Spoilery Early Screening of Avengers Endgame

Avengers: Endgame officially comes out tomorrow, but I was lucky to get into an advance screening.

And I what I saw will blow you away!

SPOILERS BELOW

I was so shocked by all of the bold choices that Marvel made in this last outing with the Avengers.  The movie begins where our last movie left off: most of the Avengers on Earth with Tony and Nebula out in space.  The people on Earth are incredibly bummed because half of the people are gone.  But then Ant-Man shows up.  He returned from the Microverse via something called the "MaGuffin Bridge" that bonds all necessary parts of the MCU together.  They use the MaGuffin Bridge to bring Tony and Nebula back.  They then have Captain Marvel arrive.  It was weird when they went on a 5-minute digression about how little had changed in gender relations in the last twenty years.  It didn't help much that Tony started hitting on her in front of Pepper, talking about how he and his fiancé have "an understanding." 

The heroes come up with a plan: get the Infinity Gauntlet away from Thanos and then undo everything from the last movie.  But in order to do that, they need allies.  With most of the Avengers gone, our heroes get into a spaceship and cross the MaGuffin Bridge.  They enter a nexus shaped like a fox.  I was shocked to find that the Avengers then landed at the X-Mansion.  Wolverine came out and started fighting with everyone, but then Magneto disarmed Cap, Iron Man, and Thor (though I didn't know his mutant powers would work on Asgardian metal).  Professor X scans them and says that they are there to save their universe.  Hawkeye was weireded out to see Quicksilver and had to explain how his sister in their universe was in love with a robot and also dead.  So all of the X-Men join them on the jet and they fly to the Baxter building where they pick up the Fantastic Four.  I was really surprised to see that they went back to the cast for Rise of the Silver Surfer.  Although it was funny when Johnny Storm said that Cap was the only good looking person in the group.

Our heroes then flew to Thanos, but he was ready.  As soon as they attacked, Kylo Ren activated his new Death Star and attacked the heroes' ship.  Cap used his shield to deflect it onto the Infinity Gauntlet.  This caused the the Infinity Stones to fly all over Thanos planet.  The heroes and the villains then go on a quest to find them.

While up at the northern pole, the Avengers bump into members of GI Joe, who are there looking for a section of the Weather Dominator that also was flung into the north.  The blending of the live action actors and animated Joes was flawless.  This was especially important as they were suddenly attacked by Elsa from Frozen, who had been recruited by Thanos after the two sang a heartfelt duet about loneliness called, "No One Understands the Genocidal." 

On the seas, the Avengers are almost stopped by Ursula the Sea Witch, but Captain Jack Sparrow seduces her and they acquire another stone.

It goes on like this for a while until they once more confront Thanos, this time he is flanked by his father, Grimace (also known as "Grimace the Unkillable), and the Purple Pie Man.  Thanos told the Avengers to kneel before him and his "Purple Reign."

Due to a failed attempt at an alliance with Leader One of the Go-Bots, the Avengers are short-handed against Thanos, the stormtroopers, Scar's army of hyenas, Magica De Spell, Master Control Program, and Mary Poppins (who it turns out is the daughter of Loki, god of chaos).  Condorman is killed early in the battle, but no one seemed to care.  Elsa tried freezing everyone but was promptly eaten by Pete's Dragon. 

Finally, Captain America reached put the Infinity Gauntlet together, but instead of restoring everyone, he went back in time to the moment before Thanos snapped his fingers.  He lost the Guantlet in the time stream, but luckily Bill and Ted arrived with Socrates and Sigmund Freud to return the Gauntlet to him.

Cap snapped his fingers again and then all of the characters came back.  He then snapped his fingers one more time.  Thanos' skin was changed to blue and he was imprisoned in the Gauntlet, which Cap shaped into an oil lamp and sent back in time to be discovered by Aladdin.  Everything then ends in a gigantic dance party, headlined by Cherry Bomb from Howard the Duck.

But the most shocking part of all was when it turns out that the entire MCU is really made up of a bunch of action figures in Andy's room.  The movie ends with Woody and Buzz Lightyear joining the Avengers.

The post-credit scene showed the Justice League (with Michael Keaton back in the role of Batman) coming to the MCU, setting up the crossover in the next movie (which, for some reason, involves Energon Cubes)

All in all, I was impressed with how much Marvel and Disney was able to keep this under wraps until now.  I'm telling you, you won't believe it!  You'll be at the movie after reading this, thinking to yourself, "This can't possibly be true!"

;)