“Avengers Endgame” is quite frankly the movie of the year. It concludes Marvel’s Cinematic Universe of 11 years which started in 2008 with “Iron Man”, and is the fastest movie to ever reach 1 billion plus dollars as its gross, reaching it within 5 days! With a gross of approximately 357 million dollars, it has broken the domestic box office record in the United States of 350 million dollars in one weekend. Additionally, it has grossed 859 million dollars internationally. To beat the highest gross of all time, “Endgame” will have to gross over 2.788 billion dollars which was set by “Avatar” from 2009. “Endgame” is the 8th Marvel film to break 1 billion dollars and ends this phase of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

“Endgame” is a triumph yet it falls short of the lofty expectations that Marvel has tended to set throughout the years. It is a fun movie, full of emotion, throwbacks, crazy references, and great comedic humor as it references many of the old films of the “Big 3”, “Iron Man”, “Captain America”, “Thor”, and “Hulk”. However one of the common problems is the consistent theme of plot holes, lots of them, that leave even the diehard fans of the MCU scratching for answers. The movie picks up from the end scenes of “Infinity War”, where Thanos had finally acted on his vision and eliminated ½  of the world’s population to restore order and balance. The Avengers attempt to undo Thanos’s vision and bring back the world’s population.

The key heroes that stand out are the original crew: Iron Man, Captain America, Hulk, Black Widow, Hawkeye, Rocket, and Nebula. Every character is developed excellently and to near perfection in their roles, however, there are standout performances by Ant-Man and Thor who achieve this through comedic means. Captain Marvel, despite being advertised heavily, is not significantly featured in the film but plays an essential role in the closing moments of the film.

The greatest strengths of “Endgame” are its intensive focus on character development as stated above, and its ability to deliver emotionally for fans who have stuck with the franchise from the very beginning. One of the failures of “Infinity War” is rectified in this film as “Infinity War” struggled with the sheer amount of characters it had to include and did not resonate the characters with fans, apart from the standout moments everyone remembers. However, the tone of “Endgame” was all over the place, and the film directors, the Russo brothers, simply could not make up their mind on what they wanted the film to be. They couldn’t decide between a light-hearted feel or a dark, emotional feel as it highly fluctuated between the two. This is what left me feeling a bit unsatisfied as this film definitely did not live up to its full potential or what it could have been, but it left me, a die-hard MCU fan, content and satisfied enough to shed my first tears ever at a movie and felt warm and fuzzy all at the same time. So despite its un-organized feel, uneven tone, heavy plot holes, and being a bit overhyped, I left the theater feeling happy, sad, and like I was in deja vu all at the same time.

I would give it a 7/10. What would you give it? And if you haven’t seen it, you need to go see it, it’s arguably the biggest film of the 20th century!