Avengers: Endgame (2019)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2019
	Director: Anthony Russo & Joe Russo (Captain America 2-3)
	Actors: Robert Downey Jr. (Tropic Thunder), Chris Evans (Fantastic Four 1-2), Scarlett Johansson (Match Point), ...
	Country: USA
	Genre: Action, SF, Epic
	Conditions of visioning: 02.05.2019, Costanera Center Cineplanet.
Synopsis: After their last encounter with the Mad Titan Thanos, what's left of Earth's mightiest heroes have to decide whether to avenger the fallen ones, or move on.
Review: The spoiler-free period of 1-2 weeks is apparently over (according to the directors and the studio), although I don't like this tendency of forcing us to watch those movies as fast as possible under the threat of spoilers (the same goes for the final season of Game of Thrones). Still, I will try to keep my review relatively spoiler-free as usual (except for a few comments you should highlight to read if you've already seen the movie). After such an unbearably long wait I went to see the movie twice, the first time virgin of the trailers and predictions from the previous three weeks so that I could be surprise and express myself during the projection, the second time more relaxed to catch more details and get a better feeling around the whole thing. For those who don't know, this is the sequel to the 2018 Avengers: Infinity War and the last of 22 movies in the first 3 phases of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The end of an 11-year era really. In short, if Infinity War was the culmination of what Marvel led us to in the past decade, Endgame is more of a satisfying (and necessary) conclusion. Satisfying indeed, I liked it a lot and think the directors and studios couldn't have done much better. Necessary also, to prepare for the future of the franchise / Universe. The movie starts with a bang and cleverly shows all that was seen in the first trailer so that you can then enjoy the rest of the show with a free mind. Then it goes a bit where I was expecting (time travel) but doesn't use that tool as the ultimate weapon: heroes still are. So that even if some things were expected from the trailer, obvious reasons or stolen set images, what happens to the characters and relationship between them was still to me fascinating to watch unfold. And the voyage our heroes take is also an excuse to have them introspect and make unexpected encounters (like Tony with his father). At the same time the story manages to keep a level of humor usual in the franchise (ha ha I loved fat Thor). Well written and well done. All leads to a third act that I found fully satisfying, in particular via three moments that got great outbursts of emotion from someone like me that has been following this Universe since 11 years: Cap yielding Thor's Hammer, the Avengers all-hands gathering and Tony's death. At the first viewing I found that the music was lacking punch, especially in those last scenes, and especially compared to the one during Thor's arrival at the end of Infinity War. On second viewing it was better, but still I believe it should have been played much louder. At first viewing I also had the impression that many special effects had been rushed, in particular for the scenes of compositing of many known characters in ensemble shots, while obviously all those actors could not be gathered on the same day for the one shot. I had the impression that all the edges of the characters were blurred and that they were not fitting with the background. This kind of composite scene was for example better done with Christopher Lee in The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies. Again it felt better on second viewing but still, I was not impressed by special effects although they are omnipresent in this movie. In general I liked the movie a lot, and I upgraded Infinity War from 7/10 to 8/10 so that I could give 7/10 to Endgame, because I like the other one a bit more. For a full breakdown of the movie you may watch this video from the YouTube channel New Rockstars, or the emotional walkthrough from director Kevin Smith. At the time of writing this post, Marvel is about with this movie to beat Avatar's record of worldwide most lucrative movie ever (more than 2.6 billion dollars!!!), so I seriously don't know where they can go now. The trailer of Spiderman: Far from Home to be released in July gives us a hint of a post-Endgame world and Marvel has announced dates for two movies in 2020, three in 2021 and three in 2022. More details on titles will be given in a few months time but we expect sequels to Ant-Man (maybe), Doctor Strange, Black Panther and Spider-Man, Guardians of the Galaxy 3 (with director James Gunn returning) a solo Black Widow movie, new franchises like The Eternals and Shang Chi. The big question is: will they manage to combine all of those to build up to a new Avengers movie?
Rating: 7 /10