[This review will contain minor spoilers. Although I will avoid major spoilers, I will also mention a few early plot points. If you wish to go in completely cold, please stop reading this review, and come back after you’ve seen the movie.]

The only movie that could be bigger than Avengers: Infinity War is one that has to live with its repercussions. Avengers: Endgame isn’t just longer than Infinity War and it seems a disservice to simply call it “bigger”. It’s not really even a typical sequel. It’s the culmination of over ten years of movies—twenty-one films that have become worldwide sensations. While much has been written and will be written about how the Marvel Cinematic Universe has impacted the film industry, in Endgame, you feel a narrative impact. At this point, you’re either invested in these characters and their stories or you’re not. In Endgame, that investment pays massive dividends with an epic film that is at turns thrilling, hilarious, and powerful. Avengers: Endgame isn’t just everything we want from a blockbuster; it’s what only the Marvel Cinematic Universe could deliver.

Picking up 23 days after the events of Infinity War, those superheroes that remain continue to hunt Thanos (Josh Brolin). However, their hopes for a quick resolution to undo his devastating snap are thwarted, and the heroes are forced to accept a world where half the population has been dusted. Then Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) reenters the picture and he has an idea—time travel. The Quantum Realm, properly manipulated, allows those who enter it to travel through time. The scattered heroes reassemble and plan a “time heist” where they will retrieve the Infinity Stones before Thanos does, and use them to undo the damage. However, as their fragile plan begins to fracture, Thanos sees an opportunity to remain victorious.

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Image via Marvel Studios

Leaving Infinity War, I couldn’t get past that it was half the story, and while I’ve re-watched the movie four or five times (it’s still very entertaining), that’s a tough hurdle. Your antagonist, Thanos, is basically your protagonist since he moves the action forward, and while it’s fun to mix and match superheroes, the cliffhanger ending ultimately makes the journey unfulfilling. In that way, Endgame is the payoff we’ve been waiting for while still creating stakes of its own. Even if you can see the broad outline of the movie before you even step into the theater, directors Joe and Anthony Russo have shown themselves to be masters of a propulsive narrative. Even though Endgame clocks in as the longest Marvel movie to date (and likely the longest for the foreseeable future), it never feels long.

The virtue of splitting up the characters and breaking them apart again—this time into different teams tasked with recovering the Infinity Stones from different time periods—provides not only fun dynamics, but also a story that never gets stagnant. Each scene feels like it’s accomplishing something, and while you can quibble with why certain scenes aren’t creating set pieces, set pieces are kind of secondary here until the climax of the movie. The Russos pride themselves on character-driven stories, and that’s why Endgame works so well. The movie opens not with planes falling out of the sky or massive explosions as the world is engulfed in flames. It opens with Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) losing his family. The weight of that loss permeates the movie so that we never forget what our characters are fighting for.

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Image via Marvel Studios

Some may see this conclusion as a giant “undo” button, but Endgame knows how to live with the weight of consequences. Endgame isn’t a quest for a perfect resolution for every single superhero, nor is it a celebration of the status quo. Things happen in this movie and the Marvel Cinematic Universe will look different because of them. That gives both Infinity War and Endgame weight and stakes beyond bringing back everyone who was dusted. If I had known where this movie was going, I would have been deprived certain thrills, but the consequences would still matter. Throughout Endgame, I was worried about the mission even though I knew that Thanos couldn’t win (this isn’t Game of Thrones where all your favorite characters die horribly).

Where you have to ignore the consequences is in the time travel stuff. At one point, Rhodey (Don Cheadle) asks why they don’t just go back and kill Baby Thanos, to which Hulk replies that it would basically create a time paradox where you’ve undone the reason you went back in time in the first place. But as Endgame rolls on, you can see that the filmmakers aren’t too concerned with creating big budget Primer where the confusing time travel still works if you map it out. As with most time travel movies, you just kind of have to set logic aside and not worry too much about plot holes. Yes, those holes exist, but Endgame succeeds because it focuses on character and story, not because it wants to make sure that its time travel logic is airtight.

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Image via Marvel Studios

Furthemore, without the time travel, you wouldn’t really get to experience the breadth the MCU has provided. When characters revisit previous movies that means more than if they had picked up an Infinity Stone somewhere they hadn’t been before. When they interact with old faces, those characters’ presence means something. It’s not a cameo parade, but a reminder of the journey we’ve been on and in a couple cases retroactively improves a couple old MCU movies.

But it all comes back to character, and pretty much everyone gets a chance to shine. There’s one sequence that puts the focus on the journeys of Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) and Steve Rogers (Chris Evans), and while its placement seems a bit random, you don’t really mind because it’s about servicing those characters, what they’ve lost, what they have to gain, and where they’re going. It’s the kind of scene that only works if you’ve spent a bunch of movies with these characters, and since you care about Iron Man and Captain America, you care about what they’re doing.

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Image via Marvel Studios

Thankfully, Endgame never feels like a victory parade but a story with its own stakes and dangers. This is the landing that the MCU had to stick, and for the most part, they nail it. The movie may not really be about anything in particular, and yet its overarching theme (broad as it may be)—that it matters how you choose to live your life—still resonates thanks to the choices these characters make. Never in the movie’s three hours did I feel like I was getting cheap thrills or fan service. I felt like I was getting the final chapter in a long story before the new story begins.

Since I’m trying to avoid spoiling the movie, I’m not even talking about my favorite parts because I want fans to experience them like I did. I want them to have the same thrills and same laughs. Will Endgame hold up on repeat viewings? I have no idea! I didn’t think Infinity War would be so re-watchable, and yet I’ve probably watched it more times in the last year than any other Marvel movie. But I have a suspicion that Endgame will stand the test of time because it understands what we’ve grown to love about these characters, their stories, and their world. Avengers: Endgame is an ending of sorts, but what an ending it is.

Rating: A-

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