Endgame

This is the longest of the MCU movies and was the first film to reach over a billion dollars during its opening weekend in theatres.  It also became one of the highest grossing films of all time.  And if Infinity War had almost everyone in it, this one has even more.

It opens with Clint practicing with his daughter, Lila (you can see the ankle monitor on his leg, like Scott had), with the two boys playing and getting ready for lunch.  Clint turns for a second and when he turns back, Lila is gone.  Then everyone else; picking up with the snap from Infinity War.

We find Tony and Nebula on the Guardians’ ship.  They are trying to limp home to Earth, but now the engines have failed and oxygen is running low.  Tony leaves a recording for Pepper, if she even survived the snap; he’s wounded and knows he’s dying, but he was hoping to pull off one last surprise.  He lays down and we see Nebula make him comfortable.  But a bright light soon fills the screen; Captain Marvel has found them and brings them home to the Avengers compound, to be greeted by Steve, Natasha, Rhodey, Bruce, Thor, Rocket, and Pepper.  Steve is the first to reach Tony.  “I couldn’t stop him,” Tony admits.  “Neither could I,” Steve tells him.  Then Tony stops; “I lost the kid.”  “Tony, we lost,” Steve tries to help with Tony’s guilt.  Then Pepper comes over and is very happy to see Tony alive.

Tony is very thin, sitting with what’s left of the Avengers as they discuss what is going on, reviewing the list of everyone they know to be gone with the snap.  But when Steve asks for any information, Tony gets upset.  He warned them that Thanos was coming years ago and had built Ultron originally to put a suit of armor around the world, but he got backlash.  And because of the rift between Tony and Steve, Steve was not there when Tony needed him (and Tony doesn’t know that Steve showed up and there was a battle in Wakanda).  Tony would rather talk to Carol, since she’s new blood, but passes out in front of Steve.

So Carol decides she’ll give killing Thanos a try (and considering how she handled Ronan and the other Kree, she stands a good chance).  Thor also wants a shot at Thanos again, since he wasn’t able to stop the Titan before.  Nebula knows where to find Thanos.  The rest of the Avengers find the garden and attack; the plan is to use the stones to bring everyone back.  Thanos’ entire side is now charred.  But they discover that he used the stones to destroy them; they’re gone.  Thor cuts off his head.  And the Avengers have to…move on.

Five years pass; Steve is holding a support session, encouraging others to move on with life.  Then we see a van in lock up shake; the equipment in the back lights up and Scott emerges.  Once he gets free, he has to discover what happened.  He finds memorial stones put up and desperately searches for Cassie’s name, instead finding his own.  So he goes the last place he saw her and Cassie is indeed still alive, but five years older and now a teenager.  She’s surprised to see her father alive, but this gives Scott an idea.  He finds the Avengers compound, mainly manned by Natasha while the others are out on missions.  Rhodey brings up that Clint has been out and about and not really a part of them, but Natasha still wants updates (and we actually see her on the verge of a breakdown when she has a minute alone; proving she’s not unflappable).

Scott suggests that quantum physics may hold the answer; what was five years to the rest of the world was five hours to Scott in the Quantum Realm.  So, since time moves differently, maybe they can enter the Quantum Realm at one time in history, but leave it at another time; translation: time travel.  Steve suggests they need another brain to weigh in on this; they drive out to Tony’s house.  His last five years have been better; he has a four-year-old daughter, Morgan [who is adorable and plays with her mother’s helmet; and Tony is totally sweet with her.]  So Tony is not keen to risk his second chance.

So they go to find Bruce, who has fused with the Hulk and is now big and kind of green, but retains his ability to speak academically.  While it’s outside his area of expertise, they persuade him to give it a try.  And the first try…has some issues; Scott jumps in ages, becoming a teenager, an old man, and a baby, before returning to himself.

In the meantime, Tony found a picture of himself and Peter (from behind the scenes) and decides to try a few simulations and comes across one that works.  But he tells Pepper, he could set the work aside.  She knows he won’t be able to rest if he does that.  So he heads to the compound and returns the shield to Steve, or else Morgan was going to turn it into a sled.  He makes it abundantly clear that he has some ideas, but they can’t jeopardize what he has now.  The rest of the team is assembled.

Bruce and Rocket head to New Asgard in Norway to find Thor, who has let himself go, wallowing from his failure.  Rocket lures him with the promise of beer.  Natasha goes after Clint, finding him in Toyoko, executing criminals.  Scott cautions everyone that they only have enough Pym Particles for one round trip each, and ultimately one test, which Clint volunteers for, even after Bruce tries to set everyone straight on time travel (and I don’t get the science myself, so I’m not going to try to explain it).  It works; Clint lands at his home and hears his children arguing, but he’s brought back before he can see them, though he’s got the baseball glove in his hand.

So, the theory and practice work.  Now, they need a plan to retrieve all the stones, primarily when and where.  It delves into a college cram session, summarizing the history of each stone in relation to who had contact with it, and Natasha finally notes that if they pick the correct year, three stones are in New York.  That’s their jumping off point.  Steve gives them a rousing speech: “Get the stones, get them [people they lost] back.  One round trip each.  No mistakes.  No do-overs…Be careful.  Look out for each other.  This is the fight of our lives.  And we’re going to win.  Whatever it takes.  Good luck.”  (And we even hear the theme return.) 

Bruce lands with Steve, Tony, and Scott in New York City, 2012, during the Chitauri invasion.  Bruce will go to the Sanctum to retrieve the Time Stone.  He meets the Ancient One, who separates him from the Hulk again and speaks to Bruce.  She’s not keen on giving up the stone, explaining that time will then branch out once the stones are removed and the events are changed [this notion returns in Loki].  He finally convinces her when he admits that Stephen Strange gave up the stone.  So maybe, Strange was right about something, so the Ancient One hands the stone to Bruce, after he promises that they will return the stones once they’ve used them.

The other three head to the Avengers Tower to retrieve the Mind Stone in the scepter, and the Space Stone in the Tesseract.  We see more of the aftermath of events.  Steve retrieves the scepter and manages to get it away from Rumlow and his team by whispering “Hail Hydra” in Sitwell’s ear.  But 2012 Steve spots him, thinking he is Loki in disguise (Loki does love to mimic Captain America) and the two fight.  Older Steve even has to deal with his younger self quipping “I can do this all day.”  “Yeah, I know,” the older version sighs.  When the younger Steve has the older Steve in a headlock, older Steve whispers “Bucky’s alive,” to shock his younger self into letting go.  Then he knocks him out, and has to agree with Scott and Tony, that his ass is America’s ass.

At the same time, Tony has Scott trigger a heart attack in Tony’s younger self in order to create a distraction to get the case with the Tesseract.  That bit goes fine.  But Hulk finally smashes through the bottom stairs and the case goes flying, with the Tesseract landing at Loki’s feet.  [Which, SPOILER, is how the Loki series starts], Loki picks up the Tesseract and vanishes.  Past Thor is able to restart Tony’s reactor with Mjölnir and save him, huzzah.  But they still have to get the Tesseract.  Scott reminds them that they don’t have the Pym Particles to go back in time again and still get home.  Tony actually has an idea and Steve trusts him enough to go with him.

Thor and Rocket go to Asgard in 2013 during the time when Jane is there with the Aether inside of her, the Reality Stone.  But Thor struggles with being back in Asgard and on the day that his mother dies.  He manages to run into his mother and she realizes he is from the future, and gives him words of wisdom: “Everyone fails at who they are supposed to be.  The measure of a person, of a hero, is how well they succeed at being who they are.”  Thor may be a failure, but that makes him like everyone else.  Thor wants to warn his mother about what will happen to her, but she refuses.  Rocket in the meantime, manages to extract the Aether.  Thor has them wait a moment and holds out his hand.  Mjölnir flies into it.  “I’m still worthy,” he murmurs, with a few tears [so heartwarming.]

Nebula and Rhodey head to Morag to intercept Peter Quill when he gets the Power Stone in 2014, Rhodey simply knocking him out.  However, Past Thanos discovers something is going on because the two Nebulas are connected through their memory files.  Future Nebula is sucked on to Thanos’ ship with her past self, along with Gamora and Thanos.  Thanos accesses her memory and discovers future events, including his death.  Past Nebula will return to the future, portraying her Future self.

Steve and Tony head to Camp Leigh in 1970 (briefly seeing Stan Lee drive by).  Steve will go after the particles, calling Hank’s lab and getting him out.  He ends up hiding for a minute in Director Peggy Carter’s office and glimpses her through the window.  Tony goes down to retrieve the Tesseract and runs into his father, who admits that his wife is pregnant.  Tony, calling himself Howard Potts, gets a few minutes to speak to his father and share advice.  They connect as men who just want the best for their children and wonder if they do the right thing.

Clint and Natasha go to Vormir and meet the Red Skull guardian and face the same dilemma that Thanos faced with Gamora.  Except they both suggest sacrificing themselves.  Clint wants to atone for his actions the past five years and Natasha insists that Clint has a family to return to.  They fight, falling over the edge.  Natasha saves Clint, them pushes herself free, and Clint can’t grab her.  He has the Soul Stone now, but at a great cost.

The team returns and discover the cost.  They all grieve Natasha in their own way, but they have a mission to continue as well.  They place the six stones into an Iron Man gauntlet.  Thor offers to be the one to try it, wanting to atone for his mistakes (and in the midst of the drama, we get the levity of Rhodey saying that Cheez Whiz is flowing in Thor’s veins; honestly, it’s more likely beer, but Thor wants to claim lightning.)  Bruce is the one who takes it and everyone suits up when he tries it.  He succeeds in snapping, but it burns his arm.  There is a brief second that they wonder if they succeeded.  Scott sees something in the window and Clint gets a call from his wife.  But Nebula, the past version, has opened a portal and let Thanos and his ship through.  A rocket hits the compound and causes a massive explosion.

Rhodey, Rocket, and Bruce are trapped and try to save each other.  Clint grabs the gauntlet and keeps it away from some creatures.  On Thanos’s ship, Future Nebula admits to Past Gamora that they did become friends and sisters.  Gamora frees her and declares they should stop Thanos.  And the big three, Thor, Steve, and Tony, all face off against Thanos.  He’s just sitting in the crater he created, waiting for them.  It’s a trap, but their mission is to keep the stones away from Thanos.  Thor summons both Mjölnir and Stormbreaker and declares “let’s kill him properly this time.”

Thanos mocks them that they could not live with their own failure and that brought them back to him.  And he has a new plan; to eliminate all life and remake it.  The three attack, working together.  Tony is the first knocked out.  Then Thor goes after Thanos and gets knocked around.  When Thanos picks up Stormbreaker and is ready to slice Thor, Mjölnir knocks Thanos aside and returns to Steve’s hand.  Thor knew it was possible [and audiences go nuts].  Steve uses hammer and shield against Thanos, but eventually, the hammer is knocked away and Thanos strikes Steve’s shield again and again, chipping it.  Steve is flung away and lays still for a minute.

Inside, Future Nebula tracks down Past Nebula, who tries to get the gauntlet off of Clint.  Past Gamora tries to talk sense in Past Nebula, but her heart is resistant and Future Nebula shoots her before she can hurt anyone else.  Outside, Thanos’s army descends, intent on destroying the planet.  Steve stands up, tightens his shield and is ready to face Thanos again, alone.  Until he hears a voice in his com, Sam, saying “on your left.”  A gold portal open.  Okoye, T’Challa, and Shuri emerge.  Then Falcon flies out.  Other portals open.  Strange emerges with the Guardians and Peter Parker.  Behind them are armies of Wakandans, Asgardians, sorcerers, there’s Bucky and Groot and Wanda and Valkyrie…everyone.  Thor rises.  Pepper lands in front of Tony in her own Iron suit.  Scott emerges from the rubble with Bruce, Rhodey, and Rocket.  The theme returns and Steve calls to everyone “Avengers…Assemble!” (though the “assemble” is softer, but it plays really well) [and again, the crowds in the theatres go nuts!]

The armies clash and our heroes work together.  Peter is reunited with Tony and Tony pulls the kid into a hug [aww!].  Past Gamora saves Quill and he’s so excited for a moment, but she punches him before he can kiss her.  She’s a little disbelieving that she ended up with this guy; as her sister puts it, it was him or a tree.  Clint emerges, still with the gauntlet; they’ve succeeded in bringing the lost people back and now they need to get the stones out of this time.  He’s to head for Scott’s van, but is behind enemy lines.  When he gets knocked down, T’Challa is there to take the gauntlet.  It gets dropped and Thanos starts for it, but Wanda lands in his path.  “You took everything from me,” she growls.  “I don’t even know who you are,” Thanos dismisses.  “You will,” she promises (yeah, she’s back and she’s pissed).  She holds her own against Thanos and he’s in enough trouble that he orders his ship to shoot into the field, not caring for his own troops.  The sorcerers erect shields where they can.  Strange is busy taking care of a flood.

Peter scoops up the gauntlet and activates Instant Kill for the first time.  When he gets overwhelmed, Steve throws Mjölnir, calling out “Queens, head’s up,” and Peter webs to the hammer and flies off.  Pepper grabs him, then Valkyrie.  But the bombardment is too strong.  Until the guns hastily realign to target something incoming.  A bright light tears through the ship.  Carol Danvers has arrived.  She gets the gauntlet from Peter and all the women converge to help her across the battlefield [and it is totally awesome!].  Unfortunately, Thanos destroys the time machine in the van before she can get there.  The blast knocks the gauntlet to the ground and the main three all converge again to try to keep it away from Thanos.  He knocks them aside and grabs the gauntlet, but Carol is right on him.  He manages to get it on, but she spreads his hand.  Not even headbutting fazes her; Thanos has to use the Power Stone to knock her away.

Tony catches Strange’s eye, who holds up one finger.  Tony grabs the gauntlet on Thanos’s hand; he’s knocked back.  Thanos stands, “I am inevitable,” and snaps his fingers.  Nothing happens.  The stones flow onto Tony’s hand; “and I…am…Iron Man” (echoing Tony’s last line from the very first movie).  Tony snaps his fingers.

The army disintegrates.  Thanos sits and ponders what has happened, but he too vanishes.  Rhodey is the first to reach Tony, whose right side is charred.  Peter is next to land, pleading with his mentor, “we won.”  Pepper comes up behind him and passes him off to Rhodey.  She tells her husband, “we’re gonna be okay.  You can rest now.”  And Tony Stark breathes his last, his reactor going out for good [and I still cry over this scene; I’m crying while writing it].  Everyone behind them on the field has tears in their eyes; Steve, Thor.  And Marvel utterly robbed us of a scene they filmed and decided to not keep in, of all the heroes kneeling to Tony, started by Clint, then T’Challa, then Carol and everyone else.

We see Clint reunited with his family, Peter returns to school and greets Ned.  T’Challa is with his mother and sister in Wakanda, Scott and Hope are with Cassie.  We hear Tony speak one last time; he left a message for Morgan, finishing with “I love you 3,000.”  They hold a funeral, with Tony’s original reactor, “Proof that Tony Stark has a Heart,” floating away, and everyone is in attendance.  Happy stands behind Morgan and Pepper, alongside Rhodey.  Steve, then Peter and May, and Thor.  Even Hank and Janet are in attendance, and a grown-up Harley Keener.  The Guardians pay their respects, as do T’Challa, Shuri, and Okoye.  Carol Danvers stands at the back, with Nick Fury.

Clint and Wanda still mourn for Natasha and Vision.  Thor gives the kingship of New Asgard to Valkyrie and decides to go with the Guardians of the Galaxy on an adventure, who are off to find Gamora.  Steve volunteers to return the stones, telling Bucky “don’t do anything stupid while I’m gone,” and they fall back to “how can I, when you’re taking all the stupid with you?”  But Steve doesn’t instantly return.  Instead, he sits by the lake, an elderly man now, and passes the Captain America shield to Sam [and the starting point of Falcon and the Winter Solider].  Steve elected to find Peggy (and possibly start a new timeline, I’m not quite sure), and they finally get their dance.

A great thing they did with the credits is put the original six Avengers at the end of the line-up.  Their theme plays and we get a little montage of their scenes and their signatures, ending with Robert Downey Jr [and audiences applaud].  The final sounds from the film are six strikes of a hammer on an anvil.

This film is a roller coaster of emotions.  There are funny bits, like Rocket telling the Avengers who haven’t been to space to not throw up in his ship.  There are heartwarming moments, like Thor with Frigga and holding Mjolnir, and Tony with Morgan (he has a completely different relationship with her than I’m sure his father had with him, which then makes it more heartwarming to see the two interact later).  And the final battle is what we want in a final battle; the heroes get their moments and I find it empowering that we have the women of Marvel team up.  And Cap said the line!  Admittedly, the writers had to keep Carol away until that moment because she can curb-stomp Thanos and it would be a shorter fight if she had stuck around for more of the storyline.  Her contributions are important; she brings Tony back to Earth in the beginning.  She almost succeeds with keeping the gauntlet away.

Then we have the heart wrenching death of Tony Stark.  And yeah, I still cry because we grew to love this character, and all his flaws, and watch him become a better man and while we know that Robert Downey Jr is still around, it’s the end of an era with no more Iron Man.  And I love seeing the character connections to him; having Rhodey, Pepper, and even Peter with him, and setting Peter close to Pepper and Morgan at the funeral.  And yes, Marvel should have totally left in the kneeling scene (even though it makes me cry more).

The time travel section complicates matters, well, confuses them, but it opens doorways that the MCU continues to explore and it was the way the writers could get themselves out of the corner they managed to put themselves into.  I also do not agree with Steve finding Peggy; well, do I want him happy, yes, but I think he would have had that with Bucky and Sam.  Come on, you reunite two best friends and then tear them apart when they don’t even get to enjoy seeing each other in peace that long.  And I feel it complicates the timeline in ways that make my head hurt.  And it sucks that Vision, Natasha, and Loki were not able to be brought back.  On the one hand, the more realistic stories include loss.  But come on, Loki appears for all of about fifteen minutes between the two final films.  The trade-off I guess is that he got his own show; Vision returns in WandaVision (which was a weird series; and Falcon and the Winter Solider was depressing), and Natasha got her own feature film finally, Black Widow (that sadly, we did not make it through because it was a weird combination of boring in that there were way too many fights and explosions within the first twenty minutes).  Again, it was a roller coaster of emotions.

I’ll delve more into the finale in my wrap up on the MCU after I post Spider-Man: Far From Home

In the meantime, what are your thoughts on Endgame?

Avengers: Infinity War

This starts bringing together all the other Marvel franchises; almost everyone is back from the previous eighteen movies that span ten years (the Marvel Studios logo even highlights the “I-O” as “10”.)  The film does jump around a lot, since it’s picking up and weaving a bunch of different storylines, to get everyone together. Spoilers will not be marked because I figure most everyone has seen this movie by now.  It opens with a distress call from the Asgardian refugee ship [voiced by Thor director, Kenneth Branagh], which is being attacked by Thanos, picking up from the end of Ragnarök.  Heimdall is injured, most of the people are dead, which one of the henchmen says they should be glad to be part of the titan’s plan.  We see Thanos already has one of the Infinity Stones, the purple Power stone, placed in a glove as he grabs Thor.  He then speaks to Loki and bargains, the Tesseract, or his brother’s head.  Loki initially tells the titan “kill away,” but after a minute he cannot stand his brother’s screams and shouts “all right, stop!”  Thor says they don’t have the Tesseract, but Loki had actually managed to sneak it out of the vault before Asgard was destroyed.  As Loki hands Thanos the Tesseract, he tells Thor, “I assure you brother, the sun will shine on us again.”  He then tells Thanos, “we have a Hulk” [a callback to the first Avengers movie].  Hulk takes on Thanos, but Thanos is able to get strikes in and knock the Hulk to the ground.  Heimdall then calls upon his powers one last time to call the Bifrost and send Hulk away.  He’s stabbed for his actions, which upsets Thor, who is then bound in metal.

Thanos adds the blue Space stone to his gauntlet and Loki offers to be a guide to Earth, to retrieve two more stones.  He calls himself a prince of Asgard, and Odinson (looking right at Thor) as he pledges his undying fidelity to Thanos.  Then tries to stab the titan.  Thanos grabs the god of mischief by his neck and slowly crushes it, though Loki gets out “you will never be a god,” before his neck is broken and he’s thrown to the ground; “no resurrections this time (reference to the two times we had thought Loki had died in previous Thor films, only to still be alive due to tricks).”  Thor has been gagged, so we cannot fully hear his cries (though we are crying [but never fear, Loki returns in his own show, with the second season coming soon]…not that we knew that when our hearts are stomped on).  Thanos uses the two stones to vanish, leaving Thor to cry over his brother.

Heimdall had sent Hulk to New York City; where he crashes into the Sanctum and transforms back into Bruce Banner in order to warn Dr. Stephen Strange of Thanos’ arrival.  Tony is also in New York, with Pepper, mentioning he had a dream that they had a child.  He’s interrupted by Strange and Bruce, then taken to the Sanctum, where Wong summarizes the Infinity Stones for Tony.  Tony and Strange argue about the Time Stone, but they also have to find Vision and the Mind Stone.  Tony has to admit to Bruce that the Avengers split up and Tony and Steve Rogers are not speaking at the moment.  Bruce insists that Tony call Steve, and he goes to, but picks up on trouble outside.

One of the ships has descended, intent on acquiring the Time Stone.  Strange and Wong are ready to fight and Tony’s jogging suit can transform into an Iron Man suit (he has retained an arc reactor, even though he’s had surgery…a slight point of contention with Pepper we saw earlier), but Bruce is unable to transform into the Hulk.  Tony sends him out of the fight.  At the same time, Peter Parker is on a field trip and senses danger.  Ned’s idea of a distraction is to simply yell “we’re all gonna die!” to a bus of kids (driven by Stan Lee), but it allows Peter a chance to slide out a window.  He swings into action and Tony summarizes the problem as the bad guy is from space and “he came here to steal a necklace from a wizard.”  Tony then sends Peter after Strange once he’s been captured; his cape tries to save him, but Strange is still taken aboard the spaceship (his buddy is abandoned somewhere by Wong).  Peter hangs on, and Tony zips after the ship, sending the Iron Spider suit to catch Peter.  Tony then tries to send Peter home, but the little spider hangs on and sneaks aboard the ship.  Tony is able to tell Pepper that he’s on the ship and he may not be home real quick.  Bruce picks up the phone to call Steve.

The Guardians of the Galaxy are the ones to respond to the Asgardian distress signal.  Thor drops onto their ship and he’s not dead yet.  (Drax and Gamora admire his muscles, which makes Quill self-conscious and it’s embarrassing to watch him attempt to imitate Thor).  Thor figures that Thanos will be heading to Knowhere to retrieve the red Reality stone from the Collector, where he had it hidden after the events of Dark World.  But Thor also needs to go to Nidavellir [which in Norse mythology, the realm of the Dwarves, and in the MCU, is one of the Nine Realms], to retrieve a Thanos-killing weapon.  Rocket decides to go with Thor, taking Groot with them; while Drax, Gamora, and Mantis will go with Quill to Knowhere, trying to beat Thanos there.

Meanwhile (because a lot of this is happening simultaneously in the timeline), Wanda and Vision are in Scotland, trying to get time together.  But they see the attack on New York on the news, and Tony’s disappearance and Vision wants to go help.  But they’re attacked by more of Thanos’ henchmen, intent on getting the Mind Stone.  One manages to stab Vision and weaken him and Wanda does her best to hold them off.  Luckily, Steve shows up, along with Sam and Natasha, who help beat off the alien team.  Steve tells them to go home.

Gamora has a flashback to the day Thanos came to her planet, killing half the population, but he adopted Gamora during the fray, showing her how to balance a knife and hiding the violence from her.  She still has the dagger and goes to Quill, asking him to promise to kill her if Thanos gets ahold of her.  She has information that Thanos wants, but he doesn’t know she has.  She extracts the promise from Quill and they share a kissed, watched by Drax.  At first, they think Knowhere is abandoned and witness Thanos threaten the Collector.  Gamora attacks Thanos, even going so far as to stab him.  But turns out, Thanos now has the Reality stone and it was all an illusion.  Thanos is touched by Gamora’s emotions, since she cried after supposedly killing him, and he captures her.  Gamora reminds Quill of his promise and it takes a minute, but he is prepared to shoot her.  But Thanos turns the shot into bubbles and disappears with Gamora.

“Home” is still the Avengers compound for Steve, where Rhodey is dealing with Secretary Ross.  Ross is not impressed with Steve’s appearance, but Captain America is not looking for forgiveness and he’s way past asking for permission.  “Earth has just lost its best defender [referring to Tony],” and they’re here to fight.  Ross wants Rhodey to arrest Steve and his fugitive buddies, but Rhodey shuts down the call and begins planning with the team.  Vision suggests they destroy the Mind stone and feels that Wanda’s powers can do it, but she refuses and Steve won’t trade lives.  Bruce suggests that there may be a way to separate the stone from Vision and keep Vision alive, but he can’t do it.  Steve knows somewhere.

Wakanda is preparing for a fight and T’Challa goes to Bucky; the White Wolf has rested long enough.  Bucky asks “where’s the fight?” when he sees a new vibranium arm.  “On its way,” T’Challa responds.

Tony is not pleased to discover that Peter is still on the spaceship, but they come up with a plan to rescue Strange, sucking the henchman out into space.  Then Tony and Strange argue (again) whether they should return to Earth or not [faceoff between two Sherlocks, oh boy], Tony suggesting that going towards Thanos buys them an element of surprise.  Strange warns Tony that if it comes between saving the Time Stone, or saving Tony or Peter, he will let them die.  Tony quickly dubs Peter an official Avenger [and I’m not sure how happy Peter is about that at the moment; he knows that everything going on is dangerous right now, but there’s still pride there, that Tony trusts him.]

Thanos has brought Gamora back to his ship, commenting that Gamora used to help Thanos with his vision.  She retorts that she has always hated him; she was his prisoner.  She insists that she does not know where the orange Soul stone is.  But Thanos reveals he’s torturing Nebula and knows, from Nebula’s memory files, that Gamora found the Soul stone and burnt the map.  Gamora eventually can’t take her screams any longer and admits that she found the Soul stone; it’s on Vormir.

Thor, along with Rocket and Groot arrive at Nidavellir, only to find that the forge has gone cold.  There is one dwarf left, Eitri (played by Peter Dinklage, whom we know as Tyrion Lannister from Game of Thrones, Trask from Days of Future Past and Trumpkin in Prince Caspian), who made the gauntlet for Thanos in order to hopefully spare the other dwarves (and angry that Asgard did not protect them).  Thanos killed them anyway and hobbled Eitri’s hands.  But Thor offers to help Eitri; they need a weapon.  There’s one mold left, for an axe Eitri will name Stormbreaker, which in theory can summon Bifrost.

At the same time, Nebula escapes Thanos’ ship and calls for the Guardians to meet on Titan.  Strange, Peter, and Tony have landed there and meet the Guardians, who attack, thinking they are servants of Thanos.  Quill is ready to shoot Peter and Tony is ready to shoot Drax; Quill demanding “where is Gamora?” while Tony retorts “who is Gamora?”  They roundabout figure out they’re all from Earth and all against Thanos (though Quill’s not sure who the Avengers are), and hey, they all know Thor.  Tony wants to make a plan, focusing on getting the gauntlet off Thanos and Strange uses the Time stone to examine possible futures.  He sees over fourteen million; sadly, they only win one.

Gamora takes Thanos to Vormir, where they encounter the Red Skull (not played by Hugo Weaving, but the actor does an excellent mimicry of his voice), who was banished to guide others to a treasure he cannot possess.  He informs them of the sacrifice that is required to acquire the Soul stone; a soul for a soul.  Meaning Thanos must sacrifice that which he loves in order to gain the stone.  Gamora laughs at first, thinking Thanos is sunk; he loves nothing.  But he is crying, because he knows he must kill Gamora and he actually cared for her a little.  She struggles, trying to stab herself first, but Thanos throws her over the edge and gains the Soul stone.  All that are left are the Mind stone and the Time stone.

Part of the Avengers have arrived in Wakanda, where Shuri can begin to extract the Mind stone (and proving that she is smarter than Bruce and Tony).  Wanda will guard them, then destroy the stone once it is out.  The arrival of the Avengers is not what Okoye expected when T’Challa was going to open Wakanda; she thought of the Olympics, or at least a Starbucks.  But Steve is happy to see Bucky.  When the army arrives and strikes the dome, T’Challa orders someone to get Steve a shield.  Bruce wears the Hulkbuster suit since Hulk continues to refuse to come out.

Thor enlists Rocket’s help (whom he keeps calling a rabbit) in order to restart the rings and awaken the heart of a dying star so the metal will melt.  They succeed with the rings, but the iris is broken and won’t remain open.  Thor offers to hold the iris open.  Eitri warns him that it will kill him.  “Only if I die,” Thor retorts.  He manages to withstand the star’s light long enough, but collapses from the burns.  He needs the axe, or he’ll dye, Eitri realizes and Groot grows a handle for the axe from his arm.  Thor is restored (and proves he’s a god, because who else could do all that?).

The battle in Wakanda begins and the heroes soon realize they have to open the dome a little in order to keep the battle focused on them and away from Vision.  [And it is great to see M’Baku next to T’Challa and the chants get everyone pumped up.]  It may be the end of Wakanda, but it will be a noble end.  With a cry of “Wakanda forever!” our heroes charge, T’Challa and Steve soon in the lead.  They make a great effort, but numbers are against them.  They soon are overpowered, but Thor arrives in a flash, bringing lightning (and the theme music).  “Bring me Thanos!” he cries and crashes into the fray.

Meanwhile, Thanos is on Titan and discusses matters with Strange, which is really a distraction for the team to get into place.  Nebula arrives and gets a few shots at Thanos.  They manage to get ahold of Thanos and Mantis puts him under, while Tony and Peter work on getting the glove off.  But Quill demands to know where Gamora is, Tony urging him to not engage.  They realize that Gamora is dead and Quill punches Thanos, which wakes him up.  Peter almost has the gauntlet off, but Thanos regains it and Peter has to go catch the Guardians as they’re flung away.  Thanos drops a moon on Tony, then faces off against Strange, powers versus powers.  He grabs the necklace off Strange, but breaking only reveals that it is a fake.  He throws Strange aside and Tony flies back into the fight.  Thanos actually respects Tony (not enough to keep him from stabbing the man) and comments that when half the people of the world survive, he hopes they will remember Tony.  Strange asks Thanos to stop.  He’ll give him the stone in order to spare Tony.  Tony shakes his head, but Thanos gains the green Time stone.  Quill attacks, and Thanos leaves.  “We’re in the endgame now,” Strange remarks.

Bucky and Rocket team up briefly, Rocket remarking he either wants Bucky’s gun, or arm.  Steve and Thor manage to greet each other, but the machines eventually break the dome.  Wanda flies down to help, allowing one of the henchmen the chance to attack Shuri.  She defends herself, but Vision has to join the fight and is taken out the window.  There is a wonderful team up between Natasha, Wanda, and Okoye [and all the ladies cheer, because girl power!]  There’s a bit of hope.  Until…Thanos arrives in Wakanda and uses the stones against the Avengers’ attack.  Vision realizes they have to destroy the Mind stone and begs Wanda until she agrees.  She manages to do so, and even hold off Thanos.  But he uses the Time stone to bring Vision back and rip the stone from his head.  Steve even gets in to keep Thanos’ hand apart, but he’s thrown to the side.  Thor brings his axe down into Thanos’ chest, remarking, “I told you you’d die for that,” vengeance for Heimdall, Loki, and his people.  Well, Thanos’ responds, “you should have gone for the head,” and snaps his fingers.  His hand is charred, but he disappears.

Bucky is the first to disintegrate, then T’Challa, Groot, Wanda, then Sam.  On Titan, Mantia, Drax, and Quill all disintegrate.  Strange tells Tony “there was no other way.”  Peter stumbles to Tony, commenting “I don’t feel so good,” (his spidey-sense warning him).  Tony catches him as the teen mumbles “I don’t want to go.”  And his parting words to his mentor are “I’m sorry.”  [And the Russos crush our hearts!]

Maria Hill and Fury are the last we see disappear in the stinger, while they’re starting to react to the battle in Wakanda.  Fury manages to send something on a pager and all we see is a star symbol appear.

A big deal is made through the bonus features that Infinity War and Endgame were filmed back-to-back over one year.  Which is admittedly a lot of work, not discounting that, but you’re also speaking to people who have watched Lord of the Rings and Hobbit and those took longer to film and had extensive pick-up shooting (we’ll get more into that when I cover those films).  So, we’re impressed, but not blown away.

They also mentioned that the conflict between heroes can be entertaining; and they have a point at times.  Like when Tony and his group face off with Quill and the Guardians; we the audience know they’re all good guys, but they’ve never met, until they realize they all know Thor.  But like in Civil War, we honestly just want all our favorite heroes to get along.  So many times, the heroes were so close to a solution.  So many times, if they had just executed a plan earlier, they would have succeeded.  And they would have, if they were together.

And I get that was the directors’ idea; separate them so that they’re at their lowest point when their greatest threat comes along and it makes an interesting story, but if they had communicated better, then some heartache would have been saved (like the audience’s…cause now we don’t trust you).

We’ll delve more into the results of this film when the story picks back up in Endgame.

Up Next: Ant-Man and Wasp  (which, I have to admit, I have never watched before)