The movie begins with clips and scenes showing how there are two groups of Avengers, the pro registration official Avengers (Stark, Rhodes, Vision, Black Panther and Captain Marvel, who we are told has been recruited due to the Sokovia Accords in between movies) and Cap’s Secret Avengers that handle things illegally (Cap, Falcon, Scarlet Witch, Hawkeye, Antman). Spider-Man deals with street level crimes on a semi-legal basis (Tony allows him to off the books), Bucky is still in stasis, and both Hulk and Black Widow are unaccounted for. Thor is in Asgard with the warriors 3, Loki, Sif, Heimdall, and Valkyrie cleaning up after the events of Ragnarok. Enter Thanos and the first big action scene. He arrives on ruined Asgard to claim the Tesseract. He is kicking major butt, with Loki all of a sudden pulling Thor aside to reveal the details of his deal with Thanos long ago in Avengers 1. He urges Thor to marshal the defenses of Earth as the fight here is hopeless, and uses his magic to teleport Heimdall and Thor to Earth. He then stabs and kills Sif, carrying the tesseract out to Thanos, who smashes it to reveal the space stone. Loki and Thanos discuss his next move, which will be to go to Earth and acquire the mind stone. Loki asks if he will be going, to which Thanos replies "no, you've already failed at that task once".
Thor and Heimdall appear on Earth and are taken in by Stark's Avengers. Thor urges Tony to call in Steve to help, but Tony refuses, too full of pride and anger over the events of Civil War. He does call in Spider-Man who joins their team. Thor reveals his anger at Tony for breaking up the original Avengers, which he knows about because Heimdall saw the events from Asgard when they happened. Some other minor dialogue and background scenes occur involving minor MCU characters before the second major action scene. Thanos arrives on Earth and begins causing wanton destruction to draw the Avengers out. They arrive and battle it out, with Thor dying when Thanos uses the space stone to teleport his hammer across the galaxy leaving him defenseless. After that the Avengers really lay into him and actually do some damage, which causes Thanos to unleash the full power of the space stone. Vision is soon the last Avenger standing, and he questions Thanos' logic, asking why he needs more than one infinity stone when one can provide more power than could ever be used. Thanos reveals he is doing this to impress Death, and then gauntlet punches Vision’s head, shattering it. The gem hangs suspended where Vision’s head was and right as Thanos is reaching for it he freezes: Dr Strange has come and frozen time using the time gem in the Eye of Agamotto. Unfortunately, Thanos is able to use the space stone to undo the freeze, causing Strange to hurriedly stash the mind stone on his person and engage him in battle. The battle is very even, with Strange showcasing his magic on a scale we haven't seen before because of all the time he has had to hone his skills. Thanos realizes that Strange doesn't know how to use the mind stone and that he can turn the tide once he gets it. He is able to wrest it away from Strange and put it into the gauntlet, using the power of two gems to overcome Strange and shatter the eye. He takes the time gem and lobotomizes Strange, leaving him for dead. The movie ends here, with Thor, Vision, and the minor Asgardians dead, and Strange dead/lobotomized/fate unclear.
The next movie begins with a dialogue between Loki and Thanos that summarizes the previous movie, and discloses that they are on route to the Collector. The beginning also has flashes that recap the previous movie alongside the dialogue, with shots of the beaten and grim Avengers, Thor’s hammer hopelessly flying through empty space, and the comatose Strange. The Collector has been working for Thanos to collect gems, and has the reality gem in his possession. The Collector begins to hand the gem over but tries to double cross Thanos and take his gems using various artifacts from his collection. The ploy fails as Thanos with three stones is far too powerful at this point, and he vaporizes the Collector as he takes the reality stone. The act visibly frightens Loki, who hides it from Thanos.
Meanwhile back on Earth, Stark, Rhodes, Heimdall, Black Panther, Captain Marvel, and Spider-Man are distraught and demoralized. Heimdall expresses the need for the team to head to Xandar to focus on protecting the power stone, which makes all the other stones even more powerful and is crucial to becoming the master of reality. The other members express their hesitation that this is a fight that they can win, which prompts Heimdall to reveal that he is in possession of the soul gem, which he uses to revive Dr Strange. They theorize that with Heimdall’s power and Strange’s magic they may be able to trap Thanos' soul and end the conflict. Tony still refuses to call Cap, saying that now is not the time for old fashioned ideas, though he does take the vibranium shield from his office to use in the next fight.
On Xandar, Thanos' actions have not gone unnoticed, and the Nova Corps are preparing for battle alongside the Guardians. Thanos arrives with Loki and immediately freezes time, walking around the frozen soldiers remarking about the futility of their fight against inevitable death. Loki remarks that simply taking the stone like this will not “be impressive”, convincing Thanos to restore time and fight them directly. Even so, the fight is one sided, with Thanos using the reality gem in particular to unleash wrath on the nova corps. The Guardians don't have much effect, with Drax dying heroically, but pointlessly. Thanos claims the power gem right as the Avengers arrive through a portal conjured by Doctor Strange. Their plan to capture Thanos' soul begins to work, but then we see the power stone juice up the others to allow Thanos to overpower their hold on him. He kills Heimdall, with the soul stone emerging as a mist from his eyes and solidifying in the gauntlet. He and Loki teleport away to his throne room from GotG with all six gems now in his possession.
The team is devastated now. Tony breaks down, confessing that none of this would have happened and that Thor and Vision would be alive if he had called Steve back on Earth to threaten Thanos before he had all six gems. Tony resolves to die trying and that he will beg Steve for help, with the remaining Avengers and Guardians boarding the Milano and setting course for Earth. At Thanos' throne room, we see him in the famous comic scene where he manipulates reality to create his palace as he tests out his new powers, as well as the famous frame where he snaps his fingers and takes out half the population of the galaxy. On Earth the Secret Avengers are on a minor mission when Falcon disappears out of thin air. They get a call for a high priority situation and head there in a quintet, while hearing in the news that roughly half the people on Earth have disappeared. They get to the scene to find the Hulk rampaging. A cool but short fight scene breaks out between Scarlet Witch, Hawkeye, Giant Man, and Cap vs the Hulk, that really showcases the Secret Avengers ability to work as a team and be more than the sum of their parts. They fight for a bit with no one really being seriously injured when Steve stops and says "it's Natasha isn't it". Bruce unhulks sobbing, revealing that he and Widow had been living peacefully since civil war and that she had suddenly vanished right out of his arms like so many others. Banner joins them, as the Milano lands nearby and the two teams finally unite. A tearful reunion commences as Tony gives Steve his shield back, and they begin to embark on the suicide mission. They also decide to reawaken Barnes from stasis with Tony's permission, who is sporting a new badass vibranium arm. Right before they leave to the coordinates that Gamora/Nebula have provided, Spider-Man expresses discomfort with all of them leaving and that New York/Earth will be undefended; enter quick cameo to the Defenders getting a call from Steve to "take care of everything after we're gone".
So now we have the Guardians minus Drax, Cap, Panther, Iron Man, Rhodes, Captain Marvel, Hulk, Hawkeye, Antman, Scarlet Witch, Doctor Strange, Spider-Man, and Bucky all headed to fight Thanos. Cap gives a rousing speech that energizes the team right as they arrive at the floating throne room. They arrive to see Thanos and Loki, with Thanos talking to seemingly nothingness, acting crazy and doing impossible feats with the fully assembled gauntlet. The powers of god hood have clearly begun to eat at his sanity. The big fight scene happens a lot like the comics, with the team members each falling in horrific and creative ways (turned to glass, bones to rubber, atomized, etc) with soon Cap being the only one left standing. Loki reminds Thanos that the goal is to impress, not utterly destroy, at which point we finally see Mistress Death as Thanos has seen her the whole time, as an actual person with a face that is sometimes a beautiful woman and sometimes a skull. Thanos creates a melee weapon for himself to battle Steve with, and though Steve gets his tail kicked he shows heart, seemingly impressing Death and pissing Thanos off even more. In a climactic moment Steve is thrown aside as a powerful gauntlet enhanced blow from Thanos shatters his shield. Thanos taunts Steve, asking what he will do now and that he is just a man. Steve begins to slowly run unarmed at Thanos, who smiles and begins to do the same. Right before they meet in the middle, Thor’s hammer flies into Steve’s hand (it has been flying across the galaxy for almost two full movies at this point) who delivers a powerful blow to unprepared Thanos, who is sent flying so hard that the gauntlet flies off his hand. Badly injured at this point, Steve tries to move for the glove but is backstabbed by Loki (mirroring the scene from the first Avengers movie), who has been after the stones the whole time. But the gauntlet is seized by someone else, Lady Death. She teleports Thanos and Loki away, and moves to Steve’s side. We see her as a skull-like face as she tells Steve not to worry, his time has come. We see Steve’s point of view and he says he is not worried, he does not see her as a skull but as the face of Peggy. Lady Death picks Steve up and begins to fade away with him in her arms, still wearing the gauntlet. Right before she completely fades, she pauses for a moment and looks back at the shattered and beaten Avengers, and snaps her fingers. The Avengers all appear unharmed, but with Steve and Thanos and Loki and Mistress Death all gone.
The movie ends with a montage of small scenes, set to the dialogue of more of Steve’s speech from the Milano. One is Scarlet Witch and Tony working together in a facility. Tony is focusing a beam of energy at something we can't see while Wanda is pouring energy at it. It zooms out to reveal they are building a solar jewel and that Vision’s body is nearby. Another scene is Falcon and Widow reappearing on Earth, with Falcon and Bucky sharing a quiet moment over the death of Steve. There is a shot of Thor’s hammer resting in space on the battleground, with some background end-of-movie dialogue coinciding with the word worthy. One of the final scenes is of Tony approaching Pepper, saying that he is finally ready to stop being Iron Man because there are enough heroes with the two teams united without him being on the team.
The end! What do you think? I will post the end credits scenes in the next post.