A perfect ending to the most ambitious film saga ever created

Rating: 8/10 (30 April 2019)

This film's name itself gives a glimpse at the enormous weight this film carries on its shoulders. After ten years of Marvel, this film had to top it all. It had to be the best it possibly could be, and the results speak for themselves.
Most of this film's perceived greatness is derived from the hype behind it. Its much beloved twenty-one feature-length predecessors provide this movie with a huge fan base and their equivalently massive expectations. Those devoted fans were very obviously served very well. In the theater, there were cheers every time Captain America used Mjolnir and every time a new hero was brought back from the dead. However, this fan service deterred heavily from the movie. It broke the flow of the story and the action. It took the classic Marvel third act fight scene trope a little too far, to the point where it was just cliché. There was no reason to have all of the Avengers in the last scene other than fan service. The scene would have been much better if only Cap, Tony, and Thor fought Thanos. The Russos attempted to recreate a Lord of the Rings style final battle and only half succeeded. It was less fighting and more posing.
The hype was also a major detractor from the film. There were honestly no real "spoilers" to be spilled. Aside from Black Widow's death and the temporary ownership of Mjolnir by Cap, nothing was really surprising. This film was expected to end the story started by the first Iron Man and Captain America films, and that's exactly what it did. There is nobody that didn't see Tony's death and Cap's retirement coming (the latter was unexpected for sure, but we knew that Cap would be leaving one way or another). While the hype created an expectation of a completely unexpected ending, the film did not deliver.
Aside from those complaints, the film was very well made. It was incredibly structured, with each act clearly defined, even more so than other Marvel movies. The action was mostly well-done, with the crowning jewel of Hawkeye's fight with the Japanese gangsters. The shot of Captain America standing down Thanos's entire garrison was absolutely glorious, a perfect representation of the battle between good and evil. However, the best part of the movie was all the other movies. It was a perfect capstone to the most extravagant, complex storytelling venture ever taken.