Episode 45: 2019: AVENGERS ENDGAME

You must have known this one was coming! The culmination of 22 amazing game-changing movies came together to make not just the ultimate comic-book movie, but simply one of the greatest stories ever made!

I could do this all day!

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:06

Hello everyone, welcome back once again. This is Milestone Movies episode 45. We are getting ever closer to the Big 5-0, and you know what that means. But let's not dwell on that. We've got an amazing year for movies to discuss, which is 2019. And yeah, I'm just going to front-end it. We're talking Avengers Endgame today. It's one I've been building up to for a long while. Obviously, for the last sort of 10 or more episodes, I've been heavily focused on the Marvel Cinematic universe. And for many, including myself, Avengers Endgame is the high point of the franchise. Today, you know, I'm quietly confident that they can continue to do great stuff. But yeah, as of time of speaking, then yeah, definitely it's the absolute peak. And we'll go into it in a lot more detail shortly. But I mean it wasn't a slack gear for movies either side of that. Do you know what I mean? Even though that was the you know the biggest movie of all time, there was some amazing stuff out there as well. I'm gonna rattle through them fairly quickly. I'm gonna try to rattle through them fairly quickly today, um, because I do want to discuss Endgame at some length. Um, but yeah, it was a massive, massive year. So I'll go through your top five. I'll just quickly mention some of the other films that I think were really, really good this year. Um, and there's at least one or two actually that um are fairly stinkers, but uh we'll mention them as we go. So Endgame is the the biggest, most successful film of the year, and in fact of all time, as time speaking. Um it was followed closely by Lion King, which is a I'm doing air quotes, you can't see him. Uh a live action remake, Disney. Um so you know, again, so much of it is CGI, all the characters are pretty much CGI, there's a human in there somewhere as well, I think. But uh oh no, so I'm getting that muddled up with Jungle Book. Um, but yeah, all of the the animals in Lion King are uh CGI'd and it's in what way it's a re you know a live action remake, I don't know, but Disney are very much in that mould and still are to this day. Uh but also massive frozen massive Disney success is Frozen 2 this year, which was the third biggest film. Um more of the same, I think in some ways I prefer Frozen 2 to the first one. Um but yeah, certainly if you like one, you'd probably like the other. Uh possibly the the Frozen Bubble had burst a little bit by this point, but yeah, it was still it was everywhere when that one came out, it was huge. Um so the fourth and fifth films, uh they kind of bookend uh endgame in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. So you've got at number five, sorry, I'm jumping around all over the place here, was Captain Marvel. So it's technically a prequel, it's set in the 90s, um, but it it was released after Um, let me get this right, uh Infinity War, which obviously is the precursor to Endgame. Uh that has a little clip at the end where Nick Fury, just as he's turning to dust in the blip, uh he sends a message on an old style um beeper uh with the Captain Marvel symbol on it. That features then in um Endgame, I think, um later on. But yeah, that basically recalls Captain Marvel to Earth, and it turns out she was actually here in the 90s, and it's a sort of a flashback episode for um Nick Fury and also Agent Colson, stuff like that. So yeah, loads of cool little bits in there, um, which basically sets up Captain Marvel to be one of the big saviours in in Endgame. Um and then after Endgame, so again jumping ahead, um, the fourth biggest film of the year was Spider-Man Far From Home. So that's the first one that's set immediately after everybody comes back from what becomes known as the blip uh in Endgame. Um, and yeah, uh it's Tom Holland being brilliant again. Um, it's got a great turn from Jake Gillian Hall as Mysterio, who's uh this new superhero, or is he? Um fantastic like draw on the floor uh ending as well, sort of really pulls the rug out from under you. Um and yeah, sets up more of the same, really. It's you know one of the strongest sort of standalone series of the MCU, really. Um that cough probably sounded like I was being sarcastic, but it was a genuine cough. Um but yeah, so those two films they're in the top five, and they're when you're viewing the films in order, they're either side of Endgame. Um but yeah, bearing in mind that all of those films were huge. You'll probably notice again, top five is still Disney, you know, Disney absolutely rule in the uh ruling the cinema um throughout this whole period. Um and became actually we'll go on to a little bit of sort of box office trivia, really. So um, although we'll get into Endgame in a little minute in a bit, it's actually took two Endgame alone took two billion dollars at the box office, highest movie of all time. Um but actually when that was out and when those other two films we've just mentioned were out, MCU as a franchise is the first franchise to um to gross 18 billion in total, and then it outdid itself and did 19 billion, then 20 billion, 21 billion, and ended up as 22 billion by the end of this year, uh, which was absolutely staggering. Obviously, it was a massive, massive, you know, there's 22 you know movies that have uh accrued that, but um, you know, it goes to show Star Wars, which had uh Rise of Skywalker, the last of the original uh nine movie uh series. That was released this year, didn't actually crack the top five, but was still a big, big success. Um, and it meant that Star Wars was the second franchise to gross ten billion, so obviously that's kind of more than doubled by the MCU at that point, but still, you know, massive. Um, and actually, the rise of Skywalker was the last uh Star Wars movie to be released in the cinema up till this year, where in about two weeks' time we've got uh The Mandalorian and Grogu, which is going to be the first cinematic uh Star Wars. Obviously, there's been a lot on Disney Plus uh series-wise since, but uh yeah, that's the next movie in the series. Um but yeah, even even outside of that, Toy Story 4, a huge Disney and Pixar hit, obviously. Some people think it's um kind of a redundant film in that the third one is such a brilliant end to that that first trilogy. Uh it really ties everything up really, really well. Such a great ending. Did it need a fourth? Well, you know, it's a good film, it's got some fun stuff in it. It's a little bit sort of crowbarding, sort of getting the gang back together and all that sort of thing. Uh, and in fact, this year, again, there's a Toy Story 5, which, you know, is doing more of the same. Um I've mentioned before, you know, a lot of the shorts in between the Toy Story films, um, all available now on Disney Plus, and they are really funny, um, just as sort of iconic once you've watched them many, many times as the films themselves. Uh, Toy Story 4, probably most notable for introducing Forky, um, played by Tony Hale, who's just this like literally a spork uh with a personality in it, it's like he's a newborn. Um he's pretty funny in the film, but if you get a chance to watch, and they're really short, the Forky Asks a Question little series of shorts on Disney Plus. Seriously, I mean some of them are two, three minutes long, but they're well, well worth it. They are absolutely hilarious, really, really good. Um what else we got there? I'm just gonna rattle down the list in uh in the order that I've got it written down. Um there was a Child's Play remake. Now, I'll be honest, I've never watched it. I think one of the great things about the Child's Play films, one of the few sort of horror franchises that I do enjoy, is that it's been consistently the same people involved, it's been one story one after the other. Um, and even at this point, you know, we hadn't even had the Chucky TV series, which is still done by Don Mancini, the original guy. Uh, for some reason, Universal decided they would do a remake of the first film at this point. Um, yeah, again, don't understand why they decided they were gonna do that. I've never actually watched it yet. I probably will, just to give it a once over, but uh yeah, kind of redundant. Um Yesterday. Now, this is a fantastic film. This is probably, outside of the MCU stuff, probably gonna be my next sort of um favourite film of the year, actually. It's it was a real unexpected joy uh film. Uh it's Danny Boyle, it's basically a guy, Himish Patel, who was once in East Enders and was very, very good, but a very different character to what he plays here. It really shows he has got quite a range. Um and he basically plays an ordinary guy, he's a musician. Um he has a bike accident and he wakes up in hospital and he's okay, but everything's exactly the same, except that the Beatles don't exist. He sort of stumbles across the fact that nobody else remembers the Beatles. Um and it's just it's never really explained, other than he then manages to pass off the Beatles songs as his own and becomes a humongous hit. He's a huge, huge star, um, you know, he's to play in stadiums, he's uh, you know, just on top of the world, uh, and he's just he's passing off Beatles songs as his own. Now, weirdly, it is kind of reminiscent of if you remember Goodnight Sweetheart, which was the uh 1990s BBC sitcom with Nicholas Lindest. Uh, he did exactly the same. He travelled back to World War II uh and passed off like Elton John songs as his own and the Beatles songs as his own stuff like that. But yeah, yesterday it really, really good. Um he also has a sort of uh romance with his sort of childhood best friend and this sort of stuff as well. There's a really cool it's almost like a cameo. It's um it's a uh an actor we all know playing a role that uh you wouldn't expect to see him in, and yeah, it's it's great. If you've never seen it, it's just a proper, proper, feel good film. Um I think one of Danny Bohr's best, absolutely brilliant. So do check out yesterday, uh, or tomorrow if you like. Um Hobbson Shaw, so that was a Fast and Furious spin-off. Uh so it came between the 8th and the 9th, Fast and Furious, I think, and this focuses on uh Dwayne Johnson's cop and um Jason Statham's reformed villain, um and yeah, it just goes off on the same crazy tangents that the Fast and Furious's were at this point. Uh it's all good fun, and it does tie into the other films as well, so you it's kind of Fast and Furious eight and a half, I guess. Uh ready or not, so that's had a sequel this year. This is a film about a girl who at a wedding gets trapped with this crazy family who it's essentially a game of hide and seek, but you know, to the death. Um really good. Samara Samara Weaving, Australian actress, uh, who's cropped up in all sorts of stuff, but she's very, very good. Um the sequel sort of came and went to the cinema. I was kind of uh you know, gonna be the next on my list to go and see, and you know, the week after it came out it disappeared off all the screen. So I'll have to catch up with that one at some point. Uh Angel Has Fallen, so this is the third has fallen um series with uh Gerald Butler after uh Olympus and London has fallen. Um so more of the same, just kind of cheesy action, but good fun. Hustlers was uh film uh kind of almost like an Ocean's 11 style film with Jennifer Lopez being very cool in that. Um well worth checking out. And Rambo Last Blood. So this harks back to one of the very early podcasts. Uh so this is the final to date uh Rambo film, uh sliced alone, obviously playing John Rambo. Um and is he, you know, he's trying to live a quiet life, he's sort of set up on his own, um, and trying to be a sort of a family man almost, and he's not able to because you know there's villains everywhere, and who else is gonna take him down but Rambo? So yeah, it's it's kind of over uh over the top, which I guess you'd expect, but not as much as say Rambo 3 was. Um and it's not quite as violent as the fourth one, Rambo. So it's um it's a good film, it's well worth a watch. It's um as far as I know, it's tied up the uh the series. I don't think there's gonna be any more. I'd imagine at some point it'll be pretty cool and all that sort of stuff there, but um at the moment they've left it be. Uh Glass was a um M Night Shiamalan film which bought in characters from Split, James McAvoy, um, and Unbreakable with Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson. Um so yeah, kind of a mash-up almost like a little uh uh series mashup from him. Uh The Kid Who Would Be King is a follow-up film from Joe Cornish from Adam and Joe and obviously Attack the Block fame. Um this is obviously aimed a little bit more at kiddies, but it's a bad kid who discovers King Arthur's um sword. Um some really good performances in there from people like Patrick Stewart and stuff as well. Well worth a look. Good family film. Uh Lego Movie 2 was again a huge hit, but can't sort of crack the the top five with the uh the Marvel stuff going on there. Um it does try something a little bit different, you know, it's the characters that you remember from the first one, but um done in a kind of a different way, uh, in that there's a new character and it ends up being someone that we already know, without spoiling things for a seven-year-old film. Um How to Train Dragon 3. So I've done an episode on how to train a new dragon um and mentioned this one, The Hidden World. Uh you know, the great thing about that series of films is that it does allow the, even though they're animated characters, it allows them to grow and to be older than they were last time, and to, you know, by the end of this one, again, hopefully not spoiling it for you, you know, the the young characters have grown and have had kids and have moved on and moved away and stuff like that, and it's yeah, really good. There's been a little coder to it. There's um there is a little short, I think it's called Homecoming. I think it's called Homecoming, um, which sort of picks up a little bit after How to String Dragon 3. But um yeah, that's uh very good film as well. Um Shazam, so this was one of the one of my favourite of the sort of uh at the time DCEU, I think they were calling it. Um so they're quite disjointed again, all those films, but there's a little sort of tie-in to things like Superman in there. Um it's Zachary Levi, who was brilliant in Chuck and uh is the voice in uh Tangled, and he's very, very good as Shazam. So obviously if you know the story of Shazam, he's a kid who gets imbued with these powers that he can turn into this sort of you know grown-up superhero, but he's still a kid at heart. Um and he's great, he's great at being childlike, he's a really, really good actor anyway. He's just so much fun. Um and yeah, there was a sequel a few years later, uh, which is also fun, but yeah, it just suffers, you know, it's kind of been chucked by the wayside because obviously James Gunn's come in and he's trying to reinvent the wheel with everything, and um, yeah, it's it's sort of fallen through the cracks there. But it's a shame because it's a good film and it's a good attempt at the what used to be Captain Marvel, this character, but he is now uh known as Shazam for obvious copyright reasons. Um there was a new version of Hellboy, so certainly not the first, certainly not the last, but this is the one with um David Harbour, who was big in Stranger Things at this point. Um and it's would seem to be a great fit for that character. He's certainly got the look, you know, he he easily could take over from sort of Ron Perlman doing that character. He's massive, he's you know gruff and you know huge. But I mean I've seen I went to see this film in the cinema, couldn't tell you a thing one about it. I can't remember a single thing about it. There's been another one since with another guy. I I wasn't even that interested in that one by that point. It you know, Ron Perlman absolutely nailed it with his two films, so yeah, um you know it's a great comic book character, you can understand why people want to kind of reinvent it, but you know, if you've already done it right, why why bother? Uh unfortunately. Um so Detective Pikachu. So this is a again live action, essentially, um Pokemon film uh with uh obviously CGI animated characters, you know, things are so photo photo-real by this point that you can pass off these you know uh animated characters as you know almost real um and I think it's a good fun film. Uh Ryan Reynolds bizarrely voices um Pikachu uh for reasons that sort of become obvious at the end. I can't quite remember to the top of my head. And yeah, my kids were well into Pokemon at this point, 2019, so took them to see it. I thought it was really good. The kids are a little bit indifferent to it, you know, they they prefer just the sort of the cartoons and the cards and stuff like that. So um yeah, it's a good film. I don't mind it. Uh John Wick chapter three, Keanu Ruiz Kicking More Ass, obviously. Uh this one introduced Halle Berry's character in it as well. I think she was supposed to be spun off, but I'm guessing that's what eventually became Ballerina with Anna Armas. Uh Godzilla King of the Monsters. So this is the second um of the new Godzilla films. It's the third in what's now become known as the Monster Verse. Uh you had Kong Skull Island in between. Um it's the 35th Godzilla film overall. Obviously, you've got the old classic Toho Japanese ones. Uh, you've got a couple of American remakes sort of further away and all that sort of stuff. Uh Ronald Demerick, I think, did one back along. Um so yeah, I mean uh the franchise is still going strong. The Monsterverse franchise is carried on with Kong vs Godzilla and um I think it's two of them so far, and another one on its way. Uh there's been um Godzilla minus one or minus zero, which is the first one. A big Japanese hit that uh got a sequel coming out this year as well. Very highly rated films, um, which I've not yet seen. Um what else do we have? Rocket Man. So this is Dexter Fletcher's um who we talked about with the Eddie the Eagle episode, uh, actor turn director. Uh this is his Elton John biopic, and um he is played by Taryn Edgerton, uh who again mentioned in Eddie the Eagle, uh, and he's brilliant. You know, he's you wouldn't look at the guy and think Elton John, but he he's brilliant, and he's got a weird link to it because in Singh he plays this gorilla who plays I'm Still Standing, which is an Elton John song. In the second Kingsman film, Elton John is bizarrely in that one as well. So these two guys just seem to have been like really linked all the way through for some reason. Um, and he plays him here very good, you know. It's a it's a fairly well-known story, obviously, some great music in there as well, um, and was a huge success, actually, massive, massive hit. Uh Dark Phoenix, so this is one of the lesser sort of X-Men films. Um this is kind of the last gasp of the the the Fox uh X-Men films, and in fact, this year, so uh this was the year that uh Fox was bought out by Disney. That was all sort of finalised. So literally, I wrote that down somewhere. So yeah, Endgame, Revenge of Endgame was released on April the 26th, and that was only a month after the Disney Fox takeover. So I think Endgame would have been a little bit different if they'd have owned all the sort of Fox characters at that point. Um, you know, you probably although there's so much in Endgame already, I think you probably would have had a little bit more of the things like the X-Men characters and stuff like that tipping up if they were. But yeah, I mean it's only it was a it was a you know, I don't know, controversial, but it was uh certainly a talking point that um Fox had been bought out by uh Disney and to be fair it's only sort of it's only been good for them. They've done some you know brilliant stuff with the properties that they've got um and they've bought all that under their banner, so yeah, it's been been massive for them, and uh yeah, not too bad at all. But yeah, Dalt Phoenix, come back to that, yeah, not great, not massively memorable. It's kind of the last film for the uh like the first class um group. So you've got your James McAvoy and your um Jennifer Lawrence and uh Fussbender and stuff like that, but yeah, again, there's there's a lot of films I can't really remember that much about, but yeah, it was it was pretty much I think this is the only one not to feature Hugh Jackman in any way. Um I think I'm right in saying that. Um talking of Last Gasps, we've also got Men in Black International, so no Will Smith, no Tommy Lee Jones. Uh what you've got is Chris Emsworth and um the girl who Tessa Thompson from uh Thor Ragnarok um and indeed Enger. And yeah, it's them two playing agents. There is no reason you shouldn't have other films with other agents, you know. The Men in Black was a big institution in terms of you know, there was a lot of agents, so this just follows two different agents into the uh a similar sort of adventure than what we used to. Um but talking of Will Smith, very good film I like, uh Angley's Gemini Man. So this is notable for basically having Will Smith, you know, uh contemporary Will Smith looking like he did in 2019, uh fighting younger Will Smith, so fighting him from his kind of heyday from his sort of Fresh Prince of Bel Air or you know, early um bad boys or something like that. Um because it's basically a story about cloning um and uh a kind of an evil version of uh of this guy. Um it's it's a fun film and it's uh like special effects-wise, absolutely flawless um stuff there, uh with him sort of taking on his own uh his own past self, it's almost like, you know, um, which is well worth a look. Um and on the same sort of vein, the things I like about Terminator Dark Fate, which is the sixth Terminator, um, again kind of critically panned and kind of doesn't really tie in with the others, and it's asks you to sort of forget about some of the ones that have gone before. Uh but there is some brilliant I think it's the very first scene in it, uh which again de-ages people, it's got young Arnold Swords, it's got young Edward Furlong in it for all things. Um and just it's just flawless. Brilliant, brilliant stuff. You know, you can say what you like about CGI, but when it actually adds to the story and actually makes you believe that you're watching the most you know found footage from 20, 30 years before, it's pretty pretty remarkable. Um but yeah, it's it's Linda Hamilton's back for this one, obviously Arnold's back for this one as well. Um it kind of puts a line under those original characters, I think, in a lot of ways. Um but yeah, again, it asks a lot of the audience to sort of forget the stuff that they want you to forget, and you know, the fact that he's five other other films out there as well, it's uh bit of an ask. Um so almost there wrapping up. Um Beautiful Day in the Neighbourhood, which is Tom Hanks uh obviously on fine form because that's the only form he has, uh playing Mr. Rogers, who doesn't mean a lot to us here in in the UK, but is uh basically an institution in American kids programming. Uh he basically is you know the the guy that taught kids how to uh be I don't know, kids, I guess. He's very wholesome, very um yeah, a very good guy, and this basically tries to scratch the surface, say, was he really that good? Um Tom Hanks is brilliant in it, really, really good. Uh Knives Out, so the first of Ryan Johnson's uh Benoit Blanc uh films with uh why is Daniel Craig's name not coming to my head? Um Daniel Craig, he is kind of weird, almost a Columbo-y, almost an Agatha Christie style uh detective. Uh the first one is a Hugh Dunnett. The the thing about these films is that they're really um absolute packed star-studded cast, you know, they're huge casts and they're all really well-known people. Uh in this one you've got you know, Chris Evans, Jamie Lee Curtis, Ananda Armist, all these, you know, big, big stars. And yeah, it's it's a good twisty, turny, old-fashioned in a way, thriller. Um, and it was a massive success. And the sequels so far that have been Glass Onion and uh the one that came out this Christmas whose name escapes me, Dead Man something, something. Um they've gone straight to Netflix, they've been made for Netflix, but uh oh yeah, it was the same creatives and actors and that involved, so um, you know, very much of a of a series. Um Jumanji, next level. So this was the follow-up to uh Welcome to the Jungle. Not Welcome to the Jungle. Is it called Welcome to the Jungle? Talked about it like last week. Um Jumanji, yeah, it is Welcome to the Jungle, I think. Um which is the one with Dwayne Johnson, the one with Karen Gillen, it's leading to a new sequel this year. Um and yeah, yeah, it's more of the same, very, very fun. Um and yeah, Jumanji as a whole is just a great fan, fun uh franchise. Um we're nearly there. We've got 1917, which is Sam Mendez's World War II thriller. Um, its big selling point was that it was uh it's like a single shot shot in one go. It wasn't quite, you can kind of see the breaks in it, but it was very cleverly done anyway, you know, massive long set pieces. Um, you know, the actors could yeah, absolutely should be, you know, lauded for working their way through what must have been a hell of a filming schedule. Um there's a few big names and faces sort of scattered in there in supporting roles as well. Uh yeah, it kind of didn't quite live up to the hype. Everyone thought it was gonna be a you know, uh Christopher Nolan sort of style game changer. Uh it's okay, it's worth a watch, it's not too bad at all. Quite intense in places. Um and finally, and to be honest, I haven't seen it because the trailer was enough to make me think I'm never gonna watch this film, uh, is Cats, which was the filmed version of uh the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, and by all accounts it's one of the worst things ever made. It's uh it it's got actors who are digitally made to look like cats, um Judy Dench, James Corden, Taylor Swift, all these people who otherwise could sort of do no wrong. Uh apparently it everyone in it is diabolical, the film just doesn't work. But again, I'm I'm talking hearsay because I've not seen it, but I've never heard a good thing about it. So uh I guess it's probably one of those that in the long run will probably become one of those sort of so bad it's good kitsch classics and get re-released in the cinema and have people dressing up as cats to go and see it or something, but yeah, not seen it. But there we are, that was 2019. Like I say, not a bad shout for uh great year of the movies, but it was absolutely ruled by Avengers Endgame Head and Shoulders. So, what is there to say about Avengers Endgame that's not already been said? I mean, I've probably covered a lot of it on the previous podcast, particularly when sort of started talking about the um MCU. Uh I mean it's massively notable for me for being like every one of the films up till now in the MCU had been, I think, getting better and better, and the fact that each of them was sort of interconnected, just fed more and more into it. And when you hit the heights of like civil war, where they were bringing in all these sort of disparate characters, but still adding new characters and still having an amazing story as well, and still propelling it forward, it was like they can't better this, they can't better it. And then Infinity War come along and you know, peppered even more him and ended on a hell of a cliff like probably the biggest cliffhanger in movie history, um, and you knew it was gonna be followed up fairly quickly, sort of a year later, by uh by this, I think it was called Infinity War Part 2 at one point, uh, but what became Endgame because of a line that Doctor Strange says in the first one. And you just thought, well, how can how can it be better? It can't possibly can't get all these threads together and it actually works. They can't sort of do anything new that you haven't already seen, but god damn did they? I mean, it's j it's if you've not seen it, and I I I'm not gonna sort of rattle around with um spoiler warnings and stuff like that, because I think I firstly, I don't know anyone who hasn't seen it. I also don't know anyone who doesn't put it at the top of their MCU list, let alone you know, top of their movie list. I mean, it was notable for me for probably being the first movie in about 20 years that would instantly went into my sort of top five films, you know, since the early 90s when he had the a run of I don't know, Terminator 2 and Lethal Weapons 3 and Jurassic Park. Since then, you know, there'd been films I'd loved, there'd films that you know certainly on my lists, but Endgame was just bang, almost straight to the top there. Do you know what I mean? It was um unbelievable. I saw it on uh the first show in a midnight screening, uh it was a school night Wednesday or Thursday, so it's like a three-hour long film, so it was you know half past three or something, and I was just buzzing. I was I I couldn't sleep after it, it was just so good. I mean, to me to see a film, you know, that late at night nowadays I I fall asleep regularly. I went back to see Ben Game uh three, four times in the cinema at least. Uh it was re-released again, I think, sort of towards the end of the year as well, uh, with some extra little bits and bobs in there as well for people who'd seen it as many times as I had, I guess. And it's such a long film, and I'm drawn into it every time. I love it. It's just so good. It's almost a film of many sort of specific parts. It starts off, you know, following on directly from Infinity War. Um Thanos has done the snap, half of the universe has disappeared. Uh it sort of drags characters back together, and then they go out and they kill Thanos, and then they realise that that's not helped because they can't bring everybody back, and then it jumps five years, and you get to see the sort of fallout of what's happened and what it would really be like. You know, there's obviously bigger conversations to have of what would actually happen, but yeah, essentially what would happen if half the people had gone, how would the people who are left, you know, cope with that? Um they're all pretty defeated. Um and all of a sudden, out of nowhere, Ant-Man turns up. Uh, he's managed to sort of come back from the quantum realm where he was trapped at the end of Ant-Man and the Wasp, which is uh again between Infinity War and um Endgame, uh, and he comes back with the secret of basically shrinking to that size can reappear somewhere else. Essentially, it's time travel, and it leads the Avengers to sort of come back together and you know, even though they've gone their separate ways in a lot of places uh after those five years, they sort of come back and f have a crazy plan and actually end up going back sort of back to the future two style, back through the previous films, so it it revisits sort of Thor 2 and the original Avengers and everything from um uh Captain America. Yeah, and it just goes back and they go through meet characters before they've sort of met them in real time and you know revisit events that we've seen before. There's a great bit the end of Avengers in Avengers Tower where Loki's sort of taken down by Hulk and then actually turns out there's more stuff going on in the background, and yeah, it's just brilliant, and it just gives you a chance to sort of go back and see characters that you haven't seen for a while. Um and it yeah, it's got all those crazy time travel stuff in there as well. And then obviously there's sort of the the the the big battle at the end, which I mean I I can't do it and talk about spoilers, so yeah, spoilers. Um when the characters start coming back, so when they eventually do defeat Thanos and stop him from clicking his fingers, everybody starts coming back, and the portal scene as we know it, it's just phenomenal. I mean you have to see it on a big screen, it's pretty impressive even watching it on TV, but when you see it on a big screen, and it is re-released again this year, I think, before uh Doomsday comes out, uh it's just phenomenal. It's you know, the the characters that we've had that are left, you know, they think they've won, they think everybody's coming back, all of a sudden, you know, thousands of ships turn up and then just blow everybody to Kingdom Come. Literally, when they think it's the end, Cap hears something in his his ear on your left. It's like, what? That sounds like Sam from uh you know um Captain America 2. Uh all of a sudden this portal, so what becomes known as the Marvel Sparkle Circle in Deadpool opens up, Sam comes through, other characters, you know, Canders come through, and in the cinema, even you know, after it had been out for weeks and weeks and weeks, and I was going to see it again, every time these characters who were dusted to appear again, you know, people were cheering and clapping and stuff like that, and you just don't see that in the cinema anymore. Um, and it just becomes like the biggest splash page to use a comic term that's ever been on screen, and it's just phenomenal, and it gets me every time, and you know, the the bit where Cap is able to actually pick up Thor's hammer and just grabs it and Thor's like, Yes, I knew it, and because he saw that little inkling. This is what I mean about the MCU, it teased that back in Age of Ultron where they were all having they were all drunk and they were trying to pick up Thor's hammer. Um, and there's this little wobble when Steve does it and Thor sort of looks a weird bit weird. You didn't even notice that really to start with when you watch it, and you know, five years later or whatever, you're watching this in Endgame, and it's like, oh my god, that was seeded back then. Oh, it's just so good. And yeah, hammer flies into his hand and he's Avengers assemble, and just everybody that's ever been in the MCU just comes out. But I'm almost tearing out just thinking about that scene. I love it so much. One of the greatest scenes in cinema history, uh, you know, and it's just great. Everybody's steps out, everybody's different, you know. Chris Hemsworth, when we see Thor, he's proper depressed about it because he was the one who cut off Thanos' head and essentially stopped them being able to save everybody. He's sort of descended to be this sort of drunk guy living in a basement, uh, you know, massive dad bod and uh just playing video games and stuff like that, drinking beer. He's just completely gone off the rails. Um obviously Hawkeye's gone completely schizoid and gone out killing everybody because he lost his family. And yeah, everybody is just you know, Tony Stark at the start is is virtually dead, you know, Hulk has become Banner has become Hulk full-time, and it's just yeah, everybody that's what I mean everybody's slightly moved on in that they've gone different ways to what you expect, and i each of those separate characters could have their story as a separate film, and all of these disparate characters are all in the same film doing this stuff, and it just becomes such a great story. Uh it's you know, obviously it's a sort of tearjerker ending with the main character um having sacrificed himself, and you know, even then there's just this sort of hope for what's going on, and you know, Captain America gets a proper sort of ending to his story, and yeah, it's just it's wonderful, it's just such a good film. Um Marcus McFeely wrote it, uh the Russo brothers directed it, um, and those guys are all coming back for uh Avengers Endgame. It's gonna be uh not Avengers Endgame, this was Avengers Endgame, uh Avengers Doomsday uh later on this year, which they're obviously teasing uh a little bit as you go on. Everybody major is back, sometimes in different roles, um, and it's phenomenal. It is just it's just immediately propelled itself into my greatest films of all time. I don't think they'll ever beat it. Uh I don't think there'll be a superhero film that's just got that weight of brilliance about it. Um everything it manages to do is phenomenal. Um, but yeah, it's just great. I mean, I can't believe that this film is seven years old now. It feels so new, you know. When I do my sort of re-watches of the MCU, which I do, you know, every few weeks I watch the next one in the series. Um every time Endgame comes around, it's just such a high point, and it just feels like it's a brand new film. Um but yeah, it's amazing. It's so good. After 22 films in the series, you shouldn't be getting better and better, but it really did. So yeah, that's it. That's 2019's absolute best film. I don't think anyone would really argue with that. I'd be surprised. Um only if you're an absolute, you know, MCU hater. Um could you watch it without having watched all the others? I guess you could. I mean it is a direct sequel to to Infinity War, it does bring in loads of characters. It'd be a lot of explaining. If you watch it with someone who hadn't seen all the others before it, you know, that would be pretty difficult. If you'd kind of had a smatter and knowledge of who the characters were, I guess you could pick it up. But yeah, I wouldn't recommend watching it without watching everything else because it's that shared experience of all of those characters and everything that they've been through. I don't think you get the payoffs that you get with everything, you know, Cat fighting himself and all this sort of stuff, and all these little throwaway lines and things. I think it's uh yeah, it needs you to have invested your time into the 21 films that have gone before it to really to get the full investment. Is there any bad against it? Maybe uh, you know, there's some characters that are missing. I mean, we've already talked about the fact they probably couldn't have any of the Fox characters in, um, but I remember there was a bit of a sort of disappointment about the fact they hadn't had any of the defenders in there. So obviously they were on the Netflix shows at the time, Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Iron Fist. Could you know they could have just had one little you know glimpse of them having a battle in that final final portal scene, maybe, you know, or even just at you know ground level at uh Hell's Kitchen, just uh you know show that they were uh still there and still fighting would have been good. But you know, you kind of have it all, and especially now that all those characters have sort of started to come back in through the Disney Plus shows as well, uh would have been a nice little path. But other than that, I mean that's a that is a quibble you know compared to what we were given with that film, you know, the gift that that film is. I'm sorry I'm absolutely sort of you know worshipping it, but I I do, I think it's fantastic. And that is my choice for 2019, as you probably gathered. Um so yeah, 2020 next week. So obviously that's a kind of a disjointed year for everybody all around the world, um, in and out of the cinema. Uh it was a weird one, but uh there was some certainly some good stuff out as well. Uh, when we could eventually go to the cinema, and before we were stopped going to the cinema, there was definitely stuff there. Um, so yeah, join me next week. It might be a bit of a truncated episode next week because I don't think there was as much released, um, but there was certainly some good films out, so we will be back this time next week to chat about those. Thanks ever so much again for joining me. Again, it's just I can't believe how close the end is now for doing this little project, but uh I do appreciate everybody who sticks with it and has uh watched and listened uh to everything so far. Um for those of you that have sort of kept up and watched the films each week that I've been discussing, uh very well done indeed. Um and yeah, I hope that it uh has given you some little treats that you perhaps weren't aware of before. Um and we've still got a few weeks left, so there may even be more to come. Alright, well, thanks very much, and I'll speak to you next week. Thanks for listening to Milestone Movies. My name is Dave, and I'll see you next time. Bye bye.