It’s a bittersweet feeling gearing up to see this film. On one hand it’s the conclusion to an 11 year journey that the world has taken together. SPOILERS AHEAD!

On the other it’s like saying goodbye to friends you’ve come to expect are coming over for the holidays every year. You know you’ll see them again but, when and where is anyone’s guess. Endgame is the three hour home stretch to the finish line for the MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe) faithful.

So, this film starts five years after big, purple, and genocidal snapped his fingers and erased half of the universes population. People are in mourning, missing posters are everywhere, and monuments to the fallen are erected. It’s a sad, devastated world we are dropped into. Earth’s Mightiest Heroes are in disarray and looking for answers. Some wallow in failure and others defiantly push forward with hope, however slim that may be. All seems lost until a man returns from a universe unaffected by Thanos and his actions.

The acting was nothing to write home about but, that’s because the cast has been in these shoes for so long it’s hard to see any flaws in their portrayal as these are the way we know and love these characters. They did allow Chris Hemsworth to be a bit more comedic more akin to how he was in Thor:Ragnarok.

The Hulk also had a big change in the way Mark Ruffalo brought him to the screen this time out. Brolin as Thanos was as engaging as he was in Infinity War but, he went a bit harder this time around on the menace he brought to the film as the characters and world around him reacted differently.

The effects were of course top tier as they are in most of the MCU’s litany of material. The fight scenes were fantastically choreographed and executed. I found no slump in how attention grabbing these portions of the film were. The Russo Brothers were masterful in their direction of this film, as an ensemble cast this large can be difficult for the most seasoned of directors to ably handle.

This movie had everything the MCU faithful could possibly want. It had action on a grand scale, multiverse hopping, magic and might, and loose ends tied up nicely. It was the expertly executed ending to the first and hopefully not last, live action comic crossover storyline that spanned 11 years and kept comic fans hanging on to any news of the follow up to the last piece of the tale of Thanos verses Earth’s Mightiest Heroes.

These films allowed a new generation of those that love comics already to connect with those who previously had no interest. This was the ultimate reward for those of us that stick it out and watched the cornucopia of movies through the years from 2008 until now and I have to say it was well worth the journey (and the eye sweats…it was warm in there and somebody kept cutting onions in the theater, it was ridiculous). Avengers:Endgame ended up with a 5 out of 5 from this viewer.