Last year when Infinity War dropped, I put up the post that has my non-spoilery review. Y’all may have noticed that I never got around to posting a full review of the movie. Sorry about that!
But now Avengers: Endgame has dropped. And when my household along with long-time friend Mimi went to see it, Meems asked me whether I liked Infinity War better than Endgame. She preferred Infinity War and was a trifle stunned that I liked Endgame better, hands down.
I told her at the time that this was because for me, even though Marvel backed off of doing these two movies as a Part 1 and Part 2, they really do still function for me as one great big story. And Endgame delivered on concluding what Infinity War set up, beautifully.
So this post is going to be a combination of “review of Endgame” and “discussion of Infinity War and Endgame as a unit”.
Spoiler-free picoreview of Endgame first: I haven’t cried this hard at the tail end of a movie since Return of the King, you guys. There are parts of it that I like less than other parts, and some parts that I feel don’t stand up to close scrutiny, but by and large it was a very, very worthy conclusion to the entire MCU story arc.
Let it also be noted for the record, in case it isn’t obvious: if you haven’t seen Infinity War yet, rent it and get it watched before you see Endgame. And if you haven’t been keeping up with the MCU in general, BOY HOWDY is this not the place to come in.
And in order for this movie’s emotional beats to carry the proper weight, you really, really need to have been keeping up with the MCU. Hell, for a lot of the plot points to make general sense, you really need to have been keeping up with the MCU. I don’t think you absolutely need to have seen every single film in the Infinity Saga (as it’s now being called). But you’ll get the most out of Endgame if you’ve seen most of the saga already.
Now let’s get into the heart of this post, shall we? ALL THE SPOILERS will be behind the cut tag. If you’re reading this directly on angelahighland.com or on my Dreamwidth account, be advised that the comments are also spoiler-friendly territory.