Grand though Not Without Problems

Rating: 8/10 (27 April 2019)

Just saw the movie, so I thought I'd review it while it is still fresh in my mind. If you don't want to hear my whole review, I'll just give my overall non-spoiler thoughts here. Watch it. Try not to think about it too much like I did. Appreciate the epic scale of Endgame, because boy it was epic. But don't think about the plot too much, because you could ruin the movie for yourself. Anyway, now onto my review, from start to the end.
So, the film begins dark. Just as infinity war ended. We see Hawkeye's family dust away, as everyone predicted. This is a great opening to the film actually and really brings the darkness of the snapping straight back into the film. So the plot moves very quickly from here, and Iron Man is rescued by surprise surprise Captain Marvel who happens to find him in space by luck/convinience. I have literally no investment in Captain Marvel, so this bugged me a little, but whatever. He arrives back, and it's difficult to watch him finally lose all hope as he doesn't even care about going back to stop Thanos anymore. Robert Downey Jr's performance here is great, and he ends up being the film's best performance. Keep in mind that this is pretty much only 15-20 minutes into the film, and they rest of the gang are already off to stop Thanos. They arrive quickly and learn that Thanos destroyed all the stones- because he's not an idiot. Then he is brutally beheaded by Thor, and the first act ends. I actually really like this first act. It's really good and doesn't have any glaring issues or problems except Iron Man's return to space. It's dark and depressing just like Infinity War. Then we move onto a very long and tedious second act.
So 5 years after the snap everyone is still pretty depressed but they have all moved on. Iron Man now has a family and doesn't want to sacrifice that to save the universe again, which he will inevitably end up doing. Thor is kind of a joke character now, though with some pretty dark undertones. He gets fat and drinks beer all the time because the guilt that he couldn't kill Thanos before the snap has consumed him. Hawkeye is on a killing rampage and there is a really epic scene with him set in Japan, where the directing had some interesting style to it which is something that many MCU films don't have. Hulk is now one. He is both Banner and Hulk. I kind of like this, as it ends the whole Banner vs Hulk arc but it's sad we never get to see an actual Hulk smash so the pay off with his character is less satisfying. Ant-Man then returns through sheer luck- a rat saves him by luckily activating the quantum thingy. This bugged me, but again if you don't think too hard it shouldn't bother you- but still it's far fetched. Anyway here comes the time travel. All the people decide to group up again because reasons (not good ones) and then they time travel each splitting up to the past. So time travel is a difficult concept to put in a film, and unfortunately End Game executes it quite poorly. The fan service is great but the avengers change the past quite significantly and this has no effect whatsoever on the future. They all retrieve the infinity stones, yet when they return to the future everyone is still dead....what? If they stole the infinity stones, even just one of them, Thanos couldn't have snapped and therefore when they got back everyone would be fine....NOPE. Everyone is still dead and everything is the same. So anyway they resnap and everyone comes back yaaaaaaay. However they are quickly interrupted by another plot hole, Thanos. Onto the third act.
The third act is epic. But Thanos returning makes no sense. So the Thanos from the past discovers the plan the avengers from the future are having, and goes forward in time. There's a lot of plot holes with this, but I'll only talk about the obvious one. How did he do this? He doesn't have anything on his ship to go forward in time and all Nebula does is use the machine and he appears with his entire army out of it. Oh well. This is saved by the rest of this act. Which is very exciting and epic. It's a massive fight scene, and the scene when all the snapped people return is absolutely phenomenal. The only thing that really bothers me is Captain Marvel. They win and ironically Thanos is turned to dust by iron man. Then Iron Man dies, and that's the end of the third act.
The rest of the movie is essentially the pay off, and details where everyone goes and reuniting with each of their respective families and friends. Then we also learn about Captain America's ending, which is actually perfect when you don't think about it, but when you do more time travel nonsense messes with my head.
As a whole, the plot hole that is the second act is saved by the first, third and epilogue. If I wasn't a fan of this universe I probably would have disliked this film, but really if you have no investment in this universe- don't watch this, because you will hate it. The finality of this movie is what makes me like it, and even with all it's issues, it's epic, grand, and a heart-warning ending.