Fitting end of an era.

Rating: 9/10 (3 May 2019)

It has been 11 years since the debut of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The surprise hit and excellent movie, Iron Man, paved way for one of if not the best movie franchises ever conceived. It has been a total of 21 films (some better than others but all consistently good) with many great characters, plot twists and turns. Now, to see it finally come to an end with Avengers Endgame was exciting.
Avengers Endgame is directed by the now famous Russo Brothers. This duo were the ones responsible for the brilliant Captain America The Winter Soldier and Civil War as well the previous Avengers movie, Infinite War. They have done a great job with each movie and have done an incredible job of bringing and end to the MCU as we know it with Endgame.
Endgame first takes place in the near future with the Avengers all demoralised after their brutal loss to Thanos. Their loss results in not just the loss of 50% of the civilised universe, but every animal that lives in it. The result is an empty self destructive Earth full of people struggling to deal with the immense loss that each and every person has suffered. Because of this pain, the Avengers decide to take the fight to Thanos and the result amounts to nothing, just more loss. After an extended period of time, we see that each hero has been struggling to deal with the loss in their own way, they come together to follow through a plan to undo what has happened. The result is an interesting ambitious story, one that I will not spoil here.
I will say that the plan the Avengers sets in motion is quite different for the MCU and was very ambitious for a film of this magnitude. It handles the subject very differently from others out there and can be a bit hard to follow for some. Either way, it leads to a lot of great action set pieces and many call backs to previous films. We see a lot of great characters return, it should make fans of the MCU very happy.
In terms of acting, this is about as good as it can be. Chris Hemsworth's Thor is still emotionally destroyed after the events of Ragnarok and he does a great job of portraying it. Chris Evans is great as the always plucky Captain America and Robert Downey Jr. without a doubt sets the bar incredibly high. He has moments in this film which I would consider his best work, period. No questions asked. He delivers like no other in Endgame and his acting will no doubt pluck at those heart strings. The biggest surprise of the lot is Jeremy Brenner as Clint (Hawkeye). Not only does he go from supporting character up to a heavy lead role, he absolutely delivers. His story arc is one of the more entertaining and darkest. He's a great actor with a great character, one that deserved to shine so bright after all these years.
There's a lot of humour in the film. Those that liked the humour in Thor Ragnarok will be very happy here. It helps keep the tone of the film from being too bleak and depressing. There are moments in the film which are just laugh out loud funny. There are others which are quite subtle, like the infamous "Deep Fried Kebab" sign in Infinite War, which was good fun. Be prepared for a lot of swear words, if that is something you don't like or don't want your kids hearing. Obviously with the frustrations of the hero's, they bark out some naughty words as most adults do. It's otherwise fairly suitable for kids and certainly a film that would have blown my mind as a little one.
For such a brilliant film its not quite a 10/10 film. I didn't like the way Captain Marvel was used in the film. She just appears in the movie without an introduction or explanation. She literally just turns up looking smug and it amounts to very little. She's there ten minutes tops at the start and then doesn't show up until the end. It takes a little focus off of the original team, who this movie should be and is
Overall, I do think this is better than Avengers Infinite War and is definitely a good two part movie, it's definitely one of the greatest superhero movies ever made. I loved every so much of it and it really didn't feel like 3 hours. The movie had its deep emotional moments, it had its laugh out funny moments and had so many great action scenes. This is a superb film. Both directors deserve a lot of credit for pulling off a project of this magnitude with such success and is mightly impressive. If you've enjoyable any of the previous MCU films, you'll likely enjoy this.