Marvel May - Avengers: Endgame (2019)

         Hey guys, Chuck here. Well, here it is. The Marvel May review everyone has been waiting for. This is honestly the one I've been wanting to get to ever since Marvel May last year. Here it is: Avengers: Endgame. 

          So, the movie opens on the Barton family farm, with Clint teaching his daughter Lila archery, with Clint's wife, Laura, and two sons, Cooper and Nathaniel, all near the barbecue, with Laura making hot dogs. Suddenly, Laura and the kids disappear, being snapped out of existence by Thanos, leaving Clint all alone. Adrift in space, Tony Stark and Nebula are aboard the Benatar, with power and supplies running dangerously low. Luckily, they are located by Carol Danvers, who returns them to Earth, where Tony gets some medical treatment for how long he went without air, water, and food. 

           After a conversation, with the Avengers trying to figure out their next move, Carol decides to hunt down Thanos, with Nebula revealing that he planned to go to a garden planet where he set a house for a simple, quiet life after wiping out half of all life in the universe. Joined by Carol, Bruce Banner, Steve Rogers, Natasha Romanoff, Rhodey, and Thor, Nebula and Rocket pilot the Benatar to the planet Thanos is located, having tracked a cosmic signature from the Infinity Stones. On the planet, Thanos reveals that he used the Stones once more to destroy them from existence, and it nearly cost him his life. In response, Thor cuts Thanos' head clean off. 

          Five years pass, and Natasha is running the Avengers facility, keeping in contact with Rhodey, Nebula, Rocket, Carol, and Okoye, while Steve leads a support group for those who've lost loved ones to what has since become known as The Blip. In San Francisco, a rat crawls on the controls for the Quantum Tunnel, and Scott Lang returns from the Quantum Realm, unaware of how much time had passed. Confused, and concerned, Scott sees a series of memorial walls for those who disappeared during the Blip, and sees his own name listed. Hurrying to Maggie and Paxton's house, Scott sees a teenage girl walking up to him, and it turns out that the teen is Scott's daughter Cassie. 

           At the Avengers facility, Steve and Natasha have a conversation about everything that's happening, and Scott arrives at the front gate, breaking down his experience in the Quantum Realm, and how for him it felt more live five hours than five years, meaning that the Quantum Realm could make time travel possible, meaning that they could get the Infinity Stones in the past, return them to the present, and bring back everyone that was wiped out of existence by Thanos. Natasha, Steve, and Scott then head to a lake house that is home to Tony, Pepper, and their daughter Morgan. Tony initially rebuffs the idea of pulling off what Scott refers to as a "time heist" to bring everyone back, but later that night, works on a quantum device to navigate the Quantum Realm and successfully travel through time. 

        Steve, Natasha, and Scott then go to recruit Bruce, who after spending weeks in a gamma lab is know the perfect combination of Banner and the Hulk. Physically, he appears like the Hulk, but his personality and speech are one hundred percent Banner. In other words, it's Professor Hulk from the comics. So, Bruce, despite being out of his element in the field of Quantum physics, agrees to help with the time heist, but these attempts are unsuccessful, as they push time through Scotty, as opposed to sending Scott through time. Tony arrives with the time GPS devices, we'll call them, and Rocket, Nebula, and Rhodey arrive at the base. Hulk and Rocket head to a port town in Norway, which has become known as New Asgard, where they are greeted by Valkyrie, who points them to Thor's house, where we see that Thor has become an overweight slob. Initially uninterested, Hulk convinces Thor to join the Avengers and help bring everyone back. Natasha heads to Japan, where she picks up Clint, who has become a ruthless vigilante in the years since his family was wiped from existence. 

         After a successful test of the time devices, the Avengers then map out exactly where and when they're going. So, here's the plan: Thor and Rocket head to Asgard in 2013 to extract the Aether from Jane Foster, Rhodey, Natasha, Nebula, and Clint head to the year 2014, with Rhodey and Nebula taking the Power Stone from Quill on Morag, and Clint and Natasha collecting the Soul Stone on Vormir, and Tony, Steve, Scott, and Hulk all headed to New York in 2012 to pick up the Tesseract, Loki's scepter, and the Time Stone.  At each of their destinations, there is a complication, with the Ancient One, who is protecting the New York Sanctum from Chitauri attacks, warning Hulk from taking the Stones from their place in time, or risk altering timelines by doing so. Hulk however, proposes that, after using them, returning them to their proper place in the timeline the moment they were taken, almost as if they'd never left in the first place. The Ancient One, after Hulk mentions that Doctor Strange willingly handed Thanos the Time Stone, gives Hulk the Stone.  

          Meanwhile, Scott, Tony, and Steve successfully recover the Scepter, but lose the Tesseract when Loki (of that time period) takes it and disappears. So, Steve and Tony head back further to the year 1970, where Tony steals the Tesseract, Steve gets more Pym Particles, and Tony also has a run-in with his father Howard. In 2013, while Rocket gets the Aether, Thor has a heart-to-heart with his mother Frigga, and regains his hammer Mjolnir. In 2014, Nebula and Rhodey get the Power Stone, with Rhodey seeing Peter Quill from that time, dancing and singing the song "Come and Get Your Love," with Rhodey noting that Quill is an idiot. 

         Unfortunately, Nebula's cortex becomes tangled with the cortex of her 2014 counterpart, which alerts the Thanos of 2014, who sees memory footage of Nebula and the Avengers. Thanos then nabs 2023-Nebula, replaces her with 2014-Nebula, and makes a move to jump forwards in time. Meanwhile, Clint and Natasha arrive on Vormir, are greeted by the Red Skull, and given the dilemma of the Soul Stone: one of them will have to sacrifice their lives to allow the other to claim the Stone, with Natasha sacrificing herself so Clint can return to his family. 

        So, everyone returns to 2023, with the Avengers assembling the Power Gauntlet, which is a Stark tech gauntlet to hold the Infinity Stones, with Hulk snapping everyone back into existence. Unfortunately, any celebration of success is cut short, as 2014 Thanos makes his attack, destroying the Avengers facility, sending 2014 Nebula after the Stones. 2014-Gamora, meanwhile, learns of future events from 2023 Nebula, and the two team up to take down Thanos. The two run into 2014-Nebula and kill her, recovering the Gauntlet. Meanwhile, Steve, Thor, and Tony work together to fight Thanos, with Tony and Thor getting knocked back, and Steve using both his shield and Mjolnir, finally proving himself worthy to wield it. Facing down a massive army, which includes Chitauri, Sakaarans, Outriders, and the Black Order, Steve gets ready for a massive fight, only to be contacted by Sam Wilson, and witnesses several portals opening, with everyone that was brought back by the Stones showing up: Quill, Drax, T'Challa, Bucky, Shuri, Groot, Wanda, Strange, Wong, Mantis, Spider-Man, Hope, and others like the Sorcerers, Valkyrie and the Asgardians, the Ravagers, Howard the Duck, the Wakandans, and even Pepper in her own armored suit. Joining with Steve, Thor, Tony, Nebula, Gamora, Rocket, Hulk, Clint, Scott, and Rhodey, this massive army of heroes gather, and Steve call out easily my favorite lime in the movie: "Avengers assemble!" 

         A massive battle ensues, with the heroes all working to keep the Gauntlet away from Thanos, with the gauntlet passing hands between Clint, T'Challa, and Spider-Man, who get extra help from Steve, Pepper , and Valkyrie. Meanwhile, Hope and Scott work to restart the van with the Quantum Tunnel, and Wanda goes after Thanos, showing how powerful she really is. Thanos then orders his ship to fire on the ground, but the ship's fire is drawn upwards as something, or rather someone, very powerful has entered Earth's atmosphere. Carol Danvers has arrived, and she destroys the ship, and takes the Gauntlet from Spider-Man, and is joined by Nebula, Gamora, Valkyrie, Pepper, Okoye, Shuri, Wanda, Mantis, and Hope in getting it past Thanos' cronies and to the van. Another face off ensues, with Carol facing off against Thanos, Tony facing off against Thanos, and Thanos, after saying "I am inevitable," attempts to snap the entire universe from existence this time, but to no avail, as Tony has the Stones, and after saying "And I am Iron Man," snaps Thanos and his forces out of existence. Sadly, the effort is too much for Tony to handle, and he dies in the process. 

           A funeral is held, with the Avengers, Guardians, Doctor Strange, Wong, T'Challa and his family, Carol, Maria Hill, the Barton family, Spider-Man and his Aunt May, Secretary Thunderbolt Ross, Nick Fury, Happy birthday, Pepper and Morgan, and even Harley from Iron Man 3 all honoring the death of Tony Stark. Thor leaves Valkyrie in charge of New Asgard, while he traverses the stars with the Guardians. Steve takes the stones back to their proper place in time, but doesn't return. Bucky points Sam to an older gentleman on a nearby bench, who turns out to be Steve, who decided to stay in the past. Steve gives his shield to Sam, and we get a flash of Steve in the past, dancing with Peggy Carter, ending the movie. 

          What can I say that hasn't already been said? Avengers: Endgame was the end product of eleven years of Marvel films. It ended many storylines, and opened up a few more that Marvel would address in future projects like The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. Fans all over the world loved this movie, and I definitely agree. A year passed between the releases of Infinity War and Endgame, and the anticipation was already built based on the year-long gap between the two. The time-travel element, while obvious, was definitely different and stands out amongst other time-travel movies like Back to the Future, Men in Black 3, and so forth. 

            Seeing every hero Marvel has introduced from Iron Man to Captain Marvel, from Doctor Strange to Thor, and so on and so forth, was awesome. Every comic book fan has wanted to see these heroes share the screen, and Marvel made it happen in a way that will never be replicated, repeated, or duplicated in the future. Simply put, Avengers: Endgame is one of those that only comes around once in a lifetime, and I give the movie a rating of 5/5. 

        This is Chuck signing off, and we'll continue Marvel May this evening with the final film of Phase Three: Spider-Man: Far From Home.