It’s rare for a movie, book, or television series to deliver as many emotional payoffs as “Avengers: Endgame” accomplished. Of all of the major media series of the past twenty years or so — “Star Wars,” “Harry Potter,” and “Game of Thrones” all come to mind — Marvel has managed to rise above its peers in being able to provide its diehard fans with an ending that feels natural, deserved, and, well, epic.
Building on over ten years worth of stories starting with 2008’s “Iron-Man,” “Avengers: Endgame” showcases the archetypal superhero team’s final confrontation with the titan Thanos, who so effortlessly defeated them in last year’s “Avengers: Infinity War.” To avoid giving away any spoilers to those who haven’t yet been able to catch the movie in theaters, we’ll not go any deeper into the plot than that. The exception will be to say that Joe and Anthony Russo, the directors, do tend to expect the viewer to have an encyclopedic knowledge of previous Marvel films. While these throwbacks and Easter eggs will likely please viewers who have seen all twenty-two movies set in Marvel’s Cinematic Universe, those less committed to the adventures of the Avengers and their allies might find long sections of the movie’s three hour runtime a bit boring.
Those few issues aside, if you are a fan of genre fiction in any way, “Avengers: Endgame” is an unmissable treat!
