#48 Avengers: Endgame

In Summary

If Avengers: Infinity War, is the Marvel Cinematic Universe at its worst, Avengers: Endgame is it at its best.

The final chapter of a sprawling 22-film saga, Avengers: Endgame is the send-off that one of the most ambitious ideas in film history deserves. There is all of the blaring CGI action of Avengers: Infinity War, but with greater humour, pacing and focus on character. This is a film that makes you care about its resolution.

Avengers: Endgame puts to bed the notion that these superhero superteam films inevitably have to be a chaotic, incoherent, jumble of competing characters. Right from the start, the film lays out its storytelling intentions, focusing on the impact of Thanos' 'snap' from the previous film on the family of the least remarkable Avenger, Hawkeye (who is just a guy who can shoot arrows well).

The film then contradicts the audience's expectations of a build-up to a grand final battle with Thanos, by the Avengers instantly tracking down their nemesis, only to find he has retired and destroyed the Infinity Stones. The Avengers' path to victory has seemingly been blocked.

Avengers: Endgame then leaps forward in time five years, revealing that they are no closer to restoring the universe to its 'pre-snap' status. This adds to the sense of loss from the opening scene of the film, raising the stakes for when our heroes eventually find a way out of this unwinnable situation.

While this leads to a fairly unoriginal time travel plot that allows the filmmakers to back out of that bold decision of handing Thanos an apparent victory at the start of the film, this is the section of the film that provides the most fun. It allows the filmmakers to explore the history of the Avengers saga, taking opportunities to both celebrate and poke fun at it.

That narrative device feels like the Marvel Cinematic Universe taking a victory lap ahead of its grand finale.

By grounding the film early on with that heavy sense of loss, then exploring the series own nostalgia, Avengers: Endgame earns the right to its inevitable smashy, bashy, crashy, CGI spectacle at the end as part of an almighty redemption arc for The Avengers. There was only really one way a film like this was going to end.

A Memorable Quote

 Everybody wants a happy ending. Right? But it doesn't always roll that way. Maybe this time. I'm hoping if you play this back, it's in celebration. I hope families are reunited, I hope we get it back and something like a normal version of the planet has been restored, if there ever was such a thing.

Things You May Not Know

• Robert Downey Jr (Iron Man) was the only cast member to be shown the entire script. Others were given shorter versions in order to avoid the leaking of spoilers.
• This is the highest-grossing film at the box office of all time, surpassing Titanic, with a total of $2.8 billion.
• This is the first film where Robert Redford played the same character a second time.

One of the Greatest of All Time?
If there can be only film to preserve the extraordinary achievement of the Marvel Cinematic Universe for future generations, it should be Avengers: Endgame. This is a film that rewards its viewers for having watched the 21 films that preceded it.

Watching this film at the cinema when it came out provided me with a greater impression of the impact of these films on the generation slightly younger than me. There were - slightly bewilderingly to me - cheers and cries in disbelief during certain moments of this film. Avengers: Endgame is a film that wraps up and defines an era for cinemagoers born around and after the year 2000.