❉ Is it a fitting finale or does it end lame? Find out in Ben Peyton’s spoiler-free review!
“Featuring reunions, some familiar faces from throughout the franchise and bittersweet character interactions, there’s no chance of losing interest. Previous Marvel Cinematic Universe films are cleverly revisited and merged into the elaborate story to showcase the gargantuan world that’s been created over the last decade.”
Over ten years and twenty films later, Marvel studios presents the conclusion to its epic Avenger’s series with Avengers: Endgame. After the devastating consequences of Avengers: Infinity War where big, bad baddy Thanos got his big, bad baddy hands on the Infinity Stones and wiped out half of humanity, it’s up to the surviving heroes to unite one last time in a bid to restore order to the world.
Set five years after the Thanos snap we find the Avengers in various stages of grief and despair. Struggling with their own personal issues, it isn’t until an unexpected blast from the past proffers a glimmer of hope that, together, the team try to reach 88mph, with slightly more than 1.21 gigawatts of power, to right what’s wrong.
Although the previously huge character count has been somewhat decimated, there’s still a lot of superhero egos to accommodate and, once again, directors the Russo brothers give most of the principle cast their fair share of screen time. Branching off into various sub-teams, each with their own task, there’s tension within the ranks as emotions run high and sacrifices reluctantly have to be made.
This time around things are, unsurprisingly, taken more seriously given what’s at stake, but there’s still the assured Marvel lightness of touch in the script providing laughs amidst the mayhem. There’s more dialogue than action, but when it does kick off it’s as spectacular as you could hope for and the inevitable final showdown is truly majestic.
Featuring reunions, some familiar faces from throughout the franchise and bittersweet character interactions, there’s no chance of losing interest. Previous Marvel Cinematic Universe films are cleverly revisited and merged into the elaborate story to showcase the gargantuan world that’s been created over the last decade.
Although hugely entertaining, delve deeper and there’s questions about the logistics of the plot, certain characters maybe needed more to do and it could be argued that some of the scenes towards the end should have been edited to wrap it up sooner. Some of the gags aren’t quite as funny as are hoped for and one hero, with a lot on his plate, provides an unnecessarily cheap laugh, however when there is so much to enjoy about the wealth of talent on screen it’s easy to let all of that wash over you.
Weighing in at a colossal 181 minutes, Avengers: Endgame is an emotional and extremely satisfying conclusion to this particular instalment of the MCU and a blockbuster of blockbusting proportions.
Avengers, dissemble.
Oh, and whilst there aren’t any mid or post-credit scenes there is something you might want to hear right at the very end.
❉ ‘Avengers: Endgame’ (12A) opened in the UK on 25 April 2019. Directors: Joe Russo, Anthony Russo. Starring: Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Hemsworth, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner, Don Cheadle, Paul Rudd, Brie Larson, Karen Gillan, Danai Gurira, Bradley Cooper, Josh Brolin. 181m.
❉ Ben Peyton is an actor, voiceover artist, husband and dad. Credits include Band Of Brothers, Holby City, Emmerdale and he was a regular in The Bill. You can find Ben on Twitter – @BenPeyton007 or at his website – www.benpeytonreviews.com.
