The ‘Avengers: Endgame’ Reviews Are In And Yep, You Lot Will Probably Cry

Marvel audiences came for the chaos but stayed for the characters, and the first batch of Avengers: Endgame reviews suggests viewers will be paid back for their personal devotion across a 22-movie-long arc.

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The film, which hits Aussie screens today, has been billed as a triumph of the oversized superhero genre Marvel Studios itself created. Across 56 reviews tabulated at time of writing, Rotten Tomatoes says the film has a 98% fresh rating.

Notably, reviewers have praised how much of its three-hour runtime is devoted to just letting its key stars just act – yes, there is a big blue bastard to defeat, but the film reportedly lets series mainstays like Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) and Captain America (Chris Evans) realistically express their grief after the events of Avengers: Infinity War. 

For the New York Times, A.O. Scott writes Thor (Chris Hemsworth) has undergone another subtle character transformation and contends with his literal godliness in new and interesting ways, even invoking a comparison to a certain Coen Brothers creation. Scott also writes The Hulk / Bruce Banner (CGI Mark Ruffalo / IRL Mark Ruffalo) also explores his fundamentally binary nature, saying that kind of character endpoint is the real crux of the film.

Todd McCarthy agrees. For The Hollywood Reporter, he writes “what comes across most strongly here, oddly enough for an effects-driven comic-book-derived film, is the character acting” from those mentioned above, but also from Paul Rudd as Ant-Man and Josh Brolin as omega baddie Thanos.

Yes, the film is long, but reviewers say the flick somehow packs more emotional heft into its three-hour runtime than its predecessor. And yes, that includes some well-executed fan service, and David Sims writes in The Atlantic that “it’s filled with hat-tips and winks to the audience—forgivable pieces of indulgence given the goodwill the series has built up with millions of viewers.”

Much has been made of the mish-mash of tones brought together in this finale piece, and Leah Greenblatt tells Entertainment Weekly “there’s an expected urgency to it all, but an underlying melancholy too — not just for everything that’s been lost, but for what won’t be coming back.” 

All of that on top of the fist-fights and explosions that are mandatory fare for a modern superhero movie.

It’s the end for the first part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but if you’re a fan, it seems you might be leaving pretty satisfied anyway.

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