Fan Service: The Movie

Rating: 8/10 (28 April 2019)

It sounds like a cliche, but the hype for Avengers Endgame was unprecedented. After 22 movies, a cliffhanger which saw half the universe destroyed and one of the best marketing campaigns of all time, which told us nothing about what to expect from the film (which made it impossible to write a review without spoilers), this really was a cinematic event.
Picking up from the apocalyptic finale of Infinity War, it begins with the remaining Avengers still reeling from the loss of half their friends. Some like Natasha and Steve try are doing all they can to keep things afloat and maintain order in a world in disarray following the snap. Others like Stark try to build a new life from the ashes. But they are unable to escape their own feelings of failure and the film does not avoid showing how much their loss has weighed upon each of them. Especially in early scenes where we see Stark have a complete psychotic breakdown in some of the franchises most powerful scenes. Thus when Scott Lang returns with a plan to go back in time to bring everyone back, they are all willing to do whatever it takes to undo the snap.
Whilst Infinity War was Thanos' movie, he doesn't get as much prominence this time around only appearing briefly in the first 20 minutes of the film and not really re-entering the film until the climax. Instead this time our focus is almost entirely on the remaining Avengers and their attempts to bring the other half of humanity back from annihilation by travelling back in time to past movies to retrieve the infinity stones and undo the snap.
We get some truly satisfying conclusions to the stories of some of Marvel's biggest characters. Stark finally concludes his journey from being a genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist to being the one to make the sacrifice play to protect those he cares about. Plus we finally get to see Rogers learn to live for himself in a bittersweet ending that sees him finally grow old with his true love. It's strange to see two of the most beloved heroes leaving the series, but at the same time with the massive roster of heroes this series has built there will be a lot of great potential in future films to fill their shoes.
Although even with its three hour runtime, Endgame contains too many characters to do all of them justice. The main casualty of this being the Hulk. The previous films suggested that we would be seeing more of Banner's Jekyll and Hyde tale, but when we're reintroduced to him here, he's learned to come to terms with the Hulk whilst off-screen and now has the intellect of Banner whilst maintaining the power of the Hulk. Whilst the Banner/Hulk hybrid does have a lot of funny moments, its disappointing that we never see how Banner finally comes to terms with being the Hulk. Instead it seems like this iteration of the Hulk will never reach the full potential of the character.
But having a few characters being underutilised is almost a certainty in a film where the main cast includes 54 names. And the film is still able to have a lot of satisfying cameos from fan favourites like Korg to moments with genuine emotional resonance like Stark being able to see his father again and tell him about the granddaughter he could never meet. Even characters that I didn't think I cared about seeing again like the Ancient One end up getting some scene stealing moments.
With so many names in one film, we were all waiting in anticipation of the reveal following the second snap and the film did not disappoint. Just like that original shot in the battle of New York where we finally see the Avengers all together for the first time, the moment where all the Avengers assembled (we finally got the line!) to take down Thanos together is the kind of thing that will go down as one of those great cinematic moments. And it really shows just how far this cinematic universe has gone that something as ridiculous as an army of wizards, Asgardians, space bandits and tribal warriors wielding spears, can all arrive to battle a purple alien hell bent on destroying the universe somehow makes perfect sense.
Though the actual climax itself felt somewhat mixed overall. There are some great moments like Captain America finally wielding Mljonir and Thanos completely wrecking every member of the Avengers he comes across. But a lot of the confrontations with Thanos' army are fairly underwhelming and there's nothing that lives up to the battle against Thanos on Titan. Plus there is one moment where the film seems to stop to have all its female heroes in one shot. This felt like an attempt to hit back criticisms of their lack of female heroes, when in reality it only highlights that the problem by reminding us of how only one of these characters got their own film. It's not as great as the seeing the time heists that came before it, but this final battle still provides satisfying conclusion.
This is definitely a film that is truly made for the fans who have been following this universe grow over the past decade filled with call backs to some of the franchises best moments. At times Avengers Endgame feels like the entire MCU is doing it's own victory lap and after 22 films it's well earned. Now the only lingering question is what's next? Following Disney's acquisition of Fox perhaps we should expect the X-Men and the Fantastic Four joining the MCU in the near future. But whatever they do, it seems unlikely that Marvels dominance is going to come to an end anytime soon.