Avengers: Endgame: A Bizarre Mess

Rating: 5/10 (26 April 2019)

I enjoyed Infinity War. Out of the 8 or so MCU Films, Infinity War was my 2nd favorite just behind Guardians of the Galaxy. I had issues with some of the editing, colors, and some bland moments. However, I thought Infinity War did a great job of writing a story that focuses on so many different plot lines each with its slew of characters. Although some groups were better than others, putting Thanos at the center of the film was a great idea. Watching all the plot lines converge was satisfying. The pacing was damn near perfect. Going into Infinity War, I had concerns. How were they going to have all of these characters involved in the story at once?
Infinity War addressed those concerns and put them to rest. Endgame, however, had all the concerns that I had with Infinity War even with less characters. For one, the pacing in this film is really rough. It's sort of all over the place. Having a time skip and time travel be such an integral part of the film was a good idea on paper, but the execution was weak. For starters, fighting Thanos over again, but the Thanos from Infinity War felt as if they were really stretching. It also feels like a less-evolved and less interesting Thanos. His goal just switches to erasing the universe and starting over which felt to betray his character a bit. Going back to old films was cute at first, but it lost its novelty really quick. I expect fan-service in these films, but the fan-service here overshadowed the whole film. Big moments, like Black Widow's death, didn't feel thought out. It also didn't have the emotion like the deaths from Infinity War did. The payoffs in this film really fell flat. Anticlimactic is a word I would use to describe this whole film. The huge battle at the end, again, appeared awesome on paper. But, the action was a little all over the place and hard to follow. It was also probably one of the stupidest things I've seen on screen, which is a good thing, trust me. Watching all these bizarre characters fight against these bizarre minions was fun to watch. It's just that the editing felt really rushed. I know this was the climax of the film, but it could have been slowed down a bit. There's also a lot that could have been cut from this film. There was a lot of moments where they tried to explain how this whole time-travel act makes sense, but it clearly doesn't. Their film's explanation was "Eh, it makes sense. Here's why. Just, trust us." There were a lot of these scenes and it felt unnecessary. This is a stupid comic book film, not everything has to be explained for me to enjoy the film. A story about men and women in suits fighting a giant purple boy doesn't have to be grounded. The suspension of disbelief is built into the film naturally, but the film spends way too much time trying to explain itself through spoken lines, and it really takes away from the film.
Lastly, I wasn't too invested in the characters. Iron Man's death and Captain America's "retirement" didn't feel too powerful to me. Granted, I'm not too connected to these characters. To be fair, I wasn't too connected to Gamora going into Infinity War, but her death had weight to it. They focused on really developing Iron Man, Captain America, and Thor throughout the film, but Thor's development was the only one that was somewhat enjoyable and believable. Captain America, especially, didn't appear to have any real growth and his ending was just...eh. The structure of this film was a mess compared to Infinity War which had an unconventional structure, but it worked mostly. This was just a mess. Also the colors in this film were, like most Marvel movies, excluding Galaxy of the Guardians, pretty bland. I just didn't really love this film. It wasn't awful, and I did enjoy it over something like Captain America: Civil War or Age of Ultron. Still, it was just alright.