Avengers Endgame movie capers on all those traces it left in the prequel Infinity War letting us complete a picture we were dying to see. It is nothing less than a catharsis for repressed minds. A mental solace to comfortably know the aftermath of something visceral that had gradually taken its toll on us.

Part of the journey is the end.

But what it also does is finish a major chapter in our lives. A chapter that spanned for more than a decade, 11 years to be precise, and now we don’t know what we are going to do. It was the punishing wait for the next one, of all those dots, that it let us connect, the hold-up for the end credit scenes, and the fandom that it brewed in us that had us going for so long making us loyal to a franchise that deserved every morsel of our attention. It is deeply saddening to have that knowledge in our head, knowing that it all ends here.

As the Avengers movie turns in its badge, a lot of things are automatically put to rest. The movie builds up for it, allowing it to take its course. You knew that way before, and it constantly plays with your mind even as you watch the movie. There is trouble brewing at one side of the ring, and you know it, that things might not end well for your favourite characters. But Avengers Endgame plays a fair game letting a proper possibility pitch in to aid.

The Plot of Avengers Endgame Movie (Spoilers)

It feels like only yesterday we had seen the monstrosity of Thanos, of how he had wiped out half of the populace as if they were nothing. Grieving continues even in Avengers Endgame movie as we get to see more ashes that compel you to once again relive that hollow pit you had tried your very best to scramble away from – A whole damn world swept under the wildfire of pathos, a consequence that had us mourning a year. We survived it with a heavy heart and Endgame begins by letting us feel heavier.

The beginning is laced with an act of sweet revenge that feels too terribly incomplete to be really serious. Thanos is beheaded almost immediately, as a mistake rectified by Thor, who this time, goes for the head.

Rocket: What did you do?
Thor: I went for the head.

But bygones remain bygones, and the rest of the world are forced to live with it. It is a bad bad world to live in, where you are constantly reminded of what the dead took away with it. Everyone is living a sullen life trying to make sense of the tragedy that left them scarred for life.

Then sparks up a chance to get back to Infinity War and undo the changes that took away their everything. Why would anyone say no to that? Only those who have finally something good going on for them.

I love you 3000.

Iron Man

While Tony Stark is the first person to not go chasing after that chance that could undo the past, he is also one of the smartest persons, or the only person, who could have actually made it work.

But then there is that other knowledge knocking at his gates, that things might not end up well if they go meddling with nature. And yet, it is that crazy idea about that possibility of bringing everyone back to life that compels him to choose the latter.

If you just sit back and think of those big choices he had to make, you know, there would be a little movie playing in there per se. Reliving it would be like forcing time to stop.

Ah! Time! We are getting there.

Pepper Potts

I think one of the biggest heroes in the movie would be, hands down, Potts. Knowing what it could do to their family, she accepts the fate, come what may.

If you try to look back at the events that led them to where they were, she has always supported Tony. It wouldn’t be wrong to say that Tony wouldn’t be where he was, if it weren’t for Pepper. Most of the choices he made were literally dictated by her hands of aid, her coming to the rescue in all things life, kept him going.

It was his obstinacy that Potts never messed with, that allowed Tony to prosper. Letting him be him, and yet keeping him in check, directing him to safety and being a reason to go for it in the first place.

Tony, trying to get you to stop, had been one of the failures of my entire life.

It is a huge sacrifice she makes silently administering the perils that were to befall her family. Yet she doesn’t pose a hindrance letting Tony be, once again, him.

Turning Back Handles of Time

Ushering in the concept of bringing things back to life, lancing the theories of people who were guessing Thanos’ time stone would come to the rescue, it is Ant-Man, the superhero who had gone missing in the quantum realm, who flies in with a solution. What was just five hours for him turned out to be five years in reality.

Walking in with his quantum realm theory, and trying to make things pragmatic with the help of Bruce Banner and Tony, it finally gets invented – time travel.

Spearheading into a suicide mission of bringing all the stones back and create a gauntlet of their own, the gang disperses into various segments of time. Here’s where people head toward:

Bruce Banner goes to Sanctum Sanctorum in 2012 to retrieve time stone from the Ancient One.
Steve Rogers goes to retrieve the Mind Stone from New York in 2012.
Scott Lang and Tony Stark go to bring Space Stone (Tesseract) from New York in the year 2012.
Rocket and Thor go to Asgard of 2013 to get the Reality Stone.
Nebula and Rhodes head to retrieve Power Stone from Morag in 2014.
Natasha and Clint head to Volmir in 2014 to retrieve the Soul Stone.

An Affair with Time

An affair with time could be both rewarding and punishing. What seems like a fairly easy mission of hit and run, ends up being like a colossal meddling with the past. While Bruce Banner’s Time Stone retrieval ends up being easy, Steve relives the time of Peggy Carter for a brief moment.

Things screw up for Lang and Tony who fail to bring Space Stone from 2012, as Loki runs away with it. As a workaround improvisation, Steve and Tony head to the S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters in the year 1970 to retrieve an earlier version of Tesseract. That’s where Tony ends up meeting his father Howard Stark. It is a pleasant meeting inundated by a childhood yearning of a boy trying to see a piece of his father alive and kicking, like a reverie one wishes to hold on to. But time is tricky, and he has so less of it, but he makes it count with a hug.

Thor, is akin to a joke, the directors decided to go with. He has turned into this obese version of himself because his failure has affected him the most. But some fat couldn’t stop him from being who he is. After all, isn’t it the soul that should define a person? In retrieving the Reality Stone, Thor encounters his mother Frigga who had died in his timeline. He wishes to linger but cannot, for they were running out of time.

You are here to repair your future, not mine.

It is amazing how Frigga doesn’t wish to know what happens to her fate. She could also easily tell Thor where he hailed from. A mother always knows.

While Rocket and Thor manage to retrieve the time stone in the Avengers Endgame movie, the latter also retrieves his favourite weapon – Mjolnir, resurrecting it in his timeline.

The Morag Debacle

Morag is the place where things begin to go wrong for the remaining Avengers. Nebula’s implants starts interfacing with her past self, and she was a bitch in the past, wasn’t she?

He knows.

Thanos gets to know about what the Avengers were up to (watches Infinity War) and slips in a master plan by enslaving Nebula from the future, and allowing the bitchy Nebula to go back instead.

Natasha and Clint

One of the most interesting junctures of the Avengers Endgame movie is the retrieval of the soul stone. When Natasha Romanoff and Clint Barton go to Volmir, we secretly know what’s going to happen. In comes the Soul Stone’s keeper, Red Skull giving us the jitters again. How do you get a soul stone? Only after a sacrifice of a loved one.

I don’t judge people on their worst mistakes.

Thus begins an emotional fight where one is being more selfless than the other. It is that tug of war that one is dying to die to let the other one take away the winning price of life. It takes away a piece of you when you witness its end result.

Clint: Tell my family I love them.
Natasha: Tell them yourself.

There were only two ways it could have gone, and both the endings would have been equally wrecking. But the writers decided to go with a world without Natasha keeping Clint’s happy ending with his family in mind. A card well played!

The Return of Thanos

As the remaining Avengers create their own infinity gauntlet, Hulk being able to take the repercussions of the snap, pitches in to do the honours. Unaware of the new Nebula’s call to Thanos, Hulk snaps the finger restoring everything back. (Like is it the way it always works? Does it come with a manual?)

In comes Thanos, making a grand entry in Avengers Endgame movie destroying everything in his wake. The new gauntlet falls into the rubble as Nebula is sent to retrieve it who is later shot by Nebula herself. (Time works differently here, Grandfather Paradox doesn’t apply here) The team then engages in a face-off against Thanos, and soon we get to see Cap wielding Mjolnir, adhering to one of those cool comics story. So dope!

The rest of the gang, saved by Hulk’s snap, arrives, and start laying waste to Thanos’ army.

The Endgame

We have to understand that whatever played out from the part that follows Doctor Strange trying to check 14 million possibilities, the one that we witness is basically Doctor Strange’s vision, an alternate universe where it was ending up being possible. To make their current time that possibility, it was necessary to live it. So Infinity War from the point where Strange decides to let Thanos win and let Avengers Endgame happen is nothing but the actual play out of that Doctor Strange’s vision where he deliberately chooses to get himself killed. (How does Doctor Strange remember his possibilities talk?)

If I tell you what happens, it won’t happen.

So what becomes the Endgame? The ultimate sacrifice, the only way Thanos could have been defeated? Iron Man sneaking all the stones from the infinity gauntlet and using it to obliterate Thanos along with his army.

That brings us to the cardinal question –

What is it with heroes and their sacrifice? It is that unflinching resolve to do the right thing, even though it comes at a cost, that sets real heroes apart.

Iron Man didn’t give it a second thought when he went for it, knowing what it might do to him. We had seen how it had injured Thanos at the end of Infinity War, we had witnessed how badly it had affected Hulk’s arm in Avengers Endgame movie, it was easy to figure out that someone as human as Iron Man couldn’t have possibly taken it. So, the hero fell only after making sure that the villain was gone for good.

As a final scene to the movie, we see a shriveled Cap, who decided to choose the timeline where he gets to spend a lifetime with Peggy before getting old. In the end, he hands over his shield to Sam Wilson (Falcon) to let him continue the legacy just like in comics.

Steve: How does it feel?
Sam: Like it’s someone else’s.

You can order Avengers Endgame movie from here:

The Final Verdict

Goes without saying, it all started with the Iron Man back in 2008 and it ends with him too. A series of 22 movies that dictated the flow of an awesome shared universe that finally found its apt conclusion.

That being said, Avengers Endgame movie wasn’t supposed to give us something to look forward to, just like the end credits that play nothing, putting our fantasies to rest for one last time. As if the MCU knew that we would all be waiting this time, with a force of habit that they had hammered in. But we are talking about death here, and nothing returns from the dead, for unlike the Avengers, we can’t time travel.

What does it mean for MCU? Well, it might have come to an end, but its elements still linger. Spiderman Far From Home is gonna get released soon, and even though it would be unrelated to our cinematic universe, it has a protagonist we have grown to love.

Looking forward to that!

Check out the trailer of Avengers Endgame movie: