MAYvel Phase 3; Avengers Endgame: See, they're only mostly dead...

So... where do you go after Infinity War? Most of the characters people know are dead, and those that are alive are either stuck in a different dimension, stuck in space, or stuck on Earth with no idea what the hell to do. The answer? Time Travel, that also conveniently sets up Disney+ shows that are still apparently coming for characters that are actually dead, not mostly dead. So... sucks for Vision I guess? Oh, wait he's in Wandavision... As you can probably tell, I was struggling to come up with an intro to this, so frag it, here's my review of Avengers Endgame.

Starting with the story, and what we have is a three-act structure that can feel like at least three movies, while still feeling like one. In the first part of the movie, nothing really happens as it primarily deals with the aftermath of Thanos winning in Infinity War, and destroying the Infinity Stones within the first 20 minutes of Endgame. There's a depressing undertone to the start of the movie with the feeling that the majority of the world is caught in a universal depression due to losing half of the population at random, and the heroes either trying to make the best of the situation or in the case of Thor, finally breaking down and distancing himself from basically everyone. The movie does, however, start to improve the tone when Ant-Man, once believed to be dead alongside everyone else who was dusted, returns to the Avengers Compound with a plan. Thanks to his experience in the Quantum Realm, he believes that it may be possible to go back in time and retrieve the Infinity Stones from different points in time and using them to bring everyone back.

This leads to a relatively weak, though still somewhat interesting second act, where the surviving Avengers and Guardians of the Galaxy (Captain America, Iron Man, Black Widow, Thor, Hulk (who is now a mix of both Hulk and Bruce Banner called Professor Hulk), Hawkeye, War Machine, Ant-Man, Rocket and Nebula) travel to different points in history to retrieve the six Infinity Stones. Those points in time being the Battle of New York for the Time and Mind Stones (first try at the Space Stone failed), the opening of Guardians of the Galaxy for the Power Stone (while flying to Vormier for the Soul Stone), and to Asguard during Thor The Dark World right before the Dark Elves attack to get the Reality Stone. The final point in time is to the base Captain America was first created back when it was a S.H.I.E.L.D base to retrieve the Space Stone. While it does feel like a blatant nostalgia trip, it's hard to deny the interesting moments that happen in these points in time, like a discussion between Hulk and The Ancient One along with War Machine and Nebula watching Star-Lord doing his dance from the start of GotG, and listening to him badly singing. There are also touching moments in this section, such as Cap seeing Peggy Carter again as he remembered her, and not as an old and dying woman, Thor being comforted by his mother, and Tony having a conversation with his father. While I agree with people that it is the worst part of the movie, it's hard for me to call it a bad second act.

It also acts as a nice counterbalance to Act 3, which is primarily a non-stop action scene between the entirety of Thanos' army, and all the heroes. Every Avenger (except Black Widow, who died in Act 2), every soldier in Wakanda, every Sorcerer, all the Asgardians, even Pepper Pots gets to go into battle with her own suit of armour designed to look like her suit when she was the superhero Rescue in the comics. It is nothing but fan service from beginning to end, and though it can be seen as a negative, I don't think there was any other way you could have ended the movie, as both the battle itself, and the aftermath of it is really well done, and goes to show just how big the MCU has gotten.

Probably the biggest fault with Endgame is the same as Infinity War, it's not a jumping-on point because of how much it expects you to know to go into it. While it's really a minor criticism, it is something to note for people who want to see it but haven't seen anything else Marvel Studios has put out since May 2008. The movie itself is a fitting companion piece to Infinity War without feeling like Infinity War Part 2, thanks to it's larger focus on the heroes this time, compared to Infinity War where the focus was on Thanos. Everything about it feels like a love letter to the movies before it, from the conclusion of story threads for most of the original six Avengers, to visual and audio nods to the comics and movies. It's hard to review it properly because it's nothing more than a crowd-pleaser, the logical next step of seeing the six of them in the first Avengers movie. Do I think it's the best MCU movie? No, but this is probably the best ending the Infinity Saga could have gotten, and why even though it's over, I'm still interested in seeing where they go from here.