Thoughts on “Avengers: Endgame” (2019)

Good afternoon, everyone. Well, we made it to the concluding part of the saga-ending climax to the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s first three phases. Like “Avengers: Infinity War” the year before, “Avengers: Endgame” was the most anticipated movie of 2019. Everyone wanted to witness the ultimate conclusion to the Infinity Saga. It was going to be the last hurrah for the original members of The Avengers: Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, Hulk, Hawkeye, and Black Widow. There is a lot to cover here given that the movie is 3 hours long, so I will go to great detail in this post. With this introduction out of the way, let’s see how “Avengers: Endgame” went down.

The first thing we see is Clint Barton (Jeremy Renner) teaching his daughter Lila how to use the bow and arrow. He gets her to the perfect position to nail a bullseye. At the same time, Clint’s wife Laura (Linda Cardellini) is fixing up some hot dogs for everyone. After Lila nails the bullseye, Laura calls for both of them to eat with her and the two boys (who were playing catch with each other). Just as Clint is about to have hot dogs with his family, his wife and children fade into dust due to Thanos’ snap. Clint is desperate to find them, but they are nowhere to be seen. After we hear some thunder, we cut to the Marvel Studios logo. After the logo, which only shows the heroes that survived the snap, we see Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) and Nebula (Karen Gillan) play tabletop/paper football on the Benatar ship somewhere out in Space. Nebula wins the game and Tony congratulates her for beating him. Nebula said that the game was fun. Later, Tony uses his busted Iron Man helmet to send a message to Pepper. During this message, Tony tells her to not post the message on social media. It’s been 22 days since Thanos’ snap wiped out half of all living beings not just on Earth, but all across the universe. He says that the infection due to the stab wound has run its course and that he and Nebula were able to work on the fuel cells to give them about 48 hours of flying time. He says that oxygen will run out the next day and that he wanted to pull off one last surprise even though he promised that there would be no more of them. He finishes the recording with the fact that he always thinks about Pepper. After he is finished, he turns the helmet off and starts to doze off. Nebula puts him in a comfortable seat and leaves him to rest. Tony is shown here weakened after what happened against Thanos (plus poor nutrition due to three weeks in Space). As he is about to go to a final sleep (which is emotional thanks to the music by Alan Silvestri), he is awaken by a very bright light. That light is revealed to be Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel (Brie Larson), who brings the ship to Earth. We cut to the Avengers facility in upstate New York where Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) finishes shaving his look from “Infinity War”. He, Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo), Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson) and James Rhodes (Don Cheadle) run outside to see the ship land after hearing some rumbling from inside. Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) is already out there in front of them. Once Carol lands the ship next to the facility, Tony is helped out of it thanks to Nebula. The first person to get to him is Steve, who hasn’t seen Tony since the fight at the end of “Civil War”. Tony tells him that he lost the kid (Peter Parker), with Steve responding that they all lost. Pepper gets to Tony and hugs him while crying. He kisses Pepper on the cheek before we see Nebula and Rocket (Bradley Cooper) hold hands on the stairs of the ship. Both Nebula and Rocket lost their loved ones during the events of “Infinity War” and are trying to recover. They all get inside and discuss the snap and where to find Thanos. During this, they see a holographic display of all the people that faded into dust. Tony Stark is hooked to an IV during the scene. Thor is sitting at his lonesome because he thought that he failed the mission, which he did, along with everybody else. Tony calls Rocket a “Build-a-Bear” during this scene. He rips off the IV tube and goes on a messy rant about a number of things. He mentions that what they needed was a suit of armor around the world (Ultron) and he reminds Steve that they would lose together. However, Steve wasn’t there to help him this time due to their falling out in “Civil War”. Near the end of his rant, he tells Steve that he has nothing about where Thanos is. Tony gives Steve his chest piece before he faints and is put on a bed with Pepper by his side. Carol walks away with the mission to kill Thanos by herself. Natasha and Steve tell her that this is their fight as well, even though Carol has more experience with space-related stuff. Nebula then tells everyone that she knows where Thanos is. She says that Thanos spent a long time trying to perfect her. She also says that he always had a place to go once his mission was accomplished (in other words, his place to retire). The place is a planet called The Garden. Rocket shows everyone a digital display of the moment when the snap happened. The cosmic power surge that occurred on Earth was like something nobody else has seen before. They then see a similar phenomenon on another planet that happened three weeks after the Snap. That is where Thanos used the stones again. They think that if they get the stones, they can just bring everyone back. Banner asks how they will know if it will end in a different way than before. Carol arrogantly responds with saying that they didn’t have her beforehand. Rhodes tells her that everyone here is about that superhero life and asks her where she has been all this time. Carol responds with that there are many planets that didn’t get the Avengers’ help. Thor gets up from his chair after eating some food, calls Stormbreaker with his hand very close to Carol, and says that he likes her. Steve says this before the title shows up: “Let’s go get this son of a bitch.” The heroes, minus Tony, head to The Garden on the Benatar via a jump point. Rocket tells the heroes who haven’t been to space yet to not vomit on the ship. Thankfully, that didn’t happen with anyone. Carol goes down to the planet to check for anything protecting Thanos. As this happens, Steve briefly looks at a compass that has a picture of Peggy Carter, who was the love of his life before he sacrificed himself to the icy water. This compass has appeared in previous movies in the MCU (starting with the first Captain America movie), letting Steve remember her in a way. Natasha tells Steve that this is going to work. Steve responds with this: “I know it will. Cause I don’t know what I’m gonna do if it doesn’t.” Carol goes back up and tells them that there is nothing protecting Thanos from any attacks. We cut to a scene with Thanos (Josh Brolin) on the planet. He is walking with a limp due to being wounded from using the stones again. Mainly, half of his face and body are burned. He is making something to eat from one of his crops while he has a scarecrow made of his armor outside. He is busy doing his thing when Carol suddenly attacks him and grabs his neck. Thanos is then surrounded by everyone and his hand containing the gauntlet is chopped off by Thor’s axe. Rocket flips the gauntlet to find that the stones are gone. Steve asks Thanos where the stones are, with Thanos responding with this: “The universe required correction. After that, the stones served no purpose, beyond temptation.” Banner in the Hulkbuster yells that Thanos murdered trillions of people and pushes him down to the ground and punches him. Natasha asks him where the stones are. They find out that the stones were destroyed (“reduced to atoms”) by Thanos, who was burned by doing so. He then says that “the work is done. It always will be. I am… inevitable.” Rhodes wonders if he is lying, but Nebula responds with this: “My father is many things. A liar is not one of them.” Thanos thanks her and says that he might’ve treated her too harshly before Thor chops his head off, which should have been the case in Wakanda. With the realization that the stones are destroyed and everyone who faded to dust is gone forever, the heroes leave and head back home. Nebula closes Thanos’ eyes as she looks down at his severed head. Thor is now in a depressed state as the movie cuts to five years later. We see shots of New York City that are desolate and dark. Boats are all next to each other, no baseball is going on at all, and everything looks bleak. Earth (and the universe as a whole) has still not recovered well from the Snap. We see a therapy roundtable discussion taking place. At this discussion, there are cameos from Joe Russo, who is one of the directors along with his brother Anthony, and Jim Starlin, who created Thanos for the comics. Joe talks about how things have changed since the Snap (also called the Decimation). He said that he went on a date and he and his partner both cried during their dinner. Steve says that he is glad that Joe took the first step in terms of moving on and finding purpose in life. He mentions that he sacrificed himself right after meeting the love of his life and woke up nearly 70 years later. He concludes with saying this: “The world is in our hands. It’s left to us guys, and we got to do something with it. Otherwise, Thanos should have killed all of us.” The movie then cuts to a storage facility in San Francisco where we see the van from “Ant-Man and the Wasp” in there. A rat somehow activates the Quantum tunnel and gets Scott Lang/Ant-Man (Paul Rudd) back to the human world. It seems that he was trapped in the Quantum Realm all this time. Scott yells to the security camera for help and he gets out of there with his belongings thanks to a security guy (played by Ken Jeong). As he is walking along a desolate street, he asks a boy on a bike what happened. The boy leaves without answering Scott, who then sees a huge memorial showing the names of people that faded into dust. He is desperately hoping not to find Cassie’s name on one of the plaques. He sees that his name is on it and he hurries back home. He rings the bell and bangs on the door a few times before we see an older Cassie (played by Emma Fuhrmann) open it and tear up. She cries happy tears when she sees her dad for the first time in 5 years. They hug each other in a sweet embrace before we cut to Natasha at the Avengers facility in New York. She is talking with Rocket, Nebula, Okoye (Danai Gurira), Carol, and Rhodes via hologram chat. Rocket says that he and Nebula smell like garbage after investigating a warship that Danvers pinged to them. Okoye tells Natasha that an earthquake happened underwater somewhere in Africa (called a tremor) and that they won’t handle it at all. Danvers tells everyone that she won’t be around for a long time due to her checking in on many planets across the universe. This snap happened on a universal scale, not just on Earth. All of them leave the call except for Rhodes, who tells Natasha about what Clint has done for the past 5 years. That includes murdering a whole bunch of cartel members in Mexico. Rhodes reluctantly agrees to give Natasha information about where Clint is going next.

After the call ends with Rhodes leaving, Natasha starts to cry as she is greeted by Steve Rogers, who came to see a friend and do some laundry. After he sits down, he says that he has been telling everyone to move on and grow. Both Steve and Natasha haven’t moved on from what happened 5 years ago. Natasha mentions her “family” (the Avengers) and how she became better because of it. She also mentions how much she misses the ones that were snapped from existence. Their conversation is interrupted when they come across surveillance footage of Scott and his van at the front gate. He mentions that they met at the airport in Germany. Scott is let in and talks to them about potentially going back in time via the Quantum Realm, where he was stuck for 5 years (he says that it was 5 hours to him). Scott thinks that it is crazy that he is thinking about time travel, to which Natasha replies that she gets emails from a raccoon (so nothing is too crazy to her). Scott wonders who to talk to about this. We cut to a log cabin near a lake where we see Tony Stark go outside to call his daughter to come inside for lunch. He sees his daughter Morgan (Lexi Rabe) get out of her tent wearing the helmet of Pepper’s anniversary gift (the Rescue suit). In a playful tone, she says “Define lunch or be disintegrated.” He tells her that she shouldn’t wear that and picks her up. He starts to bring her inside when he sees Steve, Natasha, and Scott get out of a car. They talk for a bit about trying to bring everyone back via time travel while drinking a smoothie (could be chocolate milk too). Scott references “Back to the Future” during the scene by saying that they can’t talk to their younger selves or bet on sports during their time heist. Tony calls him out on that and says no to them. Even with Scott’s desperate attempt to convince him, Tony tells them that he is not interested because of his wife and daughter. His daughter comes out to “save” him, which is a very cute moment. Steve, Scott, and Natasha then leave Tony’s house and go to talk to another guy that would have a big brain: Bruce Banner. They meet at a diner with a whole bunch of breakfast food. Bruce talks about the fact that they got their butts beaten by Thanos 5 years ago. Bruce lost two-fold: as the Hulk and as Bruce. In the meantime, he spent 18 months in a gamma laboratory after he thought of the Hulk as a cure. The result: he is now Professor Hulk (“Best of both worlds”). After some kids get a picture with the new Hulk, Steve gets him to talk about the plan. Bruce says that time travel is not his area of expertise, with Natasha saying that he pulled the Smart Hulk thing off. So maybe it’s possible to do time travel. We then cut to Tony washing dishes after he and his family had supper. During this, he comes across the framed picture of him and Peter Parker. At that moment, he knows what he is fighting for. Later in the evening, he tells his AI friend FRIDAY (Kerry Condon) to develop a model for a time travel wristband. She processes it and the model is successful, leaving Tony shocked in amazement and saying “Shit”. He then hears Morgan saying that same word. He tells her that only her mom can say that word. Morgan convinces her dad to have some juice pops before she goes to bed. Tony says this simple bedtime story to her. “Once upon a time, Maguna went to bed. The end.” After that, Morgan says to her dad this: “I love you 3000”. She then goes to bed for the night. Tony tells Pepper that he figured the time travel thing out (I am sure he worked on this on and off since after the Snap, not just in one night). She mentions to Tony that one of her biggest failures of her life is telling Tony to stop. She also asks him whether he’ll be able to rest after it’s all done. We cut to the first time travel test at the Avengers facility. We see Scott, Bruce, Steve, and Natasha at the facility. The test involves the van and the small quantum tunnel in it. Bruce tells Scott that he is going to let him walk around for an hour a week into the past and then bring him back. For Bruce, it will only take about 10 seconds to get Scott back. What follows is the test failing in a number of hilarious ways. First, Scott reappears as a pre-teen/teenager. Next, he comes back as an old man with a sore back. After that, he comes back as an adorable baby. The test is shut down and Scott comes back as his normal self, though he is unsure if the Scott who urinated was old him, baby him, or just normal him. Bruce then says this: “Time Travel!” As Steve walks away, Bruce says “I see this as an absolute win” (this part was, and still is, completely hilarious). Steve walks outside and hears a loud Audi car go to the facility. The window opens and we see Tony say this to Steve: “Why the long face? Let me guess: he (Scott) turned into a baby”. Steve says he did, among other things, and asks him what he is doing here. Tony gets out of the car and says this while ignoring Steve’s question: “That’s the EPR Paradox. Instead of pushing Lang through time, you might’ve wound up pushing time through Lang. It’s tricky. Dangerous. Somebody could’ve cautioned you against it.” Steve says that Tony did just that. In response, Tony says he fixed it and shows Steve his wrist thing, which is a “fully functioning Time-Space GPS”. He wants peace above all else (while doing the peace sign with his hand) and says that “resentment is corrosive and I hate it”. He says that he hopes to bring everyone back while keeping what he found, which is his wife and daughter (and not die trying). He opens the trunk of his car and gives Steve his Captain America shield. Steve is unsure at first, but Tony said that his father Howard made it for Steve. He also gave it to him to keep Morgan from going sledding on it. Steve thanks Tony for the shield and is then asked by him about bringing the whole team together. Steve says that they’re working on that part. We cut to Scott preparing to eat a taco until that and all of his chips are blown away when the Benatar ship lands next to the facility. Scott tells Rocket that “Big Green” (Banner) is in the kitchen. Rhodes then lands next to Scott in his War Machine suit and scares him. Bruce gets out of the facility, gives Scott two new tacos, and heads to a town in Norway (New Asgard) with Rocket via the Benatar to find Thor. After they arrive in town via a utility truck, Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson) said that they shouldn’t have come. She also tells Bruce that she liked him better when he was either regular Banner or regular Hulk (which I agree with). She tells both of them (mostly Bruce) that Thor won’t see them and that he only comes out once a month for his “supplies” (Asgardian beer). Banner and Rocket head to Thor’s house anyway. We see Thor in his “dad bod” form with Korg (Taika Waititi) and Miek. Basically, Thor has pretty much been eating and drinking his days away and secluding himself from everyone else since he chopped Thanos’ head off 5 years ago. He is happy to see his friends. He messes with Rocket’s head for a second. They hear Thor threatening to rip a kid’s arms and shove them up his butt for trash talking Korg while playing Fortnite. After that, Banner talks to him about the plan to fix everything. Banner mentions Thanos, which makes Thor change from happy to angry and depressed. Korg says that name is forbidden in the house. Banner thinks that Thor is scared of “that guy”. Thor responds that he is not scared of him and that he was the one who killed “that guy” with Stormbreaker. Hulk reminds Thor that he was the one who got him out of a rough spot on Sakaar in “Thor: Ragnarok”. Thor is initially not interested in going with them, but he is convinced to go with them when Rocket says that “there’s beer on the ship”. We then cut to Tokyo, Japan on a rainy night. We see a whole bunch of gang members getting killed by someone nicknamed Ronin. This Ronin guy has been on a killing spree since after the Snap. After he kills everyone in the gang, Natasha shows up behind him. It turns out that Ronin is Clint Barton. Natasha tells him that killing all of these people won’t get his family back. She tells him that the rest of the heroes have a plan, but he says “Don’t give me hope” while being in tears. They both hold hands before heading back to the facility.

The movie cuts to the Avengers facility where the big Quantum Tunnel is being built. Thor drinks some more beer with Tony walking to his left and calling him “Lebowski”. Tony then calls Rocket “Ratchet” and asks him how the construction is going. Rocket tells him to take it easy before Thor lets out a big burp. Scott tells Bruce to be careful with the Pym Particles, which are essential for the time travel suits. Scott says that they have enough for only one round trip per person (due to Hank Pym being snapped out of existence), plus two test runs. Scott accidentally uses one of the test particles and says that he is not ready for this. Clint says that he will go on the test. Before the test happens, Rhodes wonders if they can go back to when Thanos was a baby and strangle him with some rope (he does the hand gesture for this, which is both cruel and hilarious). Banner says that is awful and then says that “changing the past doesn’t change the future” (which it totally does, as I’ll talk about later). Both Scott and Rhodey mention a whole bunch of time travel movies, including “Terminator”, “Timecop”, “Hot Tub Time Machine”, and “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure.” Bruce then says this really confusing method of how time travel works: “If you travel to the past, that past becomes your future. And your former present becomes the past, which can’t now be changed by your new future”. Scott then says this: “So Back to the Future’s a bunch of bullshit?” After that, we see Clint do the test. He travels back in time to his house when his wife and kids were alive. He walks up to the house and hears his daughter Lila asking her brother Cooper where her headphones are. As he opens the door to try to get to her, he gets brought back to the present day. After he recovers, he tells everyone that it worked while tossing a baseball glove to Tony. Everyone goes into a conference room to figure out where and when to go after the Infinity Stones. Bruce again mentions the fact that they only have enough Pym Particles for one round trip each. The Infinity Stones have been in a number of different places across the universe over the years, so it’s important that they pick their destinations in time wisely. Thor looks asleep during this at first, but he wakes up to talk about the Reality Stone. He mentions that the stone was an angry sludge called the Aether (from “Thor: The Dark World”). He says that his grandfather had to hide the Aether from the Dark Elves. He also mentions his old girlfriend Jane Foster, who got the Aether in her after she encountered it in London. After saying that Jane was brought to Asgard, he gets in a down mood about him not dating her anymore and his mom being dead. The last thing he says before he is done is that “the only thing permanent in life is impermanence”. Tony asks Thor if he wants eggs, with Thor wanting a Bloody Mary instead. The next stone they discuss (while eating Chinese food) is the Power Stone, which was first seen in the first Guardians of the Galaxy movie. Rocket says that Peter Quill/Star-Lord took the stone, which was in an orb, on Morag. Banner confuses Morag for a person, but Rocket corrects him on that by saying Morag is a planet and Quill was a person. Rocket then talks to Scott like he wins a puppy, which is hilarious. Not shown in the Final Cut is a scene in which Steve and Rhodes talk briefly about the Tesseract (Space Stone). Steve mentions that he saw it when he faced the Red Skull back in 1945 on the huge Hydra ship that carried bombs that said New York and Chicago among other US cities. He saw the Red Skull get teleported to somewhere in space (Vormir) after holding it. Another stone that is discussed offscreen is the Mind Stone, which first appeared in the first Avengers movie in Loki’s scepter. From there, the stone was integrated into Vision in “Age of Ultron”. Vision kept it on his forehead until it was plucked by Thanos in “Infinity War”. The next stone that they discuss is the Soul Stone, which was seen when Thanos sacrificed Gamora for it on Vormir. They then talk about the Time Stone, which was first seen in “Doctor Strange”. After some talking about where Doctor Strange lived, Natasha says to Tony and Bruce that if they pick the correct year, three Infinity Stones are in New York City. Banner responds to this revelation with “Shut the front door”. Everything is then figured out. The heroes are going to get the stones in teams of three. Steve, Tony, Bruce, and Scott will go to New York in the year of 2012 during the events of the first Avengers movie to get the Mind, Space, and Time Stones. Rocket and Thor will go to get the Aether (Reality Stone) during the events of “Thor: The Dark World” in 2013 on Asgard. Nebula, Rhodes, Clint, and Natasha will go to space in the year of 2014 for the Power and Soul Stones during the events of the first Guardians of the Galaxy movie. Everyone walks to the Quantum Realm machine that will send them to their various spots. Steve says this speech before they all go: “5 years ago, we lost. All of us. We lost friends, we lost family, we lost a part of ourselves. Today, we have a chance to take it all back. You know your teams, you know your missions. Get the stones, get them back. One round trip each. No mistakes. No do-overs. Most of us are going somewhere we know. That doesn’t mean we should know what to expect. Be careful. Look out for each other. This is the fight of our lives. And we’re gonna win. Whatever it takes. Good luck.” After the speech, Bruce gets the machine ready for everyone. The heroes then go through the Quantum Realm to their respective locations in time.

The movie cuts to New York City in the year of 2012. We see the iconic circle shot of the original Avengers team as they go to fight the Chitauri and Loki. The current versions of Steve, Bruce, and Tony (plus Scott) land in an alley away from the chaos. They go to their separate assignments and make sure to keep their eye on the clock. Steve tells Bruce to smash some things along the way after they see 2012 Hulk jump on a car to crush a chitauri soldier. Current Smart Hulk lightly damages a car and throws a motorcycle before going to see The Ancient One (Tilda Swinton) and asking her about the Time Stone. He firsts asks her where Doctor Strange is, with her responding that he is a few years early. He wants the Time Stone from her necklace (the Eye of Agamotto), but she pushes the astral out of his body. We’ll go back to that conversation in a bit. We cut to Asgard in 2013 during the events of “Thor: The Dark World”. We see “Dad Bod” Thor and Rocket sneak by the prison cell where Loki (Tom Hiddleston) tosses something up in the air and catches it a few times. The two of them see Jane go to her room while Rocket tells Thor what to do. Basically, they have something that will extract the Aether from Jane. Therefore, they should get the Reality Stone quickly as long as Thor distracts her with some compliments. Thor is not up to it because he is nervous and having a panic attack. The reason why is that he realizes that this is the day that his mom Frigga (Rene Russo) gets killed by a dark elf. Rocket slaps him out of his panic attack and tries to get him focused on getting the stone and bringing everyone back. Even with the pep talk, Thor can’t do it and leaves Rocket all by himself to sneak into Jane’s room. We then cut to Morag in 2014, where we see a pod being lowered from the Benatar ship. Clint and Natasha go to Vormir for the Soul Stone while Rhodes and Nebula stay on Morag for the Power Stone (but not before a hug between Rhodes and Natasha). While Clint and Natasha make their way to Vormir, Nebula tells Rhodes to take cover and that they’re not the only ones looking for the stones in 2014 (while waiting for Peter Quill to show up). Mainly, Thanos, Gamora, and her other self. We see the other Nebula and Gamora (Zoe Saldana) fight some Korbinite soldiers. Nebula is saved by Gamora from one of them before they both go to see Thanos. Gamora tells her that he has found the Power Stone on Morag. Thanos appears with his helmet and a huge double-edged sword. He tells them that Ronan (who we don’t see this time) has located the stone and that Thanos is dispatching his daughters to his ship. Gamora says that Ronan won’t like that, with Thanos responding that “his alternative is death.” He then says that “Ronan’s obsession clouds his judgement.” Nebula tells her dad that she will make him proud before her head glitches up and plays a vision of current Nebula’s conversation with Rhodes. After the memory stops playing, Gamora says that Nebula’s sypnatic drive might’ve been damaged during the battle. Nebula is brought onto the mothership for an inspection. We then cut back to 2012 in New York City. Tony flies to the top of Stark Tower in his suit where he sees the original Avengers team apprehend Loki. Loki says this familiar line: “If it’s all the same to you, I’ll have that drink now”. They get him on his feet and go to the elevator. Current Tony mentions that the suit that 2012 Captain America had did nothing for his butt. Scott says this line: “As far as I’m concerned, that’s America’s Ass.” The scepter that contains the Mind Stone is then taken by a STRIKE (Hydra) team led by Rumlow (Frank Grillo) and Agent Sitwell (Maximiliano Hernandez). Current Tony somehow hides from them and flicks Ant-Man to 2012 Tony as the suitcase containing the Tesseract (Space Stone) is closed. 2012 Captain America goes to coordinate search and rescue while everyone but 2012 Hulk go on the elevator. 2012 Hulk is forced to take the stairs. Current Tony flies around the building and tells current Captain America that the scepter is on the elevator that passed the 80th floor of the Stark Tower. Current Captain America enters the elevator that has Rumlow and Sitwell in it. He is able to get the scepter by whispering “Hail Hydra” to Sitwell and exits the elevator at a lower floor. After a brief moment of 2012 Hulk being angry at the stairs, we cut to the lobby of Stark Tower. Current Tony, who is wearing a security outfit, tells Ant-Man to go down to 2012 Tony’s Arc Reactor. 2012 Tony and 2012 Thor meet Alexander Pierce (Robert Redford), who wants to take Loki and the briefcase that Tony has from them. A scuffle between 2012 Tony and Pierce’s men for the briefcase occurs, which causes current Tony to tell Scott to pull off the reactor plug. This causes 2012 Tony to have a “mild cardiac dysrythmia”. Current Tony yells for medical help while Ant-Man gets out of the Arc Reactor and kicks the briefcase containing the Tesseract to Current Tony. Current Tony tells Current Steve to meet him in the alley after a slice of pizza. But then, he gets knocked to the ground by an angry Hulk who made it all the way downstairs. During Hulk’s rage (“NO STAIRS”), the case opens up and the Tesseract slides down to Loki, who picks it up and teleports somewhere unknown (setting up the Loki show on Disney+). 2012 Thor helps revive 2012 Tony’s Arc Reactor with Mjolnir, but is panicked when Loki is nowhere to be found. Current Tony and Scott realize that they screwed up. Meanwhile, Steve is walking on an upper floor when he sees his 2012 self in front of him. 2012 Captain America mistakes current Captain America for Loki. Current Captain America says that he is not Loki and he doesn’t want to hurt his 2012 self. They fight each other for a bit. After 2012 Cap kicks Current Cap down, he says “I can do this all day” to him. Each Captain America throws his shield at the other. As both shields fall down, the two Captain Americas fight some more, kicking the scepter down to a lower level in the process. After that, they both fall down several levels of the building. 2012 Cap picks up the compass containing the picture of Peggy Carter and asks Current Cap where he got it. Current Cap then nearly gets choked when he reminds 2012 Cap that Bucky is alive. After this realization, Current Cap knocks 2012 Cap out with the scepter. Current Cap stares at 2012 Cap and says “That is America’s Ass” before he walks away with the scepter and the compass.

Back at the rooftop of the New York Sanctum, Bruce is still in spirit form trying to convince the Ancient One to give the Time Stone to him. She tells him that the Infinity Stones create the perfect flow of time and that removing one of them makes a separate branch. In response, he tells her that once they are done with their mission, they will bring the stones back at the moment that they were taken. He promises that they will survive, but she says that she can’t risk the reality on a promise. She says that it is “the duty of the Sorcerer Supreme to protect the Time Stone.” She is told that Strange gave it to Thanos on Titan in “Infinity War” to save Tony Stark. Banner is brought back to Smart Hulk form and is given the Time Stone. We cut to the big ship called Sanctuary II in 2014. Ebony Maw (Tom Vaughn-Lawlor) is told by Thanos to run diagnostics on 2014 Nebula. Maw says that the memory that was played wasn’t from that version of Nebula. They play another memory of current Nebula where we see another perspective of the scene where the Avengers talk about when and where to get the Infinity Stones. Thanos tells Maw to freeze the memory and enhance the reflection that he saw. It turns out that it’s current Nebula and Thanos tells Maw to set course for Morag and scan the duplicate’s memories. We cut to Asgard in 2013 where Thor is trying to hide from his mom Frigga. She finds him anyway and they both shriek at each other. She figures out that Thor is from the future, which he admits to her before they hug each other and talk for a bit. We then see Jane Foster (Natalie Portman) wake up from a nap and start to walk around her room. Rocket sneaks up on her and extracts the Aether. Thor tells his mom about Thanos and being “some idiot with an axe.” She tells him that he is not an idiot, although she does tell him that he is a failure and like everyone else. Thor tells her that he is not supposed to be like everyone else. She tells him that everyone fails at who they’re supposed to be and that “The measure of a person, of a hero, is how well they succeed at being who they are”. Rocket runs away from the guards, gets to Thor with the Aether and tells him that they got to go. Before they go, Thor hugs his mom one more time and grabs Mjolnir. Thor is amazed that he is still worthy of the hammer. After Rocket and Thor leave Asgard, we cut to 2014 Morag where Peter Quill/Star-Lord (Chris Pratt) is dancing to Redbone’s “Come And Get Your Love”. We see some new angles and some original shots from the first “Guardians of the Galaxy” movie. The music then cuts and we hear Quill sing without it. Rhodes then knocks Quill out and they take his key. When they enter the room where the orb is, Nebula grabs it with her metal arm while getting it burned in the process. They both attempt to sync up to go back to present day when something goes wrong. Rhodes goes back to present day, but Nebula is stuck as a memory is being played from 2014 Nebula’s head. The memory is the moment where the Avengers (minus Tony) learn that Thanos destroyed the stones. The memory ends with the beheading of Thanos by Thor and his axe. 2014 Nebula is almost choked to death by Maw for being a traitor. She pleads that she would never betray her father. Thanos saves her from choking and tells her that she can prove it to him. Current Nebula panics and runs to the pod. She tries to connect with Clint and Natasha and tell them that Thanos knows of the plan to get the stones. She and the pod get beamed up by Thanos’ ship (she should have went back to present time during this with her wristband). The movie cuts to New York in 2012 where Steve, Tony, and Scott meet at the alley. Scott blames Tony for ruining the Time Heist, even though, to Tony’s defense, he didn’t know that the 2012 Hulk ran into him. It seems that all is lost until Tony says that there is a way to retake the Tesseract and acquire new Pym Particles. Scott tells the two of them while they are entering in the year and location that if this plan fails, then they’re stuck in the past. Tony frustratingly says this to Scott: “Thanks for the pep talk, Piss-Ant.” Steve trusts Tony and they both go to New Jersey in the year of 1970 while Scott goes back to present day with the scepter. The first thing we see in 1970 New Jersey is the final Stan Lee cameo in the MCU. He yells “Hey, man! Make love, not war” before driving past the SHIELD facility at Camp Lehigh with a beautiful lady (A little note here before we continue: in all of the MCU movies with Stan Lee, he has been confirmed to be the Watcher Informant by James Gunn and Kevin Feige). Steve and Tony walk and see Arnim Zola (Toby Jones) enter his “secret” elevator with his assistant before going to their missions. Tony goes to get the Tesseract while Steve goes to get the particles. Tony is able to find the cube and put it in a suitcase when, all of a sudden, he runs into his father Howard (John Slattery). Tony calls himself Howard Potts for the moment before they both take a walk. We then cut to the office of Hank Pym (Michael Douglas), which has ants and an old Ant-Man helmet, among other things. Pym gets a call about a package that he is forced to run for, letting Steve get into the office and take four particles. We cut to another part of the conversation between Howard and Tony (Howard Potts). Howard says that his wife is expecting and that she is at the point where she can’t stand his chewing sound. Tony says that he has a girl, which Howard says would be nice. Elsewhere, Steve hides from security in another office. This office turns out to be the one where Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell) does her work. He sees a picture of his skinny self and then sees Peggy talk with someone else. Steve has a moment of silence thinking about Peggy before we cut to outside. Howard asks Tony if he was nervous when his kid was born, with Tony saying yes and later saying that he pieced it together as he went along. Tony also says that his father was tough on him, but he now only remembers the good things. Tony tells him that his father dropped this line of wisdom: “No amount of money ever bought a second of time.” Howard says that there is nothing he would not do for his future son. Tony hugs his dad before they part ways with each other. Tony and Steve then head back to present day. Meanwhile, on Thanos’ ship in 2014, 2014 Nebula punches her present self and steals her time-space GPS wristband. Current Nebula tries to tell 2014 Gamora what happens in the future. Before she is finished, she is kicked by her younger and evil self, who takes the Pym Particle and her orange stripes. That way, 2014 Nebula can disguise herself well enough for the others to not notice the difference (other than the arm). We then cut to Clint and Natasha landing on Vormir. They climb the mountain and hear the Red Skull (Ross Marquand) welcome them. He tells them that he is a guide to all who seek the Soul Stone. Unfortunately, it’s not as easy as they think it will be. Back in “Infinity War”, Thanos had to sacrifice Gamora for the stone (“a soul for a soul”). Now, Clint and Natasha face a similar dilemma: who will sacrifice themselves to potentially help save the people who got snapped? After an emotional talk between the two, they have an altercation about who will jump. Clint takes Natasha down and tells her to tell his family that he loves them. Natasha takes him down and shocks him while telling him to “tell them yourself”. Clint recovers from that and shoots an exploding arrow at her to knock her to the side. He starts to jump to his death, but Natasha saves him by connecting him to a grappling hook. Clint doesn’t want her to die, but she kicks the rock wall and falls to her death. As a result of her death, Clint gets the Soul Stone and he gets back to present day with the rest of them.

Everyone is happy that they got the stones until they ask Clint about Natasha. Bruce goes down and punches the ground in sadness. Outside of the building by the lake, Bruce, Tony, Steve, Thor, and Clint mourn the loss of Natasha. Thor says that as long as they have the stones, they can get her back. Clint says that her death is permanent and can’t be undone. Clint yells at Thor to grab his hammer, and fly to the cloak guy and talk to him. After that, he turns back to grieving and says that it should have been him who died for the stone. Hulk angrily throws a bench to the water and says that they have to make her death worth it. Steve says that they will, which then cuts to a scene in the lab where Tony carefully puts the stones in the Iron Gauntlet. After the stones are put in the glove, Rocket scares Tony and Bruce by yelling “Boom” (which is hilarious). All of the heroes (minus Nebula, who got trapped in 2014) then have a debate on who will snap their fingers with the gauntlet. Thor initially volunteers for the task, saying that he is the strongest Avenger. He pleads with Tony and the rest to do it, but Tony says that he is in no condition to do it. Thor asks them what they think is coursing through his veins right now. After Rhodes quips with saying “Cheez-Whiz”, Thor says that it is lightning. Bruce says that lightning won’t help Thor and it is up to him to do it. Before he puts the gauntlet on, Tony reminds him to just bring back everyone that faded into dust 5 years ago. Tony then tells FRIDAY to activate “Barn Door Protocol”, which locks the whole facility down. Bruce gets the gauntlet in his right hand and it burns his hand to a crisp. He is doing ok thanks to the gamma radiation. Meanwhile, 2014 Nebula brings Thanos’ ship to present day via the Quantum Tunnel. Bruce is able to get through the pain and snaps his fingers. The gauntlet falls off his hand as Bruce collapses to the ground. Tony uses his nano tech glue to heal him partially. As the heroes are around Bruce, Clint hears his phone vibrating. The caller is his wife Laura. He picks up the phone and struggles to talk with her due to his happiness and shock that it worked. Scott looks at some birds on the tree and says that it worked. Their victory is not for long, as Thanos’ ship blasts the Avengers facility to pieces with a whole bunch of missiles. The whole team is sent underground, with Hulk struggling to lift up some debris. Rhodes gets out of his suit and rescues Rocket from being crushed. The three of them then get flooded with water. Scott gets up in small form and is communicated by Banner about the flood. The movie then cuts to Clint as he is in the sewer system with the gauntlet. He hears something in the distance and shoots an arrow at it. He runs away when he realizes that what he hears was the Outriders (“Space Dogs”). We cut to Thanos being beamed down from his ship in full armor. He is pleased with what his daughter did. He then puts his sword down, takes off his helmet, and sits down. He tells her to find the stones and bring them to him while he just waits. Meanwhile, on the ship, current Nebula tells 2014 Gamora that they become sisters in the future (even though Nebula tried to kill her a few times). 2014 Gamora tells current Nebula that they can stop Thanos. After that brief scene, we see Tony wake up Steve and tell him that if he loses the shield again, he’s keeping it. Tony brings Steve up and they both walk to Thor, who is standing by his lonesome. Thor sees that Thanos has been doing absolutely nothing. Thankfully, the stones are under all of this damage on the surface. They want to keep it that way, even though it could be a trap. Thor summons both Stormbreaker and Mjolnir and says this: “Let’s kill him properly this time.”

Iron Man, Captain America, and Thor all walk towards Thanos with the mission to kill him. Thanos says this to them as they walk to him: “You could not live with your own failure. And where did that bring you? Back to me. I thought by eliminating half of life, the other half would thrive. But you’ve shown me that’s impossible. And as long as there are those that remember what was, there will always be those that are unable to accept what can be. They will resist.” Tony responds with the fact that they are “all kinds of stubborn”. Thanos says that he will shred the universe to its last atom and use the stones to create a new one “teeming with life, that knows not what it has lost but only what has been given.” Steve says that this universe would be “born out of blood”, with Thanos responding with this: “They’ll never know. Because you won’t be alive to tell them.” As the trio starts fighting Thanos, Scott runs and swims to try to save Bruce, Rhodes, and Rocket. While that is going on, Clint is still running away from the Outriders. Clint blows the sewer system up to kill some of the Outriders and grapples up to another level while slicing some of the remaining Outriders in half. He lays on the ground for a moment before seeing Nebula. Only this Nebula is the 2014 one who takes the gauntlet and points a gun at Clint. Gamora stops her sister from shooting Clint and a standoff ensues with the two Nebulas and Gamora (with Clint getting out of the way). Gamora and current Nebula tries to convince 2014 Nebula to change her ways. 2014 Nebula says that Thanos won’t let her change. Gamora almost gets shot, but current Nebula shoots her past self in the heart (If this had Back to the Future logic, current Nebula would fade from existence). With the evil Nebula dead, Clint takes the gauntlet back for the moment. We cut back to the fight between the Big 3 (Iron Man, Captain America, and Thor) and Thanos. Thor summons lightning from both Mjolnir and Stormbreaker to Tony’s suit. The lightning is used to help Tony shoot lasers from his hands and body. That laser energy is diverted back to him due to Thanos twirling his double blade super fast. As an alternative, Thor tosses Mjolnir in the air to hit it like a baseball (with Stormbreaker as the bat). Tony is used by Thanos as a shield for the hammer and gets knocked out for the moment as a result. Steve gets knocked away by Thanos before Thor fights him for a bit. Thor tries to swing for the head, but is unsuccessful. He loses the grip of the axe and gets punched, kicked, and thrown around by Thanos. Thor summons the axe, but Thanos catches it instead and starts to push it towards Thor’s heart, with Thor doing his best to resist being killed. Suddenly, we see Mjolnir rise up from the ground. Thanos is hit by it as it comes back to Captain America. Thor is amazed by this before he is kicked by Thanos. What follows is a fantastic display of Steve using the hammer and the shield against Thanos. He swings the hammer at him, throws the hammer at the shield to create a shockwave, hits him with both the hammer and the shield, and summons lightning twice at him. That display ends after that as Thanos gets the upper hand on Steve. Steve is thrown down and stabbed on the leg. He loses the hammer and half of his shield thanks to Thanos and his sword. He gets knocked away by him and is slow to get back up. Thanos says this to Steve: “In all my years of conquest-violence-slaughters, it was never personal. But I’ll tell you now, what I’m about to do to your stubborn, annoying little planet, I’m gonna enjoy it. Very, very much.” Thanos’ entire army, including the Children of Thanos, Outriders, Leviathan ships, and Chitauri gorillas, are sent down from the mothership. Steve sees all of this as he slowly gets up and tightens his broken shield to his arm, which has a battle wound.

It seems like all is lost until Steve hears something in his ear. That voice turns out to be Sam Wilson/Falcon (Anthony Mackie), who says “On your left” as a portal opens up from Wakanda. The first three people to appear are Okoye, Shuri (Letitia Wright), and T’Challa/Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman). After the three of them and Steve share a moment, Falcon flies over from the portal to the battlefield (By the way, the music for this entire scene is fantastic). As T’Challa, Okoye, and Shuri is followed by the Wakandan army (including M’Baku [Winston Duke]), a whole bunch of portals open up. One of these portals comes from Titan and has Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch), Star-Lord (Chris Pratt), Drax (Dave Bautista), Mantis (Pom Klementieff), and Spider-Man (Tom Holland). Valkyrie and her horse arrive as well, along with Korg, Miek, and plenty of Asgardian soldiers. We also see Groot (Vin Diesel), Wanda Maximoff/Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen), Bucky (Sebastian Stan), Wong (Benedict Wong), Hope Van Dyne/Wasp (Evangeline Lilly), and Pepper Potts in her Rescue suit (plus a lot of Masters of Mystic Arts, Wakandan ships, and Ravagers). Finally, giant Ant-Man appears from the rubble of the Avengers building with Hulk, Rhodes, and Rocket. The Avengers theme starts playing, culminating with Captain America getting the hammer and finally saying this phrase: “Avengers… Assemble”. With those words, the theme fully kicks into gear and everyone goes after Thanos’ army and the biggest MCU fight ensues. Everyone plays a part in this fight, which is pretty much a big spectacle. After we see Steve and Thor switch weapons, we see Tony take care of some chitauri before getting slapped by Cull Obsidian. Spider-Man and Giant-Man save Tony from Obsidian before Tony and Peter Parker have a moment together. Peter talks about being in Space 5 years ago and getting dusty. As he is rambling, Tony gives him a hug, which lasts for a few seconds. Star-Lord fights some bad guys for a bit before getting knocked down by one of them. Gamora saves Quill from that one and then they get close to one another. Quill thinks that he reunited with his lover. Instead, Gamora kicks him in the nuts. After that scene, we see Clint running with the gauntlet (with Falcon saving him from a chitauri gorilla) and asking Captain America what to do with it. Steve tells him to keep the stones as far away as possible (while fighting an Outrider). Banner interjects with saying that they need to put them back where they came from. Tony says that there is no way to do that since the Quantum Tunnel was destroyed. Scott shrinks to normal size and tells them that there is another Time Machine. “La Cucaracha” plays as they see the “ugly brown van” that is parked in enemy territory. Scott tells Steve that he needs maybe 10 minutes to get the machine running. Tony talks to Strange about the 1 out of 14,000,605 chance of winning and asks him if this is it. Strange says this: “If I tell you what happens, it won’t happen.” Tony says that Strange better be right about it. Once Hope and Scott make it to the van, they realize that it’s dead and Scott needs to hot wire it. Clint still has the gauntlet, but he gets surrounded by some Outriders. Thankfully, T’Challa saves him and tells him to give the gauntlet to him. T’Challa proceeds to run with the gauntlet while taking care of some enemies in the process. Eventually, he gets hit by Thanos’ double-edged sword. Wanda saves T’Challa and has her own fight with Thanos. She says “You took everything from me”, with Thanos saying “I don’t even know who you are.” Wanda responds with “You will” before fighting him. She uses her telekinetic powers to throw some big pieces of debris at Thanos. Meanwhile, Ebony Maw uses his powers to lift up the gauntlet with the ground. Black Panther jumps for it, but is brought towards Maw. Spider-Man swings by and takes the gauntlet for a bit. He activates instant kill on the chitauri using the iron spider legs. Wanda almost gets killed by the sword, but she is able to break it partially and then send Thanos to the sky. She wants to kill Thanos, but before she is able to, Thanos is able to tell his army and the ship to fire at the heroes. All heck breaks loose as everyone gets hit by the cannons (even Thanos’ army). Wong and the other sorcerers help by making shields to protect most areas. One of the cannon shots hits a dam, which causes a lot of water to fall down on the battlefield. Strange uses his magical abilities to keep the water away. Elsewhere, Spider-Man is surrounded by too many enemies and yells for help. Captain America throws the hammer towards Spider-Man, who uses his webbing to take a ride on it. The webbing brakes off thanks to the cannon from the ship, but Parker is caught by Pepper, who brings him up to Valkyrie’s horse. That horse ride is short thanks to the cannon, but the iron spider legs help Parker land safely. Those legs get broken thanks to the cannon, and Parker takes cover. The cannons keep shooting at the heroes until they turn around and shoot at the sky.

Why are they shooting at the sky? Well, it’s because Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel is on Earth to help the Avengers fight Thanos and his army. She starts by destroying Thanos’ ship easily. We then see Scott turn the small Quantum Tunnel on. Danvers goes down to where Spider-Man is and takes the gauntlet from him. Peter Parker asks her how she’ll get through all of the enemies. Wanda says “Don’t worry” and Okoye says “She’s got help”. What follows is the girl power shot with Carol, Wanda, Okoye, Pepper, Shuri, Wasp, Nebula, Gamora, Mantis, and Valkyrie. Gamora takes down a Chitauri gorilla, Okoye kills Corvus Glaive with her spear, and Wanda helps Valkyrie kill two Leviathans. Danvers flies through the fire and explosions with the gauntlet as she is going to the Quantum Tunnel. Shuri, Pepper, and Wasp blast at Thanos to help Danvers, but they let him go. He is able to throw his sword at the tunnel and destroy it (I kinda thought that he was going to transport the sword to the Quantum Realm). Strange keeps the water at bay despite the explosion. After the van is destroyed, the mission is to keep the gauntlet from Thanos. Iron Man tackles Thanos, but gets knocked away by him. Thor desperately tries to chop Thanos’ head off, with Steve helping, but Thanos knocks both of them out. Carol punches Thanos a couple of times before she is thrown away. Thanos gets the gauntlet on, but Carol stops him from snapping his fingers. She keeps the gauntlet open similar to Captain America in “Infinity War”. Thanos head-butts her, but it does nothing. She has him down on his knees, but he takes the Power Stone off the gauntlet and knocks her out with it. Tony looks at Strange, who signals the number one, which means that this could be the only way the heroes win. Thanos puts the stone back on the gauntlet, but Tony gets to him and pulls on it. Tony is knocked away and Thanos gets his glove set to snap. Thanos says “I am… inevitable” and snaps his fingers, but it does nothing as the stones are no longer on the gauntlet. We see the stones on Tony’s glove, resulting in the gamma radiation going through his body. Tony says this iconic line: “And I… am… Iron Man”. After those words, he snaps his fingers and all of Thanos’ army, ships, and Thanos himself fade into dust (a deleted scene shows a vision of Tony with an adult version of his daughter Morgan). After all of the enemies fade into dust, we see Tony with half of his body fatally burned from the snap. He limps for a bit before he sits down against some debris. The first guy to get to Tony is Rhodes, who looks at Tony for a few seconds before realizing that he is not going to survive. Next is Peter Parker, who tries to tell Tony that the good people won. He breaks down and cries before Pepper gets to Tony. Pepper tells Tony that they’ll be okay and that he “can rest now”. After those words, Tony’s chest light turns off and he dies. Pepper gives him a kiss and then cries on his shoulder. We fade to black and then see a montage of reunions. We see Clint reunite with his family at their home, Peter Parker reunite with his best friend Ned (Jacob Batalon) at school, T’Challa and Shuri reunite with their mom Ramonda (Angela Bassett) in Wakanda, and Scott chilling with Hope and Cassie while fireworks are in the sky in San Francisco. During this, emotional music is playing thanks to the score by Alan Silvestri. Tony says this narration as this montage is happening: “Everybody wants a happy ending, right? But it doesn’t always roll that way. Maybe this time. I’m hoping if you play this back, it’s in celebration. I hope families are reunited, I hope we get it back, and something like a normal version of the planet has been restored. If there ever was such a thing. God, what a world. Universe, now. If you told me 10 years ago that we weren’t alone, let alone, you know, to this extent, I mean, I wouldn’t have been surprised. But come on, you know? The epic forces of darkness and light have come into play. And, for better or worse, that’s the reality Morgan’s gonna have to find a way to grow up in. (We cut to the Stark house where Tony’s hologram is shown via the Iron Man helmet) So I thought I’d probably better record a little greeting… in the case of an untimely death on my part. I mean, not that, death at any time isn’t untimely. This time travel thing we’re gonna try and pull off tomorrow, it’s…it’s got me scratching my head about the survivability of it all. That’s the thing. Then again, that’s the hero gig. Part of the journey is the end. (Tony gets up from the chair and gets near the loved ones) What am I even trippin’ for? Everything’s gonna work out exactly the way it’s supposed to. (Directed at Morgan) I love you 3000.” After that, we see Pepper with a wreath on her hands. She puts it on the lake. On the wreath is the chest piece that says “Proof that Tony Stark has a Heart” from the first “Iron Man” movie. We then see a long steady shot of everyone mourning the loss of Tony Stark. Pepper, Morgan, Happy Hogan (Jon Favreau), Rhodes, Steve Rogers, Peter Parker, Aunt May (Marisa Tomei), Thor, Banner, Strange, Wong, Scott, Hope, Janet Van Dyne (Michelle Pfeiffer), Hank Pym, Quill, Drax, Nebula, Mantis, Groot, T’Challa, Shuri, Okoye, Clint and his family, Wanda, Sam, Bucky, Harley Keener (believe it or not, Ty Simpkins from “Iron Man 3”), Secretary Thaddeus Ross (William Hurt), Maria Hill (Cobie Smulders), Carol, and Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) all pay their respects to Tony at the house. After that long shot, we cut to Wanda and Clint talk by the water. Clint wonders if he is able to tell Natasha that they won. Wanda says that she knows from Heaven. Both of them embrace each other before we see a brief moment with Happy and Morgan. Happy asks Morgan if she is hungry and what she wants. She responds with “cheeseburgers” (a nod to the cheeseburger scene in “Iron Man”). Happy tells her that he’ll get her all the cheeseburgers she wants.

We cut to New Asgard where Thor talks with Valkyrie. She asks him when Thor will come back from his adventures with the Guardians of the Galaxy. Thor is unsure about that, with Valkyrie responding that Asgard needs a king. Thor says that they already have one in Valkyrie (my guess is a king/queen combo). She tells him that some big changes will be made to New Asgard. After their talk is over, Thor heads to the Benatar to be with Quill and the gang. Thor calls the group “Asgardians of the Galaxy”. Quill reminds Thor that he is in charge, with Thor responding with “Of course” plenty of times. The others think that the two should fight each other for the role of leader. Thankfully, no fight happens and Quill is in charge. We then cut to a scene with Banner, Steve, Bucky, and Sam. Banner tells Steve to put the stones back where they came from to keep any weird time branches from being a thing. Sam offers to help him, but Steve says that the mission is his own. Steve then hugs Bucky before going on the mission. Banner tells Sam that Steve will be back in 5 seconds (even though Steve can take however much time he needs). Steve makes sure to put the hammer back in Asgard in addition to the Reality Stone. Everything is going according to plan until Steve fails to reappear. Sam tells Banner to get him back before Bucky interrupts him. They all see an old man sitting on a bench. That old man is Steve Rogers, who put the stones back but went to 1945 to be with Peggy Carter and marry her. Sam walks up to him and asks him if something went wrong or right. Steve tells him that after he put the stones back, he wanted to have that life Tony was telling him to get. In response, Sam tells him that he is happy for him. He also says that the only thing bad about this is that there won’t be a Captain America. Old Steve then gives Sam the shield and tells him to try it on. Sam is asked how it feels, with him responding that it feels “like it’s someone else’s”. Old Steve says that it is Sam’s alone. Sam tells him thank you and he’ll do his best. Sam asks about “her” (Peggy) after seeing the wedding ring on Steve’s hand. Steve says this: “No. No, I don’t think I will.” The last scene we see is Steve and Peggy dancing at her house in 1945. The name montage is long, but it has some great music by Alan Silvestri. The Avengers theme plays when we see the names of the OG Avengers team. Almost all of the names have a clip of their respective characters in action. For the OG Avengers, we see montages of the characters in action along with their autographs. The order that they are shown is this: Jeremy Renner as Clint Barton/Hawkeye, Scarlett Johansson as Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow, Chris Hemsworth as Thor, Mark Ruffalo as Bruce Banner/Hulk, Chris Evans as Steve Rogers/Captain America, and finally, the one that started it all: Robert Downey, Jr. as Tony Stark/Iron Man. There is no post-credits scene, but we hear a jazz version of “Make Way for Tomorrow Today” (a song by Richard Sherman that we heard in “Iron Man 2” at the Stark Expo scene). As the Marvel Studios logo is shown, we hear some metal clanging. This is a callback to the first Iron Man movie and a tribute to Tony Stark. Another thought (to me) is that the metal clanging is Morgan making her own Iron suit in tribute to her dad.

Seeing “Avengers: Endgame” in the theater was an awesome experience that I’ll never forget. There were plenty of laughs, plenty of awesome moments, and definitely some tears at the end. With “Endgame” being the conclusion to the Infinity Saga, I knew that, at some point, we would be saying goodbye to iconic characters in some way. I was nervous during the fight that occurred between the Big 3 (Iron Man, Captain America, and Thor) and Thanos. I thought that Thor was going to get killed before Cap saved him through being worthy of Mjolnir. That scene with Cap and the hammer was great. That scene was short though, and I was nervous as heck when Cap got knocked away and struggled to get up. Even now, I still tear up in joy when the portal scene happens and all of the heroes appear at the battlefield. I get hyped up and roar after Captain America says “Avengers… Assemble”. Every time that I see the death of Tony Stark (plus the funeral scene), I tear up a lot. Similarly, I get emotional when I see Steve and Peggy finally get that dance together. As a movie, “Endgame” is not as strong as “Infinity War”. As much of a fun ride this movie was, it has some flaws. There were some missed opportunities to take care of Thanos during the climax. In the final fight after the van got destroyed, there should have been more help to stop Thanos from getting the gauntlet. Yes, there is the excuse that this was supposedly the one outcome in which they win thanks to Strange. Even with that, at least Spider-Man could have helped by webbing the gauntlet from the ground while Thor and Cap were fighting Thanos. Two strong characters (T’Challa and Drax, for instance) should have held on to Thanos’ arms to help Thor kill him. Heck, even before the chaos began, Thor should have thrown his hammer at Thanos to incapacitate him. That way, Thor would easily chop his head off with the axe while the three of them would get free punches or kicks. After that, Thor should have flown with either weapon to destroy the mothership (Gamora and current Nebula would have been off the ship at this point). Either Strange or Wong could’ve sent Thanos and his army to the Mirror Dimension, never to be seen again. Either of those two (plus any other sorcerer) could have used the sling ring to cut Thanos’ arms off to keep him from snapping his fingers. Another flaw is the way some characters were portrayed in this movie. It was very anticlimactic when Smart Hulk was shown in the diner scene. All of the stuff that Banner went through was offscreen during the 5 year gap. To be honest, I’m not a fan of this version of the Hulk, even though there were some funny moments with him. Mark Ruffalo did the best he could with the script that he was given. As for Thor, I do understand the whole thing about being depressed after failing the mission and chopping Thanos’ head off after the stones were destroyed. Thor has lost a lot during the last few years, including his family, his best friend Heimdall, the Warriors 3, plus his home in Asgard. What I don’t like was that “Dad Bod” Thor was mostly played for laughs. An exception was during the scene in 2013 Asgard where Thor was given a pep talk by Rocket. Also in 2013 Asgard was the touching scene with Thor and his mom. Another exception was during the final battle. After the battle was over, I thought that Thor was going to be King of New Asgard. Instead, he goes with the Guardians of the Galaxy while allowing Valkyrie to be the King/Queen of New Asgard, even though I think Valkyrie is not worthy of being king after what she did on Sakaar. For those who don’t know, she sold a lot of people to combat against each other and drank her problems away while on that planet. Chris Hemsworth did the best he could with what he was given, but I think that they messed up his character after how he was portrayed in “Thor: Ragnarok” and “Infinity War”. In those two movies, he had some funny moments, but he was more serious and he played a huge role in his fights in those movies. When he got the axe and entered Wakanda in “Infinity War”, he was impossible to stop. He was dedicated to kill anyone working for Thanos. If he didn’t get fat, he would have killed Thanos easily during the final battle in “Endgame”. In addition, he was pretty much ready to become king of New Asgard (in Norway) by the end of “Thor: Ragnarok”. To give up the kingship to Valkyrie and messing up his whole development over the years was definitely a bad choice by the writers.

The biggest flaw with “Endgame” is the time travel stuff. Bruce’s explanation on how time travel works in this movie is confusing as heck. Contrary to what he said, any changes to the past could change their present. Scott has the easy answer in terms of getting the stones before Thanos got them, thereby saving everyone that got snapped. A few things that happened during the time heist might have made things worse for the characters that resided in the past, including current Captain America whispering “Hail Hydra” (which could have accidentally gotten the past version of Captain America killed) and Loki using the Tesseract to teleport to a place unknown in 2012 (which would’ve kept Loki alive past 2018). I do have to give Bruce credit for saying that once they are done with the stones and bringing everyone back, they will return the stones at the exact moment in time and place that they were taken. The complicated part about that is that the Mind, Space, Power, and Reality Stones were in the form of Loki’s scepter, a cube (Tesseract), an orb (touching the Power Stone by itself could kill you quickly), and a sludge that was in Jane Foster’s body (Aether) in the past. To solve both of these problems, the heroes could have just time traveled back to The Garden before the stones were destroyed by Thanos. Thor (who should be given time to get back into shape) would be given the chance to throw his axe at Thanos’ head or arm from high in the sky. Another option would be to stay on the ground, have Ant-Man shrink to small form and go into his butt. After that, he would go to Giant form and make him explode. If they would have done this, then everyone would be happy and nobody would tragically die.

With those criticisms out of the way, let’s focus on the positives again. Some of my favorite comedic moments in this movie were in the time travel part of it (“America’s Ass”, “NO STAIRS”, and Star-Lord singing and dancing without any music in the background). Rocket had plenty of times where he trash-talked some of the other characters. My favorite was when Rocket talked to Scott like he was a puppy during the brainstorm discussion. Rocket also had the moment where he yelled “Boom” to scare Tony and Bruce. There were a few heartwarming moments in this movie. The first one was when Scott reunited with his daughter Cassie in San Francisco. In that minute of screen time, the actress who played Cassie (Emma Fuhrmann) showed a lot of emotion. The stuff with Tony Stark and Morgan was also great, especially when Morgan said “I love you 3000”. Thor reuniting with his mother on Asgard was also great to see, as was Tony with his father in 1970 New Jersey. Tony hugging Spider-Man during the big battle was heartwarming because of what happened in “Infinity War” with Peter Parker slowly fading into dust and Tony feeling guilty about it. Finally, seeing Steve have that dance with Peggy at the end was heartwarming. I also want to give praise to the score by Alan Silvestri. From beginning to end, I enjoyed listening to the music in this movie. Outside of the music that was used for Tony Stark’s death and funeral service, my favorite piece of the score was the portals scene. Seeing all of the heroes appear from the portals to help Captain America, Thor, and Iron Man with the biggest MCU fight makes me shed a tear of joy every time. Not only that, but the Avengers theme that leads afterwards always gets me hyped. I love the music that plays when the names of the actors and actresses start appearing. Yes, it’s kinda similar to the portals music, but it’s still awesome regardless. The Avengers theme that plays while the OG characters and actors are shown is a perfect way to end it. Silvestri should have gotten at least an Oscar nomination for this score. The fight scenes were great in this one, including Ronin against the leader of the gang in Japan (played by Hiroyuki Sanada), the two Captain Americas against each other in 2012 New York, and the entire third act after the facility was destroyed. There were dramatic moments in that third act, including when the big 3 (Tony, Steve, and Thor) were fighting Thanos, when Thor and Steve almost got killed by him, and when the big 3 plus Carol were trying to keep Thanos from using the stones after the van was destroyed. The biggest moments were when Captain America was worthy of the hammer, the portals scene and the iconic line “Avengers… Assemble”, and when Iron Man snapped his fingers to get rid of Thanos and his entire crew.

The final thing that I want to talk about before concluding this post is the brilliant casting of the various characters in the MCU over the first three phases. Bradley Cooper as the voice of Rocket, Dave Bautista as Drax, Vin Diesel as the voice of Groot, Chris Pratt as Peter Quill, Karen Gillan as Nebula, Zoe Saldana as Gamora, Pom Klementieff as Mantis, Josh Brolin as Thanos, Tom Holland as Peter Parker/Spider-Man, Chadwick Boseman as T’Challa/Black Panther, Tom Hiddleston as Loki, Chris Hemsworth as Thor, Michael Douglas as Hank Pym, Paul Rudd as Scott Lang, Benedict Cumberbatch as Doctor Strange, Benedict Wong as Wong, Anthony Mackie as Sam Wilson/Falcon (now the new Captain America), Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury, Cobie Smulders as Maria Hill, Clark Gregg as Agent Coulson, Hayley Atwell as Peggy Carter, Sebastian Stan as Bucky Barnes, Scarlett Johansson as Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow, Jeremy Renner as Clint Barton/Hawkeye, Mark Ruffalo as Bruce Banner, Paul Bettany as JARVIS/Vision, Gwyneth Paltrow as Pepper Potts, Michael Peña as Luis, Evangeline Lilly as Hope Van Dyne, John Slattery as Howard Stark, Toby Jones as Arnim Zola, Elizabeth Olsen as Scarlet Witch, Robert Redford as Alexander Pierce, Marisa Tomei as Aunt May, Michael Keaton as Vulture, William Hurt as Thaddeus Ross, Chris Evans as Steve Rogers/Captain America, and Robert Downey, Jr. as Tony Stark/Iron Man are all great examples.

Speaking of those last two, I want to give my sincere thank you to the people at Marvel Studios for casting Robert Downey, Jr as Tony Stark and Chris Evans as Steve Rogers. They both played their roles to perfection. I’ll go into detail about Chris Evans first. Captain America was not the first comic book character that Chris Evans played. Back in the mid-2000s, he played Johnny Storm/The Human Torch in the Fantastic Four movie duology. In those two movies, he portrayed the role of Johnny Storm fantastically. When he was cast into the role of Steve Rogers/Captain America, he knew about portraying a comic book character. In every movie that he was in as Captain America, he played the role to perfection. There were plenty of emotional moments, including when he sacrificed himself to the icy water in the first movie to save millions of Americans. Also in the emotional category is when he almost got killed by Bucky in an attempt to get him to remember who he is. In “Civil War”, his final confrontation with Tony Stark is intense and emotional. He did the right thing in not killing Tony and apologizing for what happened in a letter to Tony. Rogers was always getting back up after being knocked down, even when he was skinny in the first part of “The First Avenger”. He was always ready to say “I can do this all day” to the very end. He was the perfect leader for the Avengers and he always wanted to do the right thing. It was great to see him be with Peggy in the end of “Endgame”. In the end, Chris Evans was worthy of being Captain America for the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Finally, it’s time to talk about the one that started it all for the MCU: the “Genius, Billionaire, Playboy, Philanthropist” himself: Tony Stark. When Robert Downey Jr. was cast as Tony Stark back in 2007, it was a huge risk. It helped that he had a great screen test back then. When we first saw Tony Stark, we saw him as an arrogant guy who was focused on keeping his father’s company alive, including its weapons division. After what he went through in the cave, he changed his course and became the Iron Man we all know and love. Throughout the MCU, we laughed at Tony Stark’s funny quips. Although not a quip, the ending line of the first Iron Man movie: “I am Iron Man” was completely improvised by Robert Downey, Jr. He was the perfect guy to play Tony Stark, not only in the funny moments, but in heartbreaking and heartwarming moments as well. Once he changed his ways after getting out of the cave, he had the will to do what’s right. He was able to learn from his past mistakes to become a better man. He became a father-like figure to Tom Holland’s Peter Parker as well as an actual father to a daughter named Morgan. The heartbreak is shown and felt when Parker faded into dust in “Infinity War”. On the contrary, the relief and love is there when everyone is back and Tony gives Parker a long hug. Tony Stark was the one who made the biggest decisions to save the universe. In the first Avengers movie, he was the one who sent the nuclear missile up to the mothership to destroy it and save all of New York City. In “Age of Ultron”, he helped Thor destroy the core that would have caused global extinction. Finally, he was the one who snapped Thanos and his army and sacrificed himself in the process. In the end, he was surrounded by his friends, family, and Avengers teammates. Tony Stark will always be loved 3000 by me. There will never be another guy who plays that character better than Robert Downey, Jr. (who should have been nominated for an Oscar at least once as Tony Stark)

To conclude this post, “Avengers: Endgame” is a flawed movie. It was a satisfying end to the Infinity Saga that I enjoyed a lot. It was also the end of an era with Iron Man, Captain America (Steve Rogers), and Black Widow all gone from the MCU. Those three characters were all important pieces that helped the first three phases be as good as they were (especially Tony Stark and Steve Rogers). There is one more movie to conclude Phase 3. That next movie is “Spider-Man: Far From Home”. I’ll get to that movie as soon as I can. In the meantime, I hope you all have a great day.

(As usual, here are the videos from the people at How It Should Have Ended on this movie. Like "Infinity War", I included the dubs recap. All credit goes to them, including the alternate scenario about going to Thanos' retirement planet.)