An Emotionally Satisfying Conclusion And New Beginning

Rating: 8/10 (4 May 2019)

Avengers Endgame is simultaneously the final chapter and a new beginning for the MCU. It brings to a close many of the stories and character arcs that have been built-up since the beginning with Iron Man. As a grand ending, is the film worthy? Yes it is. It's a great closing chapter as well as the start of something new. As a whole the film is good, though not without problems. I think this film is inferior to Infinity War, as well as the other MCU films the Russo Brothers have directed.
I thought the first forty minutes and the last hour of the film were fantastic. The acting is superb from everyone. The action scenes are great. The final fight of the film is the most phenomenal and rewarding action scene of the MCU or any superhero film. There's one scene involving Captain America that truly made me smile. With Cap being my favorite MCU character, this was my favorite scene of the film. The music is good. The effects are gorgeous. The epilogue is great. I loved what this film did for both Iron Man and Captain America. This was their film above all, and I was ultimately satisfied where their characters ended up at the end.
However, the middle portion of the film is definitely the weakest link of the movie in my opinion. The film is long; the longest comic book movie ever maybe. The first and third acts felt very fast, but in the middle portion I started to feel the length. It does get a bit boring. That's not to say the second act doesn't have any exciting or touching moments. It does, but it fails to live up to the first and third acts.
That's mostly due to my expectations and personal preferences. The film does go in a direction you would not have expected from the trailers in the second act. Honestly, this was the last place I would've wanted the movie to go. Not that the film does it badly, but this is a plot point that's been done so much to death in fiction, from movies, TV shows, cartoons, anime, manga, and especially comics. Most of the time it's used as crutch for writers to get themselves out of a corner they put themselves in, and I'm just sick of it. It's also something that's so easy to screw-up and makes your entire story convoluted. In this film they try so hard to make everything make sense, and it mostly does, but there are still a couple things that you call into question.
I honestly think it would have been better if they just adapted the original Infinity Gauntlet comic more faithfully. They should've introduced Adam Warlock and the universal concepts. That would've been insane. They even teased Adam Warlock in one of the past MCU films. I guess they're saving them for future movies.
There are also a few blatant logical issues. Infinity War had this too, mainly revolving around Thor, but this film even more so. One plot point near the end completely negates the importance of the Infinity Gauntlet itself from Infinity War. It does lead to arguably one of the best moments of the movie, but it's still a pretty big leap in logic.
The last major issue I have is what the film does with two major characters; Thor and Hulk. These two characters go through dramatic changes in this film. Now, these changes do make sense from a story sense. It wouldn't bother me as much if they did more in the film. Thor doesn't do that much until the third act, which is disappointing given how awesome he was in Ragnarok and Infinity War. Hulk doesn't contribute anything fight wise, which is even more of a disappointment. Hulk was barely in Infinity War, so I was expecting a big comeback in this, but that's not what happened.
Overall, Endgame is a good film, and a good ending/beginning chapter of the MCU as a whole. It's not my favorite MCU movie, or even in my top 5. It's definitely the weakest of the Russo Marvel films. The film is a bit long, and I would've gone a different direction with it. There's some questionable logic in the film, and I'm not a huge fan of where they took Thor and Hulk's characters. However, despite all that, I was mostly satisfied by the end. If you're a big fan of Cap and Iron Man like I am (especially Cap) their resolutions are emotionally satisfying. I almost don't want to see anymore MCU films after this because this wrapped everything up pretty well. Everything from the first Iron Man to now has felt like a giant continuous story arc, and now it has finally come to a close. It's the end of an era for sure.