Introduction

Today we’re talking about Avengers: Endgame. But before we get into it, I want to say thank you for checking out the Reels on Wheels Movie Club. For those of you who don’t know what this is, I’m choosing one film a week to watch and dive into. I announce the Movie of the Week in advance so you can watch too, and I’m hoping to kick off a discussion by sharing my thoughts on the film on Movie Mondays. For more, check out my prior posts on No Country for Old Men and A Streetcar Named Desire.

Avengers: Endgame has captivated audiences all over the world, living up to overwhelming expectations, and smashing box office records. The film crossed the $2 billion mark in just 11 days and already passed Titanic to become the second-highest grossing film of all time. With 21 prior films leading up to this moment, directors Anthony and Joe Russo, collectively known as the Russo Brothers, faced the behemoth task of bringing the Infinity Saga story arc to a close and wrapping up the storylines for several of the MCU’s most beloved characters. To accomplish this, they crafted a movie running just over 3 hours, accommodating both epic blockbuster sequences and quiet character moments. The film masterfully balances the MCU’s now marquee blend of action, comedy, drama, and heart.

Plot Summary

Avengers: Endgame finds our heroes dealing with the aftermath of the events of Infinity War. Thanos (Josh Brolin) won and those that survived are picking up the pieces. When the team regroups and finds Thanos at The Garden, he reveals that he’s already destroyed the Infinity Stones. Thor (Chris Hemsworth) goes for the head, ending Thanos, but putting them no closer to reversing the Snap.

Five years pass, and Natasha (Scarlett Johansson) is now coordinating the Avengers’ efforts both on and off-world to face various threats. Among them is Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner), whose family was killed in the Snap, and who has since been on a one-man mission to mercilessly kill criminals the world over.

Meanwhile, Ant-Man (Paul Rudd) finally emerges from the quantum realm and convinces Steve (Chris Evans) and Natasha that they might be able to travel through time. They approach Tony (Robert Downey Jr.), who now has a daughter with Pepper (Gwyneth Paltrow), about their idea, but he refuses to get involved. They then approach Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo), now the Smart Hulk, who agrees. At the same time, Tony decides to work on the time travel concept at home and manages to run a successful model. The team then regroup for a Time Heist. The Hulk and Rocket Raccoon (Bradley Cooper) travel to New Asgard on Earth and find a depressed, alcoholic, and out-of-shape Thor who is reluctant but eventually joins them. And Natasha travels to Japan to bring Hawkeye in.

The team split up to recover the stones through time and space. Iron Man, Captain America, Ant-Man, and the Hulk travel to 2012 New York to recover the Space, Mind, and Time Stones. Thor and Rocket travel to 2013 Asgard to recover the Reality Stone. Nebula (Karen Gillan), War Machine (Don Cheadle), Hawkeye, and Black Widow travel to 2014 to recover the Power Stone from Morag and the Soul Stone from Vormir.

In 2012 New York, Bruce convinces the Ancient One (Tilda Swinton) to give him the Time Stone by promising to return them all to their proper places once they are done. Steve tricks Hydra agents into giving him the Mind Stone (in Loki’s scepter), but Loki (Tom Hiddleston) escapes with the Space Stone when a scuffle ensues. This forces the team to come up with a new plan, with Steve and Tony traveling back even further to 1970 where they can recover a Space Stone and more Pym Particles for the return trip. They do so, but only after Tony runs into his father and Steve sees his old love Peggy Carter (Haley Atwell).

In 2013 Asgard, Rocket extracts the Reality Stone from Jane Foster, while Thor encounters his mother. She realizes he is from the future and talks him through the issues he has been having coping with his failures. Thor summons Mjolnir, his hammer, and they return to 2023.

In 2014 Morag, War Machine and Nebula intercept and knock out Peter Quill (Chris Pratt), while Natasha and Clint continue on to Vormir. Nebula obtains the Power Stone and War Machine travels back with it, but before Nebula can travel back, she is disabled when she interfaces with 2014 Nebula. This alerts Thanos to their presence and time-traveling plan, and he captures Nebula. He then sends 2014 Nebula to travel through time and infiltrate the Avengers.

In Vormir, Black Widow and Hawkeye learn that one must die in order to obtain the Soul Stone. Both are willing, but Black Widow bests Hawkeye, and she sacrifices her life so that Hawkeye can obtain the stone.

When they all return to 2023, they mourn the loss of Black Widow and commit to making her sacrifice worth it. Tony builds a gauntlet capable of harnessing the power of the stones, while 2014 Nebula uses the time machine to summon Thanos and his army from the past. The Hulk wields the gauntlet, injuring his arm severely, but successfully bringing back all of those killed in the Snap. Moments later, Thanos’s army arrives and bombards the facility. Thanos sends 2014 Nebula to find and bring him the Infinity Stones.

A massive battle ensues, with Iron Man, Captain America, and Thor facing off against Thanos. Captain America wields Mjolnir, but they are still bested by Thanos. When all hope seems lost, reinforcements arrive in the form of all the revived heroes who assemble to face off against Thanos and his army. Captain Marvel (Brie Larson) also arrives from space, destroying Thanos’s mothership along the way. Several heroes attempt to get the stones away from Thanos and send it through to the quantum realm, but he thwarts their efforts and obtains the gauntlet with all the stones. Before he is able to use them, Iron Man takes them all into his own armor. He wields them to dust Thanos and his forces, but in doing so, he is mortally wounded and dies.

The survivors mourn Tony, and later Steve says farewell to Bucky (Sebastian Stan) and Sam (Anthony Mackie), and departs alone to return the Infinity Stones and Mjolnir to their proper places through time and space. Instead of returning, he travels back to the 1940s to be with Peggy Carter and lives a full life. In 2023, an old Steve Rogers returns and hands off his shield to Sam.

Overall Impressions

There is so much to say about this movie. It succeeds for both casual and die-hard fans of the franchise because it pays attention to characters, their relationships, and emotions. It delivers epic action and is certainly one of the greatest blockbusters of all time.  It’s also long. The film adds about a half-hour to Infinity War’s runtime, but it’s not bloated. It uses that additional time to explore our characters more deeply. The film resonates because we are emotionally invested in these characters. We care what they have to say to each other over a peanut butter sandwich, we care about their infighting, we care about them dealing with and overcoming resentment. Our heroes are human. We see them get torn down, struggle to cope, move on in some ways, and ultimately triumph.

I don’t think we’ll have a film that creates this type of global moment again for a long time. And it is completely earned. It delivers on every level. It achieved the gargantuan feat of fully capturing the essence the Marvel Cinematic Universe in one astonishing film, and in doing so it has cemented itself in cinematic history as one of the greatest of all time.  

Setting the Stage

I’ve seen some describe the first act of the film as slow, but I think that misses the point entirely. First of all, the Avengers literally decapitate Thanos in the first act, so it still has action. But more importantly, it lets us see Tony grapple with his own death and failure, Steve and others at a support group dealing with grief even five years after the Snap, Natasha struggling to keep doing her job and hold the team together, Clint going off the deep end after losing his family, Thor’s descent into depression and alcoholism, and even small moments like that between Nebula and Rocket. We need to feel the effects of the Snap before embarking on a time-traveling adventure or else the dramatic end of Infinity War would be entirely undermined. We see Five Years Later slowly appear on the screen, but we also feel the years through our characters and their stories, especially in this first act.

Devoting significant screen time to these moments and establishing the post-Snap as the new normal allows this film to distinguish itself from Infinity War and stand on its own. Yes, it’s a follow up, and yes, it’s entirely premised on those events, but it doesn’t just feel like picking up where we left off and completing that story.

In a way, the first act delivers that immediate follow up audiences might have expected relatively quickly. They find Thanos, and they kill him. But that’s it. They fail again because the stones aren’t there, and they can’t do anything to save the dead. That closes the book on Infinity War – Thanos won. To reverse it after five years pushes our heroes to their limits and asks them to make compromises and trade offs. Where in Infinity War we hear “We don’t trade lives,” in Endgame, the stakes are higher because the gloves come off and everything is on the table.

The film also boldly commits to the character decisions it makes in the first act. It’s fairly clear that Thor has had the most trouble in the aftermath of the Snap. What at first might just seem like a quick gag to show an out-of-shape Thor, turns out to be what we get for the entire film. This allows them to show him grow as a character and rise up out of this slump to fight Thanos again. He doesn’t just magically get abs again. We don’t need to see a training montage of him getting into physical shape. What’s more important is that we know where he is emotionally. The film focuses on his journey to overcome those intangible issues to be the hero he truly is regardless of his outward appearance.

The Time Heist

The Time Heist is the crux of this film. While many of its most epic moments come in the climactic battle later, the events in and around the Heist are its core. Our characters come together to plan the heist at the Avengers facility, providing some of our best interactions, like when Thor hilariously recounts the events of Thor: The Dark World while the others look on visibly confused. We even get small things like a shot of Natasha, Hulk, and Tony lying down in the office brainstorming in sweats, when Natasha realizes that three stones were in New York in 2012. It’s small moments like that that make the characters feel more human. Yes, that’s what it’s like when you do a group project and you’re just trying to figure something out.

The film completely commits to the heist. We get the music, the sneaking around, the costumes, all the hijinks you look for in a fun heist. We also get moments only the MCU has earned, like having Captain America fight himself and admire his own “America’s ass.” The heist also allows our characters to revisit their own pasts and delivers emotional closure, some of which we didn’t even know we needed.

Notably, it deals with parental closure for both Tony and Thor. Tony’s strained relationship with his father has been visited before in the MCU. He never got closure before his parents were murdered by the Winter Soldier, and his father was very distant with him growing up. He finally connected with his father in 1970, when Howard was a soon-to-be father. Tony now has his own daughter and could see that his father was apprehensive and nervous about being a good dad. This showed that for all his faults, perhaps his dad was really just trying his best. Tony was finally able to tell him that for all the bad, he really only remembered the good parts. His goodbye hug may have perturbed Howard a bit, but it gave Tony the chance to connect and say goodbye.

Similarly, Thor’s mother was taken from him too early – one of a string of failures he internalized that drove him to his downtrodden state. Admittedly, most people don’t look fondly on the Dark World, and we did not really emotionally invest in Thor’s mother, probably because she had very little actual character development in that film. But here we see how big of an absence she really has been in Thor’s life. When he’s finally able to talk through all of his misadventures and failings with her, she is able to comfort and lift him up out of the doldrums, and he too is able to get closure by saying goodbye. Before he goes, he summons Mjolnir, and his face when his hammer returns to his grasp says it all. In spite of all his struggles, he is still worthy.  

Meanwhile, Captain America sees Peggy Carter once again, and he is reminded tangibly of the life he’d given up when he went into the ice in 1945. We can feel how desperately he wishes to have had a life with her, and it pays off later.

And even characters with no prior history are developed in relation to each other. One great example is Rhodey and Nebula. When her arm is burned retrieving the Power Stone, her robotic arm is revealed. She is visibly uncomfortable saying that she wasn’t always this way. Rhodey replies that he wasn’t either, referring to his leg paralysis and need for mechanical assistance to walk, and says that they work with what they’ve got. This little moment of comfort says a lot about these characters. It shows how even two seemingly dissimilar characters can still connect on a human level.

All of these are great examples of how emotionally intelligent writing elevates this film. It’s amazing that all of these character developments take place in the midst of the exciting fun of the Time Heist. It would be easy to get lost in the action of the primary events – recovering the Infinity Stones through a series of mini-adventures – but the writers and directors never lose sight of the characters that underpin the story. It’s why the MCU has connected with audiences where other blockbuster franchises have faltered.

And you simply can’t talk about the poignancy of the Time Heist without talking about Clint and Natasha on Vormir. This is the end of one of the original Avengers, and it’s the moment when the film commits to the idea that the stakes are real and lives will be lost permanently. What’s quite beautiful about it is the love between these two characters isn’t romantic – but a deep friendship and shared history that binds them to each other. Both are willing to make the ultimate sacrifice, but this is Natasha’s moment to save her family. As she said previously, she had nothing and then she had this family – the Avengers – and she would do anything to save them. Her sacrifice is the boldest and bravest because she only has faith that it will work – she can’t know for sure. While it would have been awesome to see her in that A-Force female hero team up that comes later, we’ll never forget her sacrifice on Vormir.

Putting the End in Endgame

The climactic battle is absolutely one of the most epic sequences ever put on film. The Big Three – Iron Man, Captain America, and Thor – face off against Thanos, Captain America wields Mjolnir, the Avengers – all of them and their allies – Assemble, and Iron Man wields the gauntlet, giving his life to finally save the universe from Thanos.

The directors did a great job of not letting this battle get away from the audience. One great tool was the Infinity Gauntlet relay race. There is a lot going on once the big battle breaks out, but by focusing in on the gauntlet and having individual characters carry it, we can focus in on them in particular so that it’s not just 40 minutes of CGI characters punching each other.

Needless to say, the movie delivered. This was not just the climax of one epic film, but of an entire story arc that spanned over a decade. It rose to the occasion. Not just by its scale but also by its significance to the story. All of the Avengers, anyone willing to come and fight alongside them against Thanos and the forces of evil, come together, and we finally have a moment worthy of the iconic line from Captain America, “Avengers Assemble!” But more so than that – it closes the story arc on Iron Man – the most beloved character in the MCU and now one of the most iconic characters in the world. Fittingly, the story comes full circle as he declares, like he famously did at the end of Iron Man in 2008, “I am Iron Man.”

We’ve watched him grow as a character over the course of these films from a selfish billionaire playboy to a selfless hero willing to put it all on the line to fight the greatest threat in the universe. And not only was he willing to do it, he was also capable. He figured out the time travel, he built a gauntlet and a suit capable of wielding the stones, and he was able to wield them all to defeat Thanos and his army. Having completed his mission and protected the world, he could, as Pepper said, finally rest. It’s very difficult for a franchise to end or, in this case, end its most beloved character. Endgame managed to do so in a way that was emotionally powerful. The audience can mourn with the survivors but also celebrate Tony’s ultimate triumph over his greatest foe.

And our last big send-off, which was not in death in the same way, but similarly fitting, was Captain America. He finally got his dance with Peggy, and that life that Tony had told him to get. We’ve seen Steve give up a normal life so many times over – the soldier always standing up for what is right even at great personal cost. He was just a simple kid from Brooklyn who didn’t think it was right that others were laying down their lives in World War II while he stayed behind. From that humble origin, he has grown to face threats both in personal relationships, particularly with Bucky and even Iron Man, and cosmic, facing down aliens in New York and Thanos himself. He’s been the man out of time and in many ways, out of his depth, but he’s risen to every occasion. Finally, after their final battle together, he says goodbye to his friends – those he lost in Natasha and Tony – and those who remain – notably Bucky and Sam, and returns to Peggy to live a normal, quiet life. It was beautiful, he says. He doesn’t tell Sam or the audience about it, but all we need is that intimate moment of him dancing with Peggy to know that finally our Captain can rest too.

Closing this Chapter

So we’ve said goodbye to many of our favorite characters. This felt like a true ending. There was no mid or post credits scene, just the sound of Iron Man hammering away at his original armor – a full circle. Of course, Endgame isn’t the end of the MCU. The latest Spiderman trailer just dropped this morning, and we will see how the universe expands and deals with new threats to come. But Endgame closed the loop on a massive, unprecedented cinematic storyline.

It did so not by resting on its laurels, but by once again thrilling audiences with something new and exciting. It’s a film that stands out with other epic conclusions, in the same vein as Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, but it also sets the stage for what’s to come. And while it may be many years before we see this or any franchise crescendo so successfully, we can’t wait to see what’s next.

Ranking and Conclusion

But let’s get down to business. How does Endgame stack up against the rest of the MCU? This is an incredibly difficult decision. I can say from the start, I know it’s in my Top 5, but that’s where it gets tricky. My immediate reaction was that this film vaulted into the top spot, but I wanted to be sure that this wasn’t just recency bias.

Now two weeks since seeing it for the first time, I can say it still stands apart. It is the epic, expansive, grand finale. It pays off on storylines that we have all followed for over a decade and lived up to insanely high expectations. It created a cultural moment all over the world as audiences rushed to theaters to share in this once-in-a-generation experience. This film is something truly spectacular and special. It is the very definition of the MCU, and for that reason I’m dethroning Winter Soldier, and slotting it in at Number 1.

For more, be sure to check out my complete MCU Ranking!

But what did you think of Endgame? How does it stack up in your MCU ranking? Let me know in the comments or @rvleaguers on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. Thanks again for checking this out, and be sure to come back for more Reels on Wheels!