Don Cheadle, Bradley Cooper, Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, Brie Larson, and Chris Hemsworth in Avengers: Endgame (2019) (IMDB)

By Ryan Simmons

10 YEARS IN THE MAKING

Review: Avengers Endgame something to behold

Apr 29, 2019 | 9:48 AM

Avengers: Endgame is just three hours of pure, unadulterated fan service for everyone who spent the last ten years invested in the characters of the Marvel Comics Universe (MCU). This might not make for a very engaging movie if you haven’t seen past Marvel movies, but if you try to jump into the series in the final act, I feel like that’s on you.

That’s really what the MCU has done different than any other movie series to date; they have carved out a giant audience who hangs on every little thing they put out. This has meant, since at least the first Avengers, that they don’t have to worry about making movies anyone can watch. They can make movies just for fans, and Endgame is the purest example of that to date.

The plot is a bit… leaky, we’ll say. Honestly it has some pretty big holes and inconsistencies that will, I’m sure, keep fans on YouTube and message boards busy for years. These come very far from ruining the movie, though, which manages to put together one of the most satisfying finales I’ve ever seen on film or TV.

The movie is so full of fun callbacks, inside jokes and all-out cool fan moments that had my entire theatre full of people laughing, crying and cheering in unison both times I watched. There are a few moments in this movie where, if you don’t cheer out loud, you may actually be dead inside.

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Big characters say goodbye, the stakes couldn’t be higher, and the emotional notes all hit with the deftness of any other Disney movie you grew up with, They know how to pull on heart strings and they do it unapologetically for pretty much the entire last half hour of the movie. It’s the end of an era and it certainly feels like it.

Marvel has done the incredible; they’ve made a 22^nd entry in a movie series that not only doesn’t feel like a blatant, empty cash grab, it actually feels like the grandest plan in the history of movies coming to fruition. They have finally and completely pulled it off with Avengers: Endgame and it is definitely something for fans to behold.

It’ll be interesting to see if the MCU can recover after this an build the hype back up to these levels. But for now the MCU and its fans can just bask in the glory of ten years of comic book greatness culminating on screen.