Avengers: Endgame
This is the one. My favorite MCU movie. Infinity War has the intensity but Endgame has the heart, the emotion and the heaviness of consequences. It’s one of my favorite movies of all time and it’s held up well to multiple viewings. There are 3 distinct acts in this movie and I love them each so excuse me if I go off for a moment on this masterpiece.
My MVPs of this movie would be Tony, Nebula and Hawkeye. Tony, for obvious reasons. He has a tremendous arc within this film and such a perfect closing to his 9-movie run in the MCU, finally making the sacrifice play that Steve said he would never do back in Avengers 1. “I am inevitable... and I am Iron Man” is such a good climax and callback to the ending of IM1. But he’s great in this movie from the start, schooling Nebula in sportsmanship and recording that touching goodbye to Pepper… having the emotional breakdown when he gets back to Earth about how/why they lost … having a happy family and Pepper finally not even challenging him when he’s conflicted about whether to help the time heist even though they have more to lose than ever - she knows him too well by this point to try to stop him from saving the world… and his return to the Avengers when he pulls up in the Audi like the billionaire playboy he is and tells Cap how he solved time travel and gives him a new shield. Tony is everything in this movie.
Hawkeye also has a great arc and it’s his best MCU showing. From his family getting dusted (great cold open - I still remember the gasps from the theater), to becoming a vigilante assassin, to losing the suicide battle with Nat, to having some really great action sequences in the final act when he’s got the gauntlet in hand. He was never one of the stronger Avenger roles so it’s great to see him get so much shine.
As for Nebula, I adore her and her role is very prominent in this. I said the same thing when discussing Guardians but Karen Gillan is so perfect.
The other four main avengers - Natasha, Cap, Thor and Hulk - are each given proper service here too. I’ll spare you my recap of how uniquely great each of them are in this - and they are - but this movie is clearly about them while Infinity War was about all of the MCU. That's a big reason why I prefer this movie - we have actual main characters to latch onto emotionally, whereas IW jumped from faction to faction and only gave Thanos much emotional resonance.
But it’s not a perfect movie and it certainly isn’t a one you can appreciate without having seen most of the MCU. However as someone who has seen the MCU, my god what a payoff this is.
Explaining time travel is the biggest challenge this movie has. Mind you I love the 2nd act and think the time heist scenes are really well done so I’m happy with the plot but I’m talking about when they’re trying to work through the science and logic of it. While I don’t think they did a bad job, there’s room for improvement. I would have phrased some of the time science jargon a little more pointedly but I like the gist of what they did with the quantum realm and how they can’t change the past so they can only bring the stones to the present to use them. Comedically calling out other time travel movies and having Ant Man come back as a baby and an old dude etc, these bits worked well enough to get us where we needed to go. If it wasn’t for this, I would probably give this movie a perfect 10.
Did I mention the moment when the Avengers finally all return via Doctor Strange's wormholes and assemble? So good.
Score: 9.7/10
The Infinity Rankings
CLASSIC
1. Avengers: Endgame - 9.7
2. Thor: Ragnarok - 9.5
3. Avengers: Infinity War - 9.4
4. The Avengers - 9.2
5. Iron Man - 9
GREAT
6. Captain America: Civil War - 8.7
7. Guardians of the Galaxy - 8.5
8. Thor - 8.3
9. Doctor Strange - 8.2
10. Captain Marvel - 8.1
11. Ant-Man - 8
12. Black Panther - 8
GOOD
13. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 - 7.8
14. Captain America: The Winter Soldier - 7.8
15. Spider-Man: Homecoming - 7.5
16. Thor: The Dark World - 7.4
17. Avengers: Age of Ultron - 7.4
18. Iron Man 3 - 7.3
19. Ant-Man and the Wasp - 7.2
20. Captain America: The First Avenger - 7.2
OKAY
21. Iron Man 2 - 6.9
22. The Incredible Hulk - 6.7
Far From Home is technically part of phase 3 even though I personally think it should be the first movie of phase 4 since it is post-Infinity Saga, but maybe I will re-watch it and add it to the list. But this seems like a good end point.
Closing thoughts: Around 2014 I wasn't that big of a comic movie fan and felt like the industry had been oversaturated by them. I liked Iron Man and Avengers 1 (and of course The Dark Night and previous big ticket films like Raimi's Spider Man 1&2, etc) but wasn't in on the entire MCU, I surely even ragged on it in this very forum. I mean I never even watched the first two Thor movies until after Infinity War. But now I'm a devoted disciple of the mastermind Kevin Feige and I think what he does is brilliant because these movies are so well made and the connectivity of the universe is unprecedented. It's like the New England Patriots dynasty I mean idk who will ever replicate this once Feige hangs it up. I suppose now that there's a blueprint for it it is actually replicable but clearly DC wasn't able to do it with the Justice League. And when you compare the MCU to the modern Star Wars universe which is similarly trying to pump out popular action-adventure movies in a shared universe on an annual basis but is already having to pump the breaks because 1 or 2 movies a year has become too much for them to keep profitable... that just shows you that this aint easy. And it's also a testament to Stan Lee and Marvel Comics. Star Wars doesn't have that as a foundation. I mean look at what happened to Game of Thrones when they ran out of source material. So RIP the legends Stan Lee and Jack Kirby because while I never personally read comic books, it's incredible what they created.
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