Composite Score: 87.06

Starring: Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Hemsworth, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner, Don Cheadle, Paul Rudd, Bradley Cooper, Benedict Cumberbatch, Chadwick Boseman, Brie Larson, Tom Holland, Karen Gillan, Zoe Saldana, Tessa Thompson, Rene Russo, John Slattery, and Tilda Swinton

Directors: Anthony Russo and Joe Russo

Writers: Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely

Genres: Action, Adventure, Drama, Sci-Fi, Superhero

MPAA Rating: PG-13 for sequences of sci-fi violence and action, and some language

Box Office: $2.80 billion worldwide

My take on Watching This Film:

                Avengers: Endgame is the culmination of the MCU’s Infinity Saga and the immediate sequel to 2018’s Avengers: Infinity War. It wraps up the story of the Infinity Stones and Thanos, while providing some semblance of endings for the original group of Avengers from Joss Whedon’s 2012 film. It stars basically everyone who had been in a Marvel film up to that point in some capacity or another, focusing on the group of survivors left after Thanos’s victory in Infinity War – Iron Man (Robert Downey, Jr.), Captain America (Chris Evans), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner), War Machine (Don Cheadle), Ant-Man (Paul Rudd), Rocket Racoon (Bradley Cooper), Nebula (Karen Gillan), and Captain Marvel (Brie Larson) – as they try to move on from and/or undo Thanos’s erasure of half the life in the universe. For a while, the film was the highest grossing film of all time before Disney’s re-release of the original Avatar ahead of The Way of Water when James Cameron’s film reclaimed that top spot once again. The film received an Oscar nomination for Best Visual effects and currently sits at 77th on IMDB’s list of 250 top-rated films on the website.

                Endgame is perhaps the cinematic event of all time, putting an endcap on ten years and twenty-one films in a way that is both epic and entertaining. If you missed seeing this film in theaters, I am terribly sorry because the crowd-engagement was some of the highest that I’ve ever experienced for a theatrical film on its original run. You can take issue with the film’s reliance on a big CGI fight sequence to fill the film’s climax, and you can argue that the films that have come in the MCU since haven’t been able to escape the shadow of Endgame, to their detriment, but I won’t let you try to argue that this is a bad film or even “not cinema”. While there are plenty of arguments one way or another on the subject of superhero or “popcorn” films as cinema, Endgame is a film whose theatrical experience, execution of scope, and pure ambition allows it to transcend its genre. While it does require a bit of homework to fully appreciate all that it’s accomplishing, watching the film as a standalone superhero epic is quite possible, and the internal stories of Iron Man, Captain America, and Thor, in particular, receive enough satisfying attention to please those looking for the story at the heart of this epic spectacle. Iron Man/Tony Stark is a man who has lost intensely and now has to wrestle with the choices ahead of him whether to choose the good of the world or his own personal life in acts of self-sacrifice. Captain America/Steve Rogers is a man whose life left him behind when he became frozen in time, and he now seeks to make sure that others get to live the full life that he missed out on, but is it possible for him to perhaps find that life for himself again? Thor is the now humbled braggart, reeling from his defeat, who has allowed loss to completely sideline him and must now decide to get himself back into the game for the good of his friends and the universe, despite no guarantee of any new victories. Obviously, those stories are continuations of the stories and themes from those characters’ previous films, but each of them gets played out in a clear arc in Endgame on its own as well. The film’s finale brings it all together along with the plethora of other characters and moments to create this epic sequence of heroes versus villains, with the fate of the universe in the balance, and it’s fantastic – both the fight between Thanos and the aforementioned big three and the battle where we get to see a bit of every character doing what they do best.

                Is Endgame a perfect film or even the best comic book movie ever? No, it has issues in its logic, some cheesy moments of fan service, and imperfect technical work, but Avengers: Endgame remains one of the most ambitious and well-executed cinematic event films ever that still tells a satisfying story while giving us entertaining action and character moments, earning the film a place alongside the greats. It’s currently available to stream on Disney+ if you’d like to check it out.