group of characters willing to sacrifice everything to win the battle between "the epic forces of darkness and light" (Iron Man in his posthumous message) - everything except the good itself ("we don't bargain for lives"). Thus, it is a representation of two extreme possibilities of human existence: good and evil. Also, it is the affirmation of life's power over death. After all, Thanos (derived from "Thanatos", the greek god, brother to Hypnos, sleep) is in someway the personification of death itself, instead of being in love with Death (as portrayed in the Marvel comics). Wanting to balance the cosmic scale (a very interesting symbol), he wipes out half of life, so it won't go "unchecked"; not in a discriminate way, but randomly - in a "fair" way, as he put it, precisely like death, because death reaches everyone, rich and poor, young and old, just and unjust. The heroes, on the other side, are on the side of life, life that wants to thrive and not be engulfed by death. And on the side of good, because as an individual Thanos is a cosmic murderer: it was his particular action that erased half of the population in the universe.
The movie goes straight to the point. It starts with a shakespearian monologue by Tony Stark, recording a message while facing his own "iron skull" (a preview of the one final scenario). That message underlines the existential dread of being adrift in space, facing the emptiness of a half dead universe. Past that point, Captain Marvel appears as a light of hope, of turning things around.
That hope quickly fades away when the heroes find out that Thanos destroyed the infinity stones and they plunge in despair. Five years pass and the world is a melancholic, half empty and half full, despairing over the memories of the ones who were erased. Memory, after all, retains the past: the living could not thrive collectively after such a traumatic experience took place. The movie doesn't get into much detail, but we can imagine the horrific consequences of the collective perception that a terrible cosmic force exists and that it erased half of the population.
The heroes themselves are broken at this point. They do what they can to help others and themselves. Until an unsuspecting hero comes along (not the rat, which is just chance, not deliberate action) and offers the possibility of a "time heist".
The time heist is a very interesting idea. Not just because it is based on memory (the past, with all its possibilities, which is curious because usually the future is the one filled with possibility) and it's fun to see what happens with the interactions, but because it plays with the idea of the quantum realm. We saw how extraordinary the power of time is in "Doctor Strange", and how dangerous it is. Here, we also see how powerful and dangerous it is, but with a new set of rules. The past becomes the future, the future isn't in any way changed by the past, new alternate realities are created, etc., etc. I am not sure this is cheating or not, because it is based on imagination, but I would like to stress one particular point.
During the time heist, the Ancient One explains to Professor Hulk how what people perceive as the flow of time is created by the infinity stones, and how the removal of one stone would leave the world open to dark and terrible forces. It makes sense, specially considering the power of the time stone. Now, what are the true consequences - or what should've been the true consequences - of Thanos using the stones to destroy the stones? It shouldn't even be possible to do that, because the universe should have been destroyed. And once it wasn't destroyed, and that Doctor Strange now has no time stone to protect reality, does that mean the universe is now open to dark and terrible forces? Plot hole?
Either way, there's one great moment in the narrative during the time heist: Black Widow's sacrifice. Despite being one the weakest avengers, along with Hawkeye, at least physically, she proved herself and her determination when she sacrificed herself to get the soul stone. In a way, she sacrificed that which she loved (her friend and his family, or the possibility of being with them) to get it. And this connection was set up during Avengers: Age of Ultron. Black Widow, like Iron Man, is willing to pay the ultimate price for the restoration of the universe.
After the time heist, I would say there are two other pivotal moments. One is the acknowledgement of Captain America's worthiness to wield Mjolnir. In Avengers: Age of Ultron he was already worthy enough to make it move an inch. Now, he is worthy to have Thor's powers. His solo battle with Thanos (again, very symbolic) is amazing, simultaneously using the hammer and the shield.
The other pivotal moment, of course, is Iron Man's sacrifice. To begin with, and as a friend told me, sometimes it is definitely worth it to have great actors in a movie, because Benedict Cumberbatch is amazing in those ten seconds when he indicates that there is only one winning scenario and that that is it. And Robert Downey Jr. perfectly conveys understanding with the look in his eyes. Connecting this to the funeral scene, his sacrifice is indeed proof that Tony Stark has a heart, and that he is indeed Iron Man. Not because he has a suit, not because he's a genius, but because ultimately he is the suit of armor he wanted to build to the world. I think that is the most incredible conclusion he comes to when he is ready to face his death: because Thanos was the endgame, Tony had worked to build a suit of armor for the world (an Iron World, as it were), not realizing that he himself was that suit of armor. The world already had a suit of armor - and it worked. He wiped Thanos out of existence.
Finally, I have to say why I rate this movie with a seven. I was indecisive whether I should give it an eight or a seven, but after seeing it for the second time, I think a seven is adequate. There are three major flaws in the movie for me, not to mention other smaller ones. One is Thor. It is unforgivable that Thor was turned into the role of a buffoon (an even greater one than the one in Thor: Ragnarok), a fat and broken clown. His character was driven to its full potential in Infinity War, but now it was driven to its least potential. I understand that he was broken, but becoming a fat idiot during just five years (considering he was 1500 years old) incapable of going back into shape is just disappointing. It is hard to find the appropriate words to describe how sad it is that this decisive movie ends with him like this.
The second flaw is Hulk. Once again, I understand the whole going back to unity and finding peace idea for Banner, but it's just too much. Again, not having the Hulk during Infinity War (except for those two minutes) and not having him in Endgame is just absurd. He doesn't have one decent fight sequence. The point isn't the fight itself, as if all that mattered was raw action. The point is that despite his own sacrifice when using the stones he didn't have a pivotal role to play.
Finally, and despite being a good movie, I believe the pace should have been different and that the final battle should have been more critical than it was. It deserved something more in the line of Infinity War.
One last observation. I think it was very clever the way in which the writers and the directors of this movie didn't make it about Captain Marvel. It would have been terribly inconsistent to make her the big hero of the movie, considering she just showed up and there's no real connection to what has been going on for the last ten years. It was more than fitting that the big responsibility lied on the original six avenger's shoulders and, particularly, on Iron Man's. They balanced her presence, which was good, and we even got to see that her power is kind of inferior to that of Thanos wielding the power stone.
A moving end to these last ten years.