NO SPOILER ZONE! Avengers: Endgame

by Jenna Johnson and Addie Clark

We promise that this review will be 100% spoiler free. Be on the look out for our SPOILER review next week!

For the past decade, we have been witness to cinematic history. Marvel Studios has given us amazing interconnected superhero movies to form the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) featuring legendary comic book heroes and villains from the Marvel world.

We’ve laughed and we’ve cried. We’ve applauded in a crowded theater. We’ve shouted for joy, and we’ve mourned for those we’ve lost. But like all good things, there has to be an end at some point…an Endgame, if you will…(yes, we went there). And for this particular juncture in the MCU, that finale just happens to be Avengers: Endgame, which opens in theaters today.

Now, there are many ways that make a great movie. You can choose the best writers and directors. You can choose the best cast and crew. And you can film in the perfect locations and conditions. But it takes something and someone special to bring all of those elements together to create a film that can evoke a myriad of emotions from the audience and have them leave in awe. That is exactly what Joe and Anthony Russo were able to pull off in Endgame. These two genius directors wrote an epic love letter to the MCU masquerading as a 181 minute film. They took everything critics and fans loved about the 21 movies that came before and melded them into one seamless journey of redemption, rescue, and rebirth. But beyond making an amazing film that neatly wraps up things we have loved over the past decade while also propelling the fandom into the next phase of shows and movies – they also wrote a heartfelt love letter to the fans. The Russo Brothers make it obvious that they and Marvel Studios appreciate all the time, energy, and attachment we have invested in these characters.

At least one of the authors of this review actively avoided anything except the two main trailers for this film, leary of spoilers. And she has to say, Marvel did an EPIC job of keeping the trailers to the first hour or so of the film when they could have easily teased larger set pieces from the second and third acts. That meant that anything you thought you knew about the plot of this movie was – not to mince words – WRONG. This movie was 100% not what we expected it to be in every possible good way and both of us cannot wait to see it again.

The only criticism of this film is the three hour runtime. While we, the authors, are split on our feelings – at least one of us checked her watch more than once. She admits, however, she isn’t sure if that was boredom or checking to see how much time was left for them to wrap this up when the plot started going in a direction neither of us could have predicted…

While Avengers: Endgame is the conclusion of one grand adventure, there are many adventures that will continue on and many more adventures just beginning. It really was the perfect movie to end such a legendary period in cinematic history.