****This article, as you might guess, contains many spoilers (however if you care enough about this movie that spoilers would affect you, you’ve probably already seen it.)****

I am not super big into action, sci-fi, or fantasy movies in general.  I generally prefer something that seems a little more realistic, so I have never invested my time in watching any superhero movies, including any Avengers films. I wanted to watch this film because I thought it would be interesting to see how much I understood, I knew spoilers were everywhere, but luckily I hadn’t seen any.  

Going into the film I knew roughly three things: the movie was three hours long, someone important dies, and the main plot is that the Avengers are trying to get jewels (what I now know to be the infinity stones).  I also had a very basic knowledge of a few of the main characters from things I had seen previously on social media and in other Avengers movie trailers.

I walked into the movie theatre at 7:30, my Chipotle and La Croix in hand, fully prepared to lose three hours of my life. I went to the movie with one of my best friends, who had already seen it and knows a lot more about Marvel, and she was kind enough to answer all of my questions. Luckily, I now know I did not in fact waste three hours of my time.  

For the first half hour or so I was honestly utterly confused. Because I have not seen Infinity War, I didn’t understand what the plot was starting off and I also didn’t know who the characters were because none of them were in their signature armor that I would have recognized them in, instead they were all dressed like normal people. By about the half hour mark and after a few questions to my friend I had basically just concluded who everyone so far was, that Thanos was bad, something awful had happened to the world, and that the Avengers needed to find these so called “infinity stones.”

One of my favorite characters in the film by far was Ant Man; he brought the comedy and made me laugh, keeping me more interested throughout the long film.  By the time they started working on the time travel, I began to get more of a grasp of the general plot of the film, this soon changed. When the time travel scenes occured I was just extremely lost. All of the time traveling scenes were based off of past movie plots and storylines so I was really struggling to follow it.  During these scenes I could really only follow the basic plot that finding the stones was good, not getting them was bad. I also thought that when Black Widow died that was going to be the biggest death in the film. Boy, was I wrong about that one. Another thing that greatly confused me throughout the film was how they were able to time travel and effect past outcomes without changing their present; one of the big reasons I am not a fan of Sci-Fi. I was also confused how it was modern day people but they all had extreme science skills and technology that allowed them to invent things like time travel (but I guess they are superheros so they can do anything.)

I started to much better understand the plot when they returned from the time travel, all having retrieved the stones. I’m not going to lie I was pretty shocked and amazed when I realized that Nebula was actually from the past and was a “bad guy” now, it was very clever.  

This takes us to the fighting between Thanos and his army and the Avengers. I was intrigued when it was just the core characters of the movie fighting, but when everyone else came out to fight I got chills. The scene where all of the separate Marvel characters came out to join the fight and work together, I must say was very powerful. I also thought it was a great way to create closure to the series with the final “Avengers assemble” and all of the characters being brought together. While this action scene was a little bit longer then I normally would be able to sit through, I really loved how the writes made it so all of the characters helped one another out. I especially loved the entrance of Captain Marvel who comes to help and ends up destroying the ship. Another part of this I really loved is when all of the female characters came together and worked with each other. This was a powerful scene and it definitely made me feel a little bit better about the lack of main female parts in this film, by giving the women a strong power moment. Thor’s portrayal throughout the film was something I really appreciated. I thought it was important that they showcased he was still worthy of his hammer even after getting lost along the way. It was also significant to me that he felt joy when Captain America used the hammer, this showed are a really strong friendship. Thor also added another comedic element to the film, some good relief to the otherwise very tense scenes.  

I did cry when Iron Man died. Yes, I will admit I was sobbing. Even without knowing the full backstory of him, the way this scene played out made the death very sad, regardless. I sobbed even harder when they showed the funeral and everyone was crying; something about that really got me.  

I did however have a critique about the movie. I feel it’s easier to critique because I’m not such a dedicated fan, but I thought some of the scripting was very predictable and overall could have been better. If I could change anything about this film, that would be it. I feel like in moments of drama the characters always said very basic, very predictable lines, especially at the film’s beginning. Opposite of that though, the cinematography of the film was really great and I appreciated the detailed and well thought out shots.

Without knowing absolutely anything about this film, I must say I enjoyed it. I most definitely would have enjoyed and understood it more if I knew more of the plot and background, however, I could still follow the main idea.  I can see why this film was such a big deal to so many people because it did bring closure. I felt this closure without even seeing any of the other movies. In the end, everything seemed to come full circle and I can see why this movie has gained so much attention.  This is what I have concluded: while this definitely didn’t make action and sci- fi films my favorite, it opened me up to a new idea of them. Maybe in the future I will watch Endgame again, but this time I will have seen the movies that come before it.