Avengers: Endgame, a heroic end to this chapter *contains spoilers*

This movie release has been so highly anticipated, it has been the talk of Marvel fans for the past year, ever since we saw Thanos snap his fingers and half of our favourite characters disappeared. The question on everyone’s lips has been, how do we get them back?

If you didn’t see in the title of this blog post, this will be containing spoilers, it will also be containing a list of everything I loved about Marvel’s Avengers: Endgame.

Pacing & plot

I think the pacing was very well done, it was slow to start with, but we needed it to be. After a tragedy like Infinity War, it takes time to see where all the characters are and what they are now doing. I really thought Tony was a goner within the first five minutes, so I’m very glad Captain Marvel came along. When the ship touched down on Earth I was already tearing up. I was quite surprised to see the time jump of five years later, so I was already thrown by that! But I love a good ‘bringing the gang back together’ scene, so I was all down for the Avengers regrouping and being pulled back together after five years of trying to move on.

Characters

My favourite Avenger is the strongest Avenger, Thor, so I was quite surprised to see what had happened to him in these five years. He was no longer the muscular, short-haired Norse God I’d fallen in love with in Ragnarok. No, this Thor was representing depression and mental illness and I cannot praise Marvel enough for doing this. They have taken the self-dubbed ‘strongest Avenger’ and proved that he too cannot get through everything and it is okay to not be okay. Thor wasn’t forced to change, he was offered support by his friends and he admitted his path was no longer right for him. The strength in Thor’s character at the end of the film is very different to who we see him as before Endgame, but I think this is a valuable storyline and I hope we see more of him in the third Guardians of the Galaxy film.

Saying that Thor was my favourite, doesn’t mean I don’t love all of the others too. Even Captain America who I’d always found too soft and good has soared up in my rankings. I adored seeing scenes from the older films used, time travel allows for some really fun plot devices, alongside the technology in film to make this kind of story possible. I got excited to see old characters, mainly Loki return. I thought this was immensely clever and will certainly warrant a second watching from me, to make sure I’ve got my head around it all.

There was such strength and unity between all of these MCU characters, people who had once fought against each other now reconcile their differences. I could watch the final battle scene again and again. I loved how it started off with Thor, Cap and Iron Man, the original three (also feeling very emotional over this poster and the reflections). When Captain America was facing off against Thanos I thought he was done for, I hadn’t bothered to wonder where all of the newly returned characters were. When Doctor Strange opened up the portals for them to appear through, I think that may have been one of the most exciting moments in cinema for me. Seeing character upon character that we thought we’d lost, all coming together as one unit to defeat Thanos!

A favourite moment for me was when Thor was in some trouble with Thanos and suddenly we see his hammer come into action, but he is not wielding it. Initially, I thought it must be Captain Marvel, but then we see Captain America with Thor’s hammer! He is worthy!! The reaction in the cinema at this moment was just amazing, everyone was shocked and I think happy to see Captain American finally having this power and strength. It just added to another perfect send-off for these characters who have truly developed throughout these films. And I love that Cap ended up with Peggy after all and had his years with her. That end scene of them dancing, that one really had me holding back tears.

Marvel ladies

A huge cheer to the feminism in this film! At this end battle scene we see Captain Marvel take the infinity stones and she is suddenly surrounded by all of the Marvel women there to help her. Just writing about it gives me goosebumps all over again, what a fantastic scene! Most of the ‘main’ superheroes are men, so it was amazing seeing the women take control and club together. As more Marvel films come out, we’re seeing women take a lead and I love that! I also love that gender roles were switched a bit and we saw a scene where Captain America’s arse was being commented on, not a woman’s. And that we see Asgard handed over to Valkyrie as the new King, another win for the women of MCU!

A loss for the women though, was Black Widow, one of the most badass women that had been in this franchise since the start. That whole scene with her and Hawkeye was so emotional and also so tense. I didn’t know who was going to die and I didn’t know who I wanted to either. Black Widow has been a constant in these films, always there, but her life is the Avengers. Whereas Hawkeye has a family, his storyline can end because he has somewhere else to go. I felt sad though that whilst Tony had an emotional send-off, we didn’t see the same for Nat, despite both of them sacrificing themselves to save everyone else.

The finale

The whole ending was just amazing, I couldn’t fault it apart from a lack of funeral for Nat. Tony had really excelled himself as a character in Endgame, he had a life! His daughter was the cutest thing and I felt so sad seeing her grieve and knowing she didn’t have her dad anymore. Tony has always been a selfish character at heart, not to say he doesn’t do things for others too, but it hasn’t been his main motivator I don’t think. But seeing him in this film, I think it gave him the perfect ending.

Okay, those are my thoughts, I’m done now. I’ve nearly made myself cry, but I’ve got them out. I’m going to need to go and see this film several more times because I can’t stop thinking about it. What a spectacular end to Marvel as we’ve known it for the past 22 films and 11 years.