After watching Captain Marvel and feeling underwhelmed, we had to temper our expectations for Avengers: Endgame. Was Marvel losing touch with the genre it help perfect? Were they running out of fresh ideas to help keep their cinematic universe ahead of the curve? While we still stand by our opinion that Captain Marvel was a hugely unnecessary movie, our doubts about Marvel were severely misplaced and they delivered one of the most epic movies of all time. It's not like we waited 11 years for this to happen. But the magic of Endgame is that it made us feel like we did—that 11 years and 21 movies had to happen before we got to this point. And Endgame made us feel like it was always worth the wait.
We grew up with the MCU. Some of us who are working now were in college or maybe even high school when we watched the first Iron Man movie. But it's also as if the MCU has grown with us. And no, we're not just talking about how many heroes and villains are now part of their already sizeable roster. We're also talking about how complex and nuanced their movies have become. Endgame runs us through a gauntlet of emotions. From the heaviness carried over from Infinity War to the light-hearted banter between Thor and the other Avengers, this movie is the perfect example of how Marvel owns the genre and continues to bend and shape it seemingly to their will.
Avengers: Endgame is huge. It's the biggest movie event we've seen ever and yet it amazes us how much heart remains at the center of it all. With big movies like this, one can expect heart and humanity to take a backseat to all the explosions and computer generated graphics but Endgame manages to strike a balance and create something you'll actually care about. You're not watching this only to see your favorite heroes blow up stuff—you're watching this because you're rooting for them to overcome their individual struggles and flaws. It's hard to achieve that with stronger heroes like DC's Superman or even Marvel's own Captain Marvel. But with the majority of the Avengers being underpowered compared to Thanos, it's an easy sell here and Endgame uses that masterfully and to great effect.
We've seen most of the actors here shine in their own individual Marvel movies before but it's worth noting that Scarlett Johansson proved once again that she definitely deserves her own stand-alone Black Widow film (and fortunately, there will be one). The biggest accomplishment in this department, though, is how the film makes you realize how much you've invested in the characters (specially the original Avengers) and how the actors have managed to avoid giving us performances that are stale or just clones from the previous movies.
When all is said and done, the biggest achievement of Avengers: Endgame is how it managed to tie up the last decade in a way that can only be described as perfect. It does this with many scenes that will definitely be misconstrued by some as pure fan service but to us, it felt like Marvel has earned the right to play with these moments by virtue of how well they've built their universe. If you haven't seen Avengers: Endgame yet, we implore you to do so right this moment. What you'll witness is a glorious way to cap off this era of the MCU. It's definitely not the end for the MCU (not even for Phase Three) but we bet it's going to take another decade to create something as grand and as epic as Endgame.