grace the big screen. But as you’ll discover on
25 April, they’ve pulled it off – and then some.
Rewind to last year’s Infinity War, and you’ll
remember that things weren’t going so well for the
Avengers team. The villainous demigod Thanos
(Josh Brolin) had run amok in his maniacal quest to
gather all six Infinity Stones, finger-clicking his way
across the universe like a dastardly disco dancer, and
causing half of our fave heroes to crumble into dust.
Worse still, as you’ll know from the Endgame trailer,
the survivors are in a pretty bad way, with team
leader Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) lost in
space and low on oxygen, leaving a farewell message
to Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) on his Iron
Man helmet-cam: “Part of the journey is the end.”
A new hope?
All told, pretty bleak. But it’s precisely those terrible
odds that promise to make Endgame such a gritty
death-or-glory finale. And while we don’t want to
blow any of the big plot details, let’s just say there are
a few shreds of hope for humanity to cling onto. The
first is the reappearance of Scott Lang/Ant-Man.
Paul Rudd’s size-shifting dork-thief didn’t feature
in Infinity War, and the Avengers team assumed
he was decimated in Thanos’ savage cull. But
that same trailer’s payoff finds Lang buzzing the
Avengers’ doorbell, while his ability to travel through
the time vortex of the Quantum Realm offers plenty
of possibilities: could he bend time, reverse the
Infinity War massacre and bring our fallen heroes
back from the dead? And don’t overlook Clint
Barton/Hawkeye. Jeremy Renner’s sharp-shooting
bowman has never exactly been the Avengers’
star player, but Endgame gives him a whole new
purpose, as he returns with a fresh identity as
shadowy samurai Ronin. Throw in a down-but-
not-out bunch of survivors including Steve Rogers/
Captain America (Chris Evans), Bruce Banner/Hulk
(Mark Ruffalo), Thor (Chris Hemsworth) and Black
Widow (Scarlett Johansson) – and perhaps the big
purple nasty won’t have things all his own way.
Avengers: Endgame isn’t just another movie then.
It’s the cinema event you’ve been waiting for. It’s
the end of an era, tying a bow on arguably the greatest
fantasy saga in history. It’s the grand finale that the
much-missed Marvel visionary Stan Lee – who died
last November at the age of 95 – would have wanted.
And perhaps that’s the greatest endorsement of all.
Avengers: Endgame touches down on 25 April.
See right for our guide to its pivotal participants
26 odeon.co.uk
THANOS
Having decimated half of all life
with his third-act fingersnap in
Infinity War, The Mad Titan has
disappeared. But to where?
And, more crucially, to do what?
BLACK WIDOW
One of the few Avengers to
escape The Mad Titan’s cull,
Natasha Romanoff now has the
unenviable job of reassembling
the survivors and striking back.