Avengers: Endgame

With a twenty-two movie franchise backstory, this one is Nirvana for the movie lover. Plus we in the audience have the joy of visiting old friends whose genesis we already know. This means we can get right to the plot. Oh, "Endgame?" is that a spoiler? Nah. They wouldn't. Would they? We already saw our main heroes disintegrate into ashes that were that floating away at the end of "Infinity War." Eek!

Directors Anthony Russo, older brother of co-director Joe, have a dream team who wrote the script: Christopher Markus ("Captain America"), Stephen McFeely (more "Captain America") plus Marvel Comics originators, Stan Lee, etc., which includes delicious throwaway bits, like citing time-travel movies and TV episodes for technical references.

Some of their gigantic (familiar, superhero-loaded) cast:
  • Robert Downey, Jr. launched this franchise as Tony Stark/Iron Man, and the rest is history.
  • Chris Evans Steve Rogers/Captain America stepped onto a moving train. Much of the cast had been in previous episodes, so this walking, talking anachronism (look it up) had a lot of catching up to do, particularly since most of the humor is referential and this decent WWII soldier didn't recognize anything after "Wizard of Oz."
  • Mark Ruffalo has humanized The Hulk so much Bruce Banner would have trouble recognizing him. I remember one episode where Bruce was struggling to work up a head of steam because they desperately needed The Hulk's rage.
  • Chris Hemsworth has made Thor far more human (and much funnier!) than I ever expected. They lure him to join them by saying, "There is beer on the ship!"
  • Scarlett Johansson has succeeded in breaking into the Old Boy network. Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow has become a regular; a colleague loved and respected by all.
  • Jeremy Renner gave Clint Barton an edgy personality and Hawkeye is the result.
  • Don Cheadle brings us the most even-tempered member of the team. His James Rhodes/War Machine is always under control.
  • Benedict Cumberbatch made Stephen Strange/Doctor Strange even stranger than Stan Lee first envisioned.
  • Chadwick Boseman as T'Challa/Black Panther has earned a seat at this table.
  • Paul Rudd is a late comer to the franchise, but for Scott Lang/Ant-Man, better late than never!
  • Jon Favreau started the ball rolling when he directed "Iron Man," so I was happy to see his chauffeur character have an extended scene near the end. 
 The list goes on and on, Spider-Man, Rocket Raccoon, Groot, Loki, Pepper Potts, Nick Fury, you know...just like the villain, Thanos. In "Infinity War" he succeeded in grabbing all those Infinity Stones, with which he can kill off half the populations in the universe, so the stakes are as high as ever.

By the way, watch your liquid intake, this runs for over three hours and it's PG-13, so expect lots of fisticuffs and Computer Generated Imaging, but hardly any sex or profanity and there is no section I would suggest you miss for a trip to the litter box. The lengthy fight scenes are broken up with intimate, usually humorous, scenes to keep us involved.

This gigantic hit satisfies on many levels, but mostly because we are with good friends. As far as any story, I am sworn to avoid any spoilers, so I guess you''ll just have to see for yourself. By the way, it is obvious that I will be doing very, very few reviews. My alibi is boring, so I won't bother you with it.
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You are probably familiar with this already:
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