“Avengers: Endgame” is the satisfying capper on an 11-year high-wire act that outdoes even Peter Jackson’s epic “The Lord of the Rings.” In 22 movies, a combined running time of 48 hours, the Russos and other Marvel directors - and producer Kevin Feige, the magician behind it all - have reinvented movie storytelling. The Russos keep the action and plot twists moving at a brisk pace, and the script’s narrative arc gives all the original Avengers - Downey, Evans, Hemsworth, Ruffalo, Johansson and Renner - their moments to shine. (Photo courtesy Disney / Marvel Studios) Chris Hemsworth portrays Thor in “Avengers: Endgame.”Įven with those thrills, there’s not an ounce of fat on this movie’s three-hour running time.

The reveals will elicit laughs, gasps, cheers, fist pumps and a few tears, even from those who haven’t seen all 21 earlier installments. Even those who have been binge-watching all the previous installments, from 2008’s “Iron Man” forward, will be surprised by who shows up and why. It’s also not spoiling the movie to say that, being a Marvel movie, there are a lot of callbacks. The third is the battle, where good and evil face off for all the marbles. The second is the mission, where the heroes devise and carry out a plan to undo the snap and restore what’s been lost. The first is the “getting the band back together” part, establishing where everybody is and what motivates them to carry on after the big snap.

It’s not spoiling the movie to say, vaguely, that the movie is divided into three parts. Directors Anthony and Joe Russo and writers Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely - who also collaborated on “Infinity War,” “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” and “Captain America: Civil War” - start the surprises in the first frames, even before the Marvel Studios logo, and drop a big bombshell in the first 15 minutes. With “Avengers: Endgame,” building on 21 previous movies over the last 11 years, the set-up exercises that give critics room to describe a movie without spoilers are all done before the projector starts. OK, that’s the roll call, except for Scott Lang, aka Ant-Man (Paul Rudd), who shows up at a certain point - and who I’m mentioning only because he showed up in the marketing campaign months ago. (Photo courtesy Disney / Marvel Studios) Scarlett Johansson plays Natasha Romanoff, aka Black Widow, in “Avengers: Endgame.”

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