Avengers: Endgame (Spoilers)

MFC Review

The first saga of Marvel Studios comes to an end with Avengers: Endgame (2019), the film that took over movie theaters around the world and that perfectly closes 11 years of stories about the Marvel Comics’ classic heroes.

In this final release of the Infinity Saga, several characters that have been developed through 22 films conclude their narrative arcs, leaving the MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe) open to new and exciting possibilities.

The plot of Avengers: Endgame introduces details that can cause confusion among fans, thus, in MFC Review we solve all the doubts about the end of the film.

If you have not seen Avengers: Endgame yet, you can check out our SPOILER-FREE review by clicking here.

Movie Structure

Avengers: Endgame is divided into 3 acts clearly defined by the goals to be achieved.

The first act takes place after 5 years of the snap of fingers done by Thanos (Josh Brolin) in Avengers: Infinity War (2018), and shows the development of a plan to reverse its effects and the consequent recruitment of the heroes to regroup the Avengers, each one dealing with the situation in different ways. Although this beginning is somehow slow, it efficiently fulfills its mission by setting the tone of the film, opening the processes that the characters need to heal and establishing the rules under which the rest of the story will unfold.

The second act introduces us to time travel, the most important novelty that Avengers: Endgame brings to the Marvel Universe. Here, Marvel Studios gives us a last glance at the past of MCU, taking us through films such as The Avengers (2012) and Thor: The Dark World (2013) for a final farewell to the Marvel we know.

The third act is dedicated to the final fight against Thanos army and the general closure of the story. Marvel Studios shows off an epic battle, bringing together all the heroes that appeared in the last 21 films and throwing them into memorable action sequences. To end the film, the stories of Captain America (Chris Evans) and Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), key characters for the saga, get deeply moving and satisfying closures.

Although each act is fully developed, this division can make the film looks fragmented when compared to its predecessor, Avengers: Infinity War. Still, Avengers: Endgame turns out to be a complete movie and an unbeatable conclusion for such an ambitious project.

Resolving doubts

Although Marvel Studios narrative system has been fairly linear up to now (with the exception of some films that serve as prequels, such as Captain Marvel), the introduction of time travel in the MCU has raised several doubts and confusions among the fans.

Read our review of Captain Marvel here.

If we follow the laws established in the film, where changing a fact of the past does not alter the future, but creates a new one, time travel in Marvel films are more like jumps between universes.

Because of these rules, many fans could not understand how Captain America could have appeared as an old man in the same universe from which he left, after going back to the past to return the hammer of Thor and the Infinity Stones to the exact moment of when they were taken, and finally staying to live a new life with Peggy Carter.

This doubt has been solved by the Russo Brothers, directors of the film, who have confirmed that Captain America has indeed had a new life in a different universe, returning to the canonical timeline through means that are still unknown to us.

This clarification ties all the loose ends of the film in terms of time travel, while opening new narrative possibilities for Marvel Studios.

Just as a new reality has been created to Captain America, after returning the gems and choosing for a more homelike life, another one has also been created in which Loki (Tom Hiddleston) has escaped with the Tesseract.

Just like this, the MCU opens different timelines that can be explored in different projects of the franchise, such as the following series and films that are planned for the Disney+ platform, where a Loki series has already been confirmed, opening the Multiverse that exists in the Marvel comics and expanding the horizons for the stories that Marvel Studios has yet to tell us.

Learn what comes in Phase 4 of Marvel Studios here.

In cinema, the use of time travel is often seen as a puzzling device to solve problems, because once it is introduced, it is difficult to find excuses not to use it as a solution to all the problems that arise from now on. Let’s hope that Marvel Studios knows how to deal with this new resource and that we can continue to enjoy this great universe for many more years.