This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.
Dorsey’s review published on Letterboxd:
This review may contain spoilers.
As satisfying as it possibly could be, given the scope and ambition of the project. It has to showcase three dozen characters, wrap up the stories of the original six Avengers, show us enough of the aftermath of Infinity War so that we feel it mattered, reverse Infinity War, and move the pieces around for a new status quo while still feeling like an ending and not a sequel hook.
And surprisingly, given what a hot ass mess the last go around was, it mostly works. The stuff that doesn't is mostly minor or things you've come to expect from these movies: emotional moments undermined by stupid jokes about ballsacks or cruel jokes about a characters' appearance, the Russos' bizarre grudge against Thor: Ragnarok, Carol being hyped up as the big game changer only to fly in and out when convenient, this absolute foolishness instead of just picking one of the thirty actual characters you already have, some of which are queer in the comics anyway, the goofy and patronizing GIRL POWER charge that screams 'tacked on during reshoots', certain characters not really having anything to do because there's so damn many of them and they chose to talk about Hawkeye for some reason.
But none of that is really important. Avengers: Endgame is unique in that it doesn't need to, and isn't trying to stand on its own. That's usually a complaint I make about these teamup movies, but there's not really precedent for this. It's openly calling back to the very beginning as it tries to wrap up character arcs that started 10 years and 22 movies ago, sometimes with blatant fanservice and other times with real emotion, something that was sorely missing last time. The smartest move in this one is to spend almost a third of the movie in the aftermath of the snap, setting the emotional stakes for the surviving characters and giving them room to breathe before it's back to business.
The business is pretty fun! It juggles a lot and does what it has to do, which is to be Chris Evans' and RDJ's swan song before they hang up the suits for good. Evans' conclusion is a little...fine, but lazy...but it's really about RDJ, the unlikely catalyst for the biggest film franchise of all time, who set the tone for the MCU, who believably went from villian to hero to villian and back again every damn movie, who never phoned it in no matter how many times the writers did, who puts it all on the table here. Fitting that it begins and ends with him. I've been there every opening weekend since the start, rain or shine, Thor: The Dark World or Black Panther, like a chump, but I can't say it's not pretty damn satisfying to see one that could finally be considered an ending, even knowing that it won't be.