Almost Perfect Capper for the MCU to This Point

Rating: 9/10 (28 April 2019)

If you saw Infinity War, I think you knew where the overall arc of this would go. I went into Endgame a little arrogant, thinking I knew the whole plot. But one of the big surprises that this movie drops is that it constantly subverts expectations. If you've managed to avoid spoilers, I think you'll be pleasantly surprised with where Endgame goes. What I thought would take the whole movie is done and fully explored in the first 15 minutes. This is absolutely a good thing, superhero movies are always at their best when they're experimental and unafraid of abandoning the formula. While I can't say it completely split off from what was expected, I was excited with every turn or twist in the narrative and I have to applaud the creative team for not just retreading the formula and delivering something off-kilter, at least for the MCU.
Unless you aren't familiar with the marketing, Endgame largely centres around time travel and I was also impressed that they balanced this concept while running through the emotional gauntlet. Most time travel stories come in 2 varieties, the goofy comedies (I would put the Back to the Future franchise, Happy Death Day, Hot Tub Time Machine etc.) or in the completely serious (11/22/63, the Butterfly Effect, The Time Machine). Endgame puts a spin on it where the stakes are very real but you get the classic humour from the best MCU entries. Its a fine line to walk but Endgame does it as an art form, the movie is both very funny and at other points heartbreaking. Its harder to accomplish than you think (even in a normal movie as opposed to this gigantic franchise picture) but they got it done. They also handled the time travel aspect well, some movies fall all over themselves trying to explain how time travel could exist but this was a situation where other than some technobabble, they add a few lines as a catch all and then they move on. Maybe that won't be good enough for some but I just accepted it and kept going.
With so many movies and so many characters to include, doing them all justice and giving everyone ample screen time would have been impossible. But another highlight of Endgame was that they gave all the original players (Ironman, Captain America, Thor, Black Widow, Hawkeye) a side story or mini-arc that was both respectful and added to their respective stories. Its amazing that I can say that just thinking about it now and I tip my hat to them again. I did see this with a group of diehard MCU friends and one of them was upset with how Thor was presented in this move, so it may not be flawless for the whole contingent of fans. But I didn't hear many false notes played and every bit flowed together well. I was also pleasantly surprised that Nebula (played by the wonderful Karen Gillian) got a satisfying amount of screen time that payed off well, it mirrored Gamora's (Zoe Saldana) subplot in Infinity War. The only one who I was disappointed in was our villain Thanos (Josh Brolin) who was a much more interesting character in Infinity War. You could relate to his thought process and identify with him, I feel like the support he got threw Disney off and they made him more of a sadistic jerk in this one to get the desired reaction.
This movie and this franchise features the cream of the crop with the A-list of Hollywood actors and actresses. They all excel together and apart and there isn't a weak performance in the group. This shouldn't be news, with a cast of this calibre, there wasn't even a chance that there would be a weak spot. Some people get more to do than others (I doubt you're going to see this for Don Cheadle's inclusion but if you love War Machine for example, he's not a major player in the action) but everyone does top notch work and I expected nothing less.
There's so much good here that it feels weird to say anything negative. The only thing that really caught my attention is that after the first 15 minutes, the rest of the first hour drags compared to the rest of the movie. It's not uninteresting or boring but it feels like when you're cranking your engine to start your car, you're waiting on pins and needles for the movie to really hit its stride. It gets there and it does its job incredibly but you are waiting for it to fire up for a little while. The other note I would give is that with the inclusion of so many characters, some of the appearances are a little one note. Ant-Man is there to largely dump exposition and pump up Cap and Carol Danvers is in the movie way less than what you would expect (I was in the camp that enjoyed Captain Marvel, if you didn't, this may not be such a bad thing). But these are very minor issues in a movie that scores at least 9/10 things right.
Endgame will be so many different things to so many MCU fans, whether you see it as a kick @$$ blockbuster, the culmination of the MCU to this point, the final farewell to some of your favourite MCU originals or maybe the best action movie you'll see this year. I think it does about as good of a job as you can expect (if you're even a casual Marvel fan, you're going to dig this) with the pressure, the expectations and the weight of all the success the franchise has had dominating the box office for over a decade. There are points of the movie that are slow and not as interesting but when Endgame kicks into gear, it flies down the road. I still slightly prefer Infinity War but its a 1A) to 1B) comparison as opposed to one being a 10 and the other being a 7. Unless you're suffering from serious superhero fatigue (which I wouldn't blame you for) or just dead set against the MCU, you're going to really enjoy this movie. Endgame is a 9.5/10 that checks all the boxes and caps the MCU to this point in a fun, touching and above all exciting 3 hours at the theatre.