Ok, now that it’s been a good three weeks since Endgame has been released, I think we are officially in the clear. But, just in case you haven’t seen Endgame yet, then this is a SPOILER WARNING. THIS ARTICLE CONTAINS MAJOR SPOILERS FOR ENDGAME.

You have been warned.

Well, Endgame was certainly an experience, wasn’t it? The movie opens directly where Infinity War left off, with all the remaining Avengers on Earth at the Avengers HQ in Upstate New York, Tony Stark adrift in space, and everyone just trying to collect themselves after the Snap. But within the first 20 minutes, Tony has been saved by Captain Marvel, the Avengers have figured out where Thanos warped to at the end of Infinity War, and are jumping through space to go kill the Mad Titan.

And they succeed.

  Hey, I warned you, didn’t I?

  But yeah, as the Avengers arrive to kill Thanos it turns out he has already destroyed the Infinity Stones by turning their own power against themselves. Every single stone was destroyed and since the stones were the only thing that could undo the snap, what Thanos did is now permanent.

  After this revelation, Thor finally goes for the head, and the movie skips ahead… by FIVE YEARS.

  Now, the reason I hit you with so many rapid-fire spoilers there was to try and make you feel the way Endgame made me feel in its first 20 minutes. In 20 minutes, Endgame had managed to completely flip my expectations on their head and made the movie go down a very different path than what a lot of fans probably thought it would take.

  Endgame uses the time-skip very effectively in order to show how our heroes have changed after the events of the Snap. Five years without their loved ones have affected each Avenger in their own way, and the first act heavily focuses on the heroes personal ways of coping with their grief. To me, this first act drags on a little bit longer than it probably should, but it’s worth it to reach the second and third act, where the pace finally starts to match Infinity War. The route the Avengers take to undo Thanos’ Snap involves traveling back in time to key points in the MCU in order to grab the stones at key moments where they were vulnerable to being stolen. And this gives longtime fans a great amount of fanservice, by taking fans back to some of the most iconic settings and moments in the MCU.

  Characters also gain a great deal of development in this movie. Character arcs we have been following for years and through so many movies finally get resolved in Endgame, providing satisfying ends for many of the original Avengers, while letting the new torchbearers of the MCU, like Spider-Man, Black Panther, and Captain Marvel, have a chance to further establish themselves as the new faces of the franchise. And while Thanos isn’t as amazingly written as he was in Infinity War, he still maintains a suffocating presence that hangs over the whole movie.

  The set-pieces, as always, are spectacular, with battles in far-flung cosmic locales, and here on planet Earth. There isn’t a whole lot of action in this movie, which is a bit disappointing, but when there is action, the movie makes sure that you know it.

But, really, I think the whole traveling-back-to-iconic-moments plot point really represents what Endgame is; a capstone for the MCU up to this point that tries to satisfy every type of Marvel fan, and in a quite extraordinary manner, manages to pull it off.

  I give Avengers: Endgame 11 Howls out of 10. It delivers a very satisfying experience for longtime fans of the MCU while still standing on its own, with great character development, unexpected twists, and incredible action set-pieces.