TL;DR – Now all together “Baaaaaaaar bar bar bup barrrrr, barr barrr, barrrrr bup bup barrr baaar bomp barrrrrrr, Baaaaaaaar bar bar bup barrrrr, barr barrr, ba dum, ba dum, ba dum, ba dum, Baaaaaaaar”

Score – 4.5 out of 5 Stars

Post-Credit Scene – There is a mid-credit sequence and a hint at the end

Review –

Wow and here we are. Honestly, when I sat down to watch Iron Man in cinemas all the way back in 2008 I don’t think I really comprehended just what it was that I was watching. I didn’t know it would spawn a 20+ movie franchise that would take us into the past, into the deep reaches of space, and create one of the biggest events in movie history. In many respects, it feels like this is my generation’s Star Wars moment, and I have not seen queues like this to go see a film in a long time. Well, today we take the plunge and see if they can work out one of the biggest cliff-hangers in movie history and can this be a film that gives closure to the films that came before it.

So to set the scene, at the end of Infinity War the one thing they were trying to stop happening actually happened, as Thanos (Josh Brolin) obtained all the infinity stones after ripping the mind stone out of Vision’s (Paul Bettany) head and snapped his fingers. All at once across the galaxy, 50% of everything turned to dust and we had that gut-wrenching moment as everything literally fell apart in people’s hands. Indeed Peter (Tom Holland) looking desperately at Tony (Robert Downey Jr) pleading that ‘I don’t want to go” is one of those moments that just stays with you and it stays with the cast. Because as we start everything is in a bad place. Tony is trapped with Nebula (Karen Gillan) on a ship running out of fuel, air, and food, and those Avengers that survived are counting the losses on Earth where no one has been left unaffected. However, one should never give up all hope, because you never know when deliverance will come from an unlikely place, and then hope is lost again. Now with today’s review, we will be doing something a little different. In this review, we will be looking at all of the film so there will be [SPOILERS] ahead. This is for people that have already seen the film and want to explore the ending of Endgame. If you have not seen the film and would like to see a no spoiler discussion Endgame you can go HERE. Also if you have already read the no spoiler review and want to skip to the discussion on the ending, it is the chapter starting with the big [SPOILER WARNING] below.         

Before we dive into the story and character aspects of the film, I want to first take a moment to talk about the production side of things. In this film, they have left nothing on the table when it comes to the lighting, production design, and effects. That opening scene as Tony is sitting in the ship waiting to die while bathed in a light blue light from the nearby stars was one of the most beautiful lighting techniques I have seen in quite a while. This extends throughout the entire film, with harsh contrasts at times, natural light in places, relentless oppression in other places. Every part of the film is well designed, even when they are using sets from the previous film, it has been amended to make it feel right in the new context.

When it comes to effects, look this is a film that took the combined work of Industrial Light & Magic, Weta Digital, DNEG, Framestore, Cinesite, Digital Domain, and more to get it on the screen, and it was worth it. There are the big set piece action moments where you see the effects in full relief but there are also little subtle moments that I don’t think a lot of people will notice, and that is visual effects at its best. Add to this is Alan Silvestri’s score that is also impeccable. However, one area that Marvel films have had issues with in the past is really having ownership of the musical themes and their use. We saw in the last film an attempt to correct that trend, and we see it even more here.  

When it comes to the acting and the characters, look you can tell that everyone is giving their all here, no one is phoning it in for a paycheck. You feel that commitment to every role, the highs and lows, the hope and failure, the pain of loss. You see this epically right at the start when you see the full effect of everyone’s loss. There are moments of emotion that hit you right in the heart and it brought more than a few tears to my eyes. There are also those moments where the film gets its banter on and you see just how delightful it can be. Everyone gets a moment to shine, and you understand the motivations of all the characters. You completely understand what drove Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) to be what he is. Why Cap (Chris Evans) is trying to help people adjust even though he is feeling the same pain. Also why Thor (Chris Hemsworth) closed himself off from the world.    

[SPOILER WARNING] From this point onwards we will be discussing things that are 100% spoilers, so if you don’t want to be spoiled, now is the time to click away or read our Spoiler Free review HERE. Also, this is the point that I want to remind people not to be dicks on the internet and post spoilers for people who have not seen the film yet without warning. And yes in the previous chapter I was talking about Thor, and yes it was disappointing, and yes also showing us that Korg (Taika Waititi) is alive makes it better but still not okay.

Time travel is always one of those dicey things you can add to your movie/tv show/etc. It is something that can allow you to tell a new story, twisting and changing what people already know, but then it can also lessen some of the impacts of your past films if there is a giant reset button just floating around. A good example of this is Star Trek Voyager that had to always reset back to normal at the end of the week, using several resets throughout the show and never quite getting out of being mediocre most of the time. At the end of Infinity War, there was this moment when I was brought right out of the horror of it all and that was when Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman) snapped away, from that point onwards I immediately knew they would walk back from the edge in the next film and that is what we got.

While it could have been an issue, I really liked what they did here with time travel, because it allowed them to look at the past, give us one last goodbye to some characters (including the first jump from the TV to the big screen in Jarvis (James D’Arcy)), and yes it was also a victory lap of sorts. There is that kind of nostalgia that happens when you go back to the past, a kind of nostalgia that can be exploited, like when you same take your stable of animated classics and do 3D versions of them. Indeed we get some of that here, as the team goes back into the past, conveniently right during some of the key moments of the franchise. However, while it might be manipulative, it is also effective, and you feel that moment just like you did when you first watched it in the cinemas and the musical score heralded its triumph.    

For me one of the highlights was getting to see little snippets of something familiar but that we didn’t get to see in the original film. Like the Ancient One (Tilda Swinton) fighting of Chitauri from the top of the New York Sanctum. Or seeing Cap use knowledge of the past to fool some people, and sneak in one of the most controversial lines from the recent comics. This also meant that even though the mission was not to affect the past, 100% they affected the past, and it will be interesting to see how that pans out in the future. However, for your films to have weight, death has to actually mean something, and not in the comic book let’s turn death into a character kind of way. So yes, they were going to bring people back, but for it to work there had to be a cost. Well, there is a cost, and even in this Full Spoiler review, I am not going to mention what that cost was, only that it broke my heart at times.

All of this led to the end of the film when after our time travel shenanigans it all falls apart and then gets better. The entire end sequence was created to give everyone their moment to shine, and yes they packed as many people in there as possible so that they could create as much merchandise as possible, but honestly, it worked. There were those ‘oh damn’ moments, including one that had the entire cinema I was in applauding spontaneously (if you have seen the film you know which one it is). There were moments which gave me chills, like when a group of characters came together to help Captain Marvel (Brie Larson) and I know that moment is going to mean a hell of a lot for a lot of people. Now, it probably was not difficult to see what would be the outcome of it all, but even then there were a number of surprises that I didn’t see coming. It also felt like an end of a 22 film arc, and that is such a difficult thing to pull off [END OF SPOILERS].      

In the end, do we recommend Avengers: Endgame? Yes, yes we do. Look, you have probably already pre-booked your tickets so I don’t think you need my recommendation. However, for what it is worth, there were moments that made me laugh, moments that made me cry, moments that made me cheer with the rest of the audience, and moments that made me go ‘oh no’. Well if you have a movie that can do all that, then you have a great film on your hands.

By Brian MacNamara: You can follow Brian on Twitter Here, when he’s not chatting about Movies and TV, he’ll be talking about International Relations, or the Solar System.

Have you watched Avengers: Endgame?, let us know what you thought in the comments below, feel free to share this review on any of the social medias and you can follow us Here. Check out all our past reviews and articles Here, and have a happy day. 


Credits – All images were created by the cast, crew, and production companies of Avengers: Endgame
Directed by – Anthony Russo & Joe Russo
Screenplay by – Christopher Markus & Stephen McFeely
Based on – The Avengers by Stan Lee & Jack Kirby
Music by – Alan Silvestri
Cinematography by – Trent Opaloch
Edited by – Jeffrey Ford & Matthew Schmidt
Production/Distribution Companies – Marvel Studios & Walt Disney Motion Pictures
Starring –
From Iron Man: Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, Jon Favreau, Ty Simpkins, John Slattery & Don Cheadle
From Hulk: Mark Ruffalo & William Hurt
From Thor: Chris Hemsworth, Tom Hiddleston, Tessa Thompson, Rene Russo, Natalie Portman & Taika Waititi
From Captain America: Chris Evans, Hayley Atwell, James D’Arcy, Anthony Mackie, Sebastian Stan, Frank Grillo, Robert Redford, Ross Marquand, Maximiliano Hernández, Callan Mulvey
From The Avengers: Jeremy Renner, Scarlett Johansson, Linda Cardellini, Elizabeth Olsen, Kerry Condon, Cobie Smulders & Samuel L. Jackson
From Guardians of the Galaxy: Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Pom Klementieff, Karen Gillan, Dave Bautista, Vin Diesel, Bradley Cooper, Sean Gunn
From Ant-Man: Paul Rudd, Evangeline Lilly, Katherine Langford, Michael Douglas & Michelle Pfeiffer         
From Doctor Strange: Benedict Cumberbatch, Benedict Wong & Tilda Swinton
From Spider-Man: Tom Holland & Jacob Batalon 
From Black Panther: Chadwick Boseman, Letitia Wright, Danai Gurira, Winston Duke & Florence Kasumba  
From Captain Marvel: Brie Larson
With: Josh Brolin, Terry Notary, Tom Vaughan-Lawlor, Carrie Coon, Michael James Shaw, Hiroyuki Sanada, Yvette Nicole Brown
Rating – Australia: M; Canada: na; Germany: 12; New Zealand: M; United Kingdom: 12A; United States: PG-13