Avengers 4 Endgame review: Tears and laughter, EVERYTHING fans wanted – NO SPOILERS

We can’t say we weren’t warned. The directors, Joe and Anthony Russo, have even admitted they cried watching Endgame. They had set themselves an almost impossible task. How do you top the box office and critical success of Infinity War and, even more daunting, how do you somehow bring back most or even all of the fallen heroes without rendering the emotional punch and plotlines of Infinity War redundant? Captain America says: “Today we have a chance to take it all back. We will, whatever it take. Whatever it takes.” Yes, you should pack your tissues, but you may end up laughing a little more than you expected and not crying quite as much as you could or should have.

Avengers 3 ended with Thanos carrying out the Snap and wiping out half of all life across the universe, including certain prominent Marvel heroes who fans already know must return in some form for their own movies. Most notable among these is Spider-Man, who plucked heartstrings with a tearful farewell in Tony Stark’s arms, yet will swoop back onto screen in July for Spider-Man Far From Home.

It’s just one of the many tricky and sticky webs the filmmakers have to unpick.

So, just how good is Avengers Endgame – and how successful is it at providing a satisfying ending to Marvel Phases One to Three, while also setting up Phase Four?

In the end the Russos have delivered a typically powerful and surprisingly funny final act that just about wraps everything up but occasionally feels like it is servicing fan wish fulfillment at the expense of the extraordinary story built up over the last three Marvel Phases.

After writing and reading incessantly about all the theories surrounding this movie every day for twelve solid months, I was sure of only two things. Firstly, I had no idea how the Russos were going to pull it off (although there have been enough hints about time travel and the Quantum Realm). Secondy, if anyone could do it, it would be the Russos.

And they have. Just about.

The film manges to pay hommage to the entire MCU franchise up to this point in a dizzying array of witty, often moving and sometume pleasingly subversive scenes. There is also one enormous plothole my clever colleague pointed out that will ignite major debate once fans see the film. But there is a nagging feeling that maybe, just maybe, teh film coudl have made some harder choices.

It builds to a truly spectacular and jaw-dropping final battle that is everything any fan could ever have hoped for. It closes on resoundingly emotional series of scenes that a nother collaegue accurately summarised as “more endings than Lord of the Rings.”  

The film sees the return of Clint Barton, aka Hawkeye, aka Ronin – and Jeremy Renner finally gets some decent material to sink his teeth into.

Chris Evans has been growing in stature throughout his Marvel journey as Captain America/Steve Rogers and he provides the moral and even emotional core of this movie. His mirror image has always been Iron Man/Tony Stark, two men with the same goals but very different beliefs about how to achieve them – and what they are willing to sacrifice.

Stark echoed the same line “Whatever it takes” and fans have always feared that immense sacrifice would be the theme of Endgame, centering on the core original group. fears

As expected, the movie is the fitting final farewell to the original Avengers line-up. Fans quickly spotted that none of them fell in The Snap.

It is almost impossible to go into any detail without revealing major spoilers. The trailers and teasers resolutely only showed material from the first half hour of the movie and even some of that was digitally cleaned for minor plot reveals.

The debate will explode from tomorrow once the movie starts opening in much of Europe, Australasia and Asia, before teh UK on Thurday and the US on Friday.

It is a great movie, highly enjoyable and does a remarkable jon servicing the entire array Marvel movies that have come before. If sometimes it feels a little self-indulgenta nd self-revereantial, that is understandable and forgivable. I just wish it had been a tint bit bolder and more brutal in its choices.