crowd-pleasing but full of holes

Rating: 6/10 (29 April 2019)

"Endgame" starts out well, presenting a credible atmosphere of doom and gloom in the wake of our heroes' colossal failure at the end of Infinity War. Much of the first act concerns grief and coping strategies, and Thanos creator Jim Starlin aptly gets a cameo as part of a support group, much to the delight of long-time Marvel fans.
Then Ant-Man somehow pops out of the quantum realm and everything soon falls apart, in terms of a coherent narrative. If you're in this mainly for sheer emotion and fan-pleasing gestures, you'll still love it. But if you give the plot twists much thought, you won't.
The characters make fun of time-travel movies such as "Back to the Future" ... but then go on to set wholly new standards for convoluted, improbable, and paradoxical time conundrums that no amount of explaining can address, and appealing to "alternate realities" splitting off is just hand-waving here. Nebula kills her earlier self but is unaffected? Thanos from 2014 is killed in 2023, so Infinity War is erased ... along with everything that this movie is supposed to be correcting. Most grievously of all, Cap goes completely against character and decides to lead a normal life in the past (irresponsibly neglecting the threats of the Red Skull, Hydra, etc.), thereby erasing his solo trilogy of films and much more. And so on.
In addition, Thor is treated miserably, having been turned by the writers into a fat slob wallowing in self-pity and despair, even though early on he avenges the Snap he had just barely failed to prevent. This is the same guy who showed up in Wakanda? And Thanos, after Brolin's brilliantly nuanced portrayal in Infinity War, is pretty much reduced to a cardboard villain as well as in stature.
Throughout, stuff just happens without adequate preparation or internal logic. I loved the scene in "Age of Ultron" when Cap was barely able to budge Thor's hammer, much to the thunder god's momentary chagrin. But now Cap can suddenly wield it effortlessly in combat? How convenient. And how exactly does Stark get the Infinity Stones from Thanos and do so all at once without being disintegrated, or at the very least majorly stunned, by their titanic power? Even if we accept the improbable sleight-of-hand here, recall how stunned Thanos himself was each time he acquired just a single gem. But Stark can acquire all six at once and not blink an eye? I guess we're supposed to be too caught up in the moment, loving the "poetic justice" of situations, to think about these improbabilities and internal inconsistencies. But a better version of this film would have been written in such a way that it both pleases and makes sense, at least in its own established fantasy terms.
Frankly, you could easily navigate a space shuttle through the gaping plot holes in this narrative, and that's a serious problem. I could have focused more on some of the movie's strengths, such as some of the performances, the epic effects, and Silvestri's powerful score, but for me, this was certainly not the satisfying final act I had been hoping for.