- “Part of the journey is the end.”
- ―Tagline
Avengers: Endgame is a 2019 American superhero film produced by Marvel Studios and released by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures. As the sequel to the Marvel Cinematic Universe film, Avengers: Infinity War, the film was released on April 26, 2019, and serves as the final Avengers movie. It is the highest-grossing film of all time worldwide, surpassing Avatar.
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Synopsis
Clint Barton, under house-arrest, is teaching his daughter archery during a family picnic. Suddenly, she and the rest of his family are turned to ash as a result of the Snap from the last film. Meanwhile, Tony Stark and Nebula are stranded in space on the Benatar, orbiting Titan, after their defeat by Thanos, with life support running low. Captain Marvel rescues them, and brings the ship to the New Avengers Facility, where the surviving Avengers from the battle of Wakanda are residing. They greet Tony, and the team laments on what was lost, before formulating a plan to steal the Infinity Stones back from Thanos and use them to reverse his actions. The group, including Thor, Steve Rogers/Captain America, Bruce Banner, Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow, James Rhodes/War Machine, Rocket Raccoon, Nebula, and Captain Marvel, confronts Thanos at the planet he is residing in, only to learn that he had used the Stones a second time to destroy them, preventing their further use. In anger, Thor kills Thanos by decapitating him, but the Avengers are left to cope with their huge losses, with no way to reverse it.
Five years later, as the world still struggles to move on from the catastrophe, Scott Lang/Ant-Man escapes from the Quantum Realm to discover that five years had passed, and that Hope van Dyne, along with half of the population, had disappeared, though his daughter Cassie is still alive, now a teenager. Lang goes to Rogers and Romanoff, and explains that while five years had passed, only five hours had passed for him in the Quantum Realm. The three go to Stark, who is now raising a child with Pepper Potts, and explain their theory that the Quantum Realm can be used to go back in time and steal the Infinity Stones before Thanos is able to collect them. Stark initially rejects their proposal with concern about risking his parenthood, but after looking at a photo of himself and Peter Parker, he decides to test, and succeeds in finding a model that works.
Rogers, Romanoff and Lang recruit Banner, who had since merged his intelligence with the Hulk's strength, to build a machine. Stark joins them after showing Rogers the safer way to time travel, and Rocket, Rhodes and Nebula arrive to join them, too. Banner and Rocket travel to Norway, where the surviving Asgardians, among them Valkyrie, Korg and Miek, currently live in a place called New Asgard, to recruit Thor, who is now overweight and drinking heavily, despondent over his failure. In Tokyo, Romanoff recruits Clint Barton, who is now a violent vigilante killing various criminals following the death of his family from Thanos' snap. The Avengers all reunite, and after talking about and recalling the Stones' history and their past encounters with either one of the Stones, they formulate the ultimate plan to travel to various points in time, retrieve the Stones, and return to the present to reverse Thanos' actions. During this, Banner notes that changing the past does not affect their present; any changes instead create branched alternate realities.
Stark, Rogers, Banner, and Lang go to 2012 to retrieve the Space, Mind, and Time Stones during the battle of New York. Banner goes to the Sanctum Sanctorum, where he is informed by the Ancient One that taking the Time Stone from her timeline would prevent Stephen Strange's future efforts to stop Kaecilius from destroying the laws of nature. She concedes the Time Stone to Banner, however, after he informs her that Strange had given the stone to Thanos in his timeline, implying Strange had intended for a specific sequence of events to occur for Thanos to be defeated. Banner also promises the Time Stone's return to her timeline in order to prevent any ill effects. Stark and Lang attempt to steal the Space Stone, but their attempt goes awry due to the antics of the past Hulk and the Space Stone ends up in the hands of a captured Loki, who uses the Stone to escape custody. Rogers succeeds in stealing the Mind Stone from undercover Hydra agents, but stumbles across and fights his past self, who mistakes him for a disguised Loki. Lang returns to the present while Stark and Rogers devise and successfully perform another plan to steal the Space Stone from a U.S. Army installation in the 1970s, while stealing further vials of fluid in order to make the journey back home. While there, Rogers catches a glimpse of his past girlfriend, Peggy Carter, and Stark has a heartfelt conversation with his father, Howard Stark.
Rocket and Thor travel to Asgard in 2013 to retrieve the Reality Stone before Malekith uses it against the Nine Realms. While in Asgard, Thor is reminded that his mother, Frigga, would die soon and has a chance encounter with her while Rocket steals the Reality Stone from Jane Foster. Frigga encourages Thor to still be the hero he can always be in spite of his failures, and a re-encouraged Thor returns to Earth with Rocket, but not before Thor retrieves his hammer.
Nebula and Rhodes travel to Xandar in 2014 to steal the Power Stone before Peter Quill/Star-Lord does. As Rhodes returns to the present with the Power Stone, Nebula suddenly malfunctions and remains on Xandar. Her memories are accidentally transferred to her past self, at the exact moment when Thanos was ordering her and Gamora to acquire the Power Stone. Through this connection, Thanos learns that he had ultimately succeeded in acquiring the Stones and that his plans have been fulfilled, and learns that the Avengers are trying to undo his future victory. With this new insight, Thanos captures the present Nebula and sends the past Nebula back to the present in her place, locking Nebula in a cell with the past Gamora as her guard.
Romanoff and Barton travel to Vormir in 2014 to retrieve the Soul Stone, though they become conflicted when the Red Skull, keeper of the Soul Stone, informs them that the Stone can only be retrieved by sacrificing someone they love. The two fight over who will make the sacrifice, and Romanoff ultimately takes the fall, with Barton taking the Soul Stone back to Earth.
The Avengers all return to the present with the Stones in their hands, but are distraught to learn that Romanoff had sacrificed herself to obtain the Soul Stone. Knowing that there's no way to bring her back, they proceed on with their goal, determined to make her sacrifice worth it. They place the Stones into a Nano Gauntlet, and Banner, the most resistant to the Stones' gamma radiation, uses it to reverse the disintegrations. At that exact moment, the past Nebula uses the time machine to transport Thanos and his warship to the present, where he attacks the Avengers' compound looking for the Stones and reduces the facility to rubble. The present Nebula convinces Gamora to help stop Thanos by revealing their growing sisterly bond in the future. Nebula and Gamora attempt to convince the past Nebula to betray Thanos as she attempts to take the Infinity Stones from Barton, but ultimately fail to do so and Nebula is forced to kill her past self.
Stark, Rogers, and Thor confront Thanos, who reveals that he knows of his future victory and the Avengers' attempts to stop it, and it has caused Thanos to realize that even if he did achieve his goal of wiping out half of life, the universe would never thrive or be grateful for this act as he had thought, since they're unable to forget the ones they've lost and will attempt to undo this event, just as the Avengers are doing. Because of this, Thanos finally releases his evil side as he announces that he will instead use the Infinity Stones to destroy the entire universe instead of half, and create a new one in his image. Iron Man, Captain America, and Thor engage in a brutal fight with Thanos, with Captain America gaining the worthy power to wield Thor's hammer, but even without the Stones and the Nano Gauntlet, Thanos is still able to overpower the trio, and soon, his entire army arrives on Earth to destroy it.
Just as Captain America weakly gets up to face Thanos and his army alone, he suddenly gets an unexpected call from his revived friend Sam Wilson/Falcon, and a portal appears, out of which steps the revived T'Challa/Black Panther, Shuri, the already-surviving Okoye, Falcon, and the Wakandan army. More portals soon appear, each created by the revived Doctor Strange, and every hero that died in the snap, including Peter Quill/Star-Lord, Drax the Destroyer, Mantis, Peter Parker/Spider-Man, Bucky Barnes, Groot, Wanda Maximoff/Scarlet Witch, and Hope van Dyne/Wasp, emerges out of the portals, and other surviving allies also join in, including Valkyrie, Korg, Miek and the New Asgard residents, Wong and his sorcerers, Kraglin and the Ravagers, and Pepper Potts in an Iron Man armor of her own. All of the revived heroes and surviving allies join the Avengers as they altogether launch a final assault on Thanos and his army.
In the ensuing lengthy battle, Stark is reunited with Parker, while Quill shares a moment with Gamora, who does not recognize Quill. Ant-Man and the Wasp attempt to activate the other entrance to the Quantum Realm contained in Lang's old van, while several Avengers, including Hawkeye, Black Panther, and Spider-Man, attempt to keep the Stones away from Thanos, who gets into a losing fight against Scarlet Witch, who is avenging Vision. Thanos calls for his warship to rain fire on the Avengers in an attempt to destroy them, but the warship ends up getting destroyed by the timely arrival of Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel. With the help of several female heroes, Captain Marvel attempts to carry the Stones to Lang's time machine, but Thanos destroys it before she can do so. Thanos again fights against several heroes for possession of the Stones, and eventually manages to overpower them, including Captain Marvel, and activates the Nano Gauntlet. Reminded by Doctor Strange that this is the possible moment where the Avengers win, Stark makes his ultimate choice and rips the Infinity Stones from Thanos' hand before he can destroy the universe, ultimately using them to disintegrate Thanos and his entire army into ashes, thus destroying Thanos forever. Potts, Parker, and Rhodes sit next to Stark as he dies from the radiation emitted from the Stones.
Following the battle, the Avengers and all their allies hold a funeral for Stark, whose artificial heart is floated into the sea. Barton, Parker, Lang, and Hope reunite with their families and loved ones, and T'Challa resumes his duties as king of Wakanda. Thor makes Valkyrie the Queen of New Asgard and joins the Guardians of the Galaxy, while Quill is shown attempting to find Gamora, who had supposedly vanished after the battle (although, a deleted scene shows her still there and kneeling before Iron Man's death). Peter Parker returns to school following Tony's funeral where he is reunited with his best friend Ned Leeds and the two hug tearfully, both emotional about seeing each other.
Meanwhile, Rogers is tasked to go into the past to return the Stones and Thor's hammer to their original timelines, but decides not to return to the present and to instead live the rest of his life in the past with Peggy Carter. As an older man, he appears before Sam Wilson and gives his shield to him.
Cast
- Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark/Iron Man
- Chris Evans as Steve Rogers/Captain America
- Mark Ruffalo as Bruce Banner/Hulk
- Chris Hemsworth as Thor
- Scarlett Johansson as Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow
- Jeremy Renner as Clint Barton/Hawkeye/Ronin
- Don Cheadle as James Rhodes/War Machine
- Paul Rudd as Scott Lang/Ant-Man
- Brie Larson as Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel
- Karen Gillan as Nebula
- Danai Gurira as Okoye
- Benedict Wong as Wong
- Jon Favreau as Happy Hogan
- Bradley Cooper as Rocket Raccoon
- Gwyneth Paltrow as Pepper Potts/Rescue
- Josh Brolin as Thanos
- Chris Pratt as Peter Quill/Star-Lord
- Zoe Saldana as Gamora
- Dave Bautista as Drax the Destroyer
- Pom Klementieff as Mantis
- Vin Diesel as Groot (voice)
- Benedict Cumberbatch as Stephen Strange/Doctor Strange
- Tom Holland as Peter Parker/Spider-Man
- Tom Hiddleston as Loki
- Elizabeth Olsen as Wanda Maximoff/Scarlet Witch
- Sebastian Stan as Bucky Barnes/White Wolf
- Anthony Mackie as Sam Wilson/Falcon
- Chadwick Boseman as T'Challa/Black Panther
- Letitia Wright as Shuri
- Evangeline Lilly as Hope van Dyne/Wasp
- Michael Douglas as Hank Pym
- Michelle Pfeiffer as Janet van Dyne
- Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury
- Cobie Smulders as Maria Hill
- Tom Vaughan-Lawlor as Ebony Maw
- Carrie Coon as Proxima Midnight
- Michael Shaw as Corvus Glaive
- Terry Notary as Cull Obsidian
- Tessa Thompson as Brunnhilde/Valkyrie
- John Slattery as Howard Stark
- Tilda Swinton as Ancient One
- Rene Russo as Frigga
- Hayley Atwell as Peggy Carter
- Robert Redford as Alexander Pierce
- Winston Duke as M'Baku
- Taika Waititi as Korg
- Frank Grillo as Brock Rumlow/Crossbones
- Ty Simpkins as Harley Keener
- Natalie Portman as Jane Foster
- William Hurt as Thaddeus Ross
- Angela Bassett as Ramonda
- Jacob Batalon as Ned Leeds
- Marisa Tomei as Aunt May
- Ross Marquand as Johann Schmidt/Red Skull
- Kerry Condon as F.R.I.D.A.Y.
James D'Arcy reprises his role as Edwin Jarvis from the MCU TV show, Agent Carter, making this the first time an actor from an MCU TV show has appeared in an MCU film.
Additional cast
- Hiroyuki Sanada as Akihiko
- Emma Fuhrmann as Cassie Lang
- Alexandra Rabe as Morgan Stark
- Katherine Langford as Teen Morgan Stark (deleted scene)
- Stan Lee as a de-aged 1970s car driver
- Ken Jeong as a storage facility guard
- Yvette Nicole Brown as a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent
- Joe Russo as a grieving man
- Ava Russo as Lila Barton
- Lia Russo as a fan of Hulk
- Jim Starlin as a grieving man
Release
Avengers: Endgame had its world premiere at the Los Angeles Convention Center on April 22, 2019. Disney converted the convention center's Hall K for the film's premiere, working with Dolby and QSC Audio to install a 70 foot (21 metres) screen, Dolby Vision projectors, and a Dolby Atmos sound system. The convention center also held the premiere's red carpet arrival and after party. On its theatrical premiere in the United States, the movie was released in IMAX and 3D on April 26, 2019. It was originally scheduled to be released on May 3, 2019.
International premieres
- April 24, 2019 (Austria, Australia, Belgium, China, Colombia, Cyprus, Denmark, Egypt, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Israel, Italy, Kosovo, Lebanon, Malaysia, Netherlands, Norway New Zealand, Philippines, Paraguay, Saudi Arabia, Sweden, Singapore, Taiwan and Thailand)
- April 25, 2019 (Argentina, Brazil, Cambodia, Costa Rica, Hungary, Ireland, Kwait, Montenegro, Nigeria, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Spain, Turkey, Ukraine, United Kingdom and Uruguay)
- April 26, 2019 (Bangladesh, Bulgaria, Canada, Estonia, India, Japan, Lithuania, Mexico, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Vietnam)
- April 26, 2019 (IMAX version - Morocco)
- April 28, 2019 (Armenia)
- April 29, 2019 (Russia)
Reception
On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a 94% approval rating based on 486 reviews, with an average rating of 8.3/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Exciting, entertaining, and emotionally impactful, Avengers: Endgame does whatever it takes to deliver a satisfying finale to Marvel's epic Infinity Saga".
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Trivia
- With a running time of approximately 181 minutes (3 hours and 1 minute), it is the longest Marvel Cinematic Universe film up to date and the longest Disney film to date.
- This is the first Marvel Cinematic Universe film not to include a post-credits scene at all.
- It is also the third film in that franchise not to have a post-credits scene after the end credits after The Incredible Hulk and Avengers: Age of Ultron.
- The writers confirmed that trading a loved one for the Soul Stone is a permanent deal. You cannot get back the soul you traded for the stone, even if you return it to Vormir (which forces another sacrifice). This is why Hulk was unable to bring Black Widow back to their timeline, as even the combined might of six infinity stones cannot override the rules for the Soul Stone.[1]
- This film focuses on the multiverse, a concept first introduced in Doctor Strange.
- Avengers: Endgame features Edwin Jarvis, who is the first character originating from Marvel Television, to appear in a film.
- This is the first not to feature any mid or post-credit scenes.
- Captain America's line "This is the fight of our lives" is used by Rapunzel in the Tangled series finale, "Plus Est En Vous".
- This was the last Marvel Cinematic Universe film to feature Chadwick Boseman as Black Panther, due to his death on August 28, 2020.
- When Tony gives Steve his shield back, the theme from "Captain America: The First Avenger" is played.
- This is the final appearance of Steve, Tony and Natasha in chronological order. Rescue will be the new "Iron Man" figure in future movies, Yelana Belova will be the new Black Widow in future movies, and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier will reveal who will be the new Captain America in future movies.
- Jacob Batalon reprises his role as Ned Leeds, but does not have a speaking role. This is the first time Ned is featured in a movie with Peter Parker, where his role is a cameo appearance and does not have any lines.
- When it shows Peggy Carter and Steve Rogers dancing in the 1940's, the song playing in the background is It's Been a Long, Long Time, which was played back in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, when Steve found Fury in his apartment.
- There is deleted dialogue between Iron Man and Spider-Man when they reunite. Peter jokes about Tony's grey hair and Tony kisses Peter's cheek.[2]
- In a deleted scene, Thor tries to kiss Valkyrie when he makes her queen of New Asgard, until she asks him what he is doing, causing him to pull away.[3]
- Despite the remaining events of the film being set in 2023, those events completely ignore the COVID-19 pandemic as if it never occurred. This is because the film was finished and released before the real whole world was affected by the coronavirus.
