Why is this so popular?????

Rating: 1/10 (21 May 2020)

Where can I even start with this thing? Why do people act like it's one of the greatest, most visionary works in years? It took me three days to get through the whole slog and the more I thought about it afterwards, the worse it got. If it didn't become the highest grossing movie ever I probably wouldn't have bothered finishing it. The fact that it got that much money is truly head-scratching; it was even bad by normal Marvel standards, let alone Scorsese ones. (Infinity War was at least more entertaining.)
To all the people calling this a great culmination to so many movies: How could you treat this like any kind of ending? We all know that Disney's going to churn out as many more of these movies as they can, and probably drag RDJ back into it once people finally get sick of them. I've already heard people are clamoring for 'the next Endgame', which shows how much staying power this one has. It'll probably go the same way as Martin and Lewis movies: an extremely popular fad that will eventually become an embarrassment; a punchline.
To all the people saying 'something like this has never been done in cinema before': Not exactly. Have you seen Abbot and Costello Meet Frankenstein? You get a crossover between Frankenstein, Dracula, the Wolf Man, the Invisible Man, plus Abbot and Costello. Yes, it's not on the same level as Endgame, but it is still something *like* it. To say nothing of the first Avengers movie which was still better than this.
And by the way, Martin Scorsese was right. This movie-and all other M 'C' U films made in the past 5-10 years-are not cinema because they have become an extended TV show. This doesn't play at all like a cinematic climax at all, it plays like the last episode of a TV series: a mediocre creation spending an inordinate amount of time referencing the previous episodes. So Avengers Endgame is not cinema the same way the Seinfeld finale is not considered cinema.
The visuals: -1 star. They are the usual murky CGI and greenscreens, nothing special at all. They thought they could get an Oscar for this? The final battle is an ugly CGI mess that makes the Ready Player One final battle look like a masterclass. There's no beauty or scale or anything in the battle to visually show that this is supposed to be an epic final struggle; instead it plays out like any other Marvel action scene just with tons more characters thrown in, puking worthless energy beams and buzzing around like flies on a corpse.
The soundtrack: +0 stars. It's competent, but quite bland and forgettable. Let's just say that no one will be rushing in line to buy the soundtrack.
The plot: -4 stars. Tons of McGuffins, and they must all be collected with time travel. The time travel storyline caused innumerable inconsistencies. Try as the Endgame fans might, there is no way to make sense of this garble. Go back in time to get more Pym particles? Go back in time and kill Thanos in the Infinity War final battle? No, they have to do it *exactly* this way. I seem to remember they refused to save Black Widow after she died because 'the guy said she was dead for sure'. Then Gamora came back even though she died the same way in the previous movie. I don't really have a problem with plot holes generally, but the script just kept calling attention to them in a meta, snarky way. Meanwhile, the entire 'snap' resolve was cheap and lazy; exactly what I expected would happen after finishing Infinity War. So, after 4 years suddenly as all these long dead people just *return*. There is NO way you can explain this in a way to make it sound sane. Meanwhile, Tony Stark's sacrifice scene is rotten. Basically what happens is he grabs all of Thanos' power stones and uses them to do the same thing to Thanos that Thanos was trying to do to them: turn him into dust. So, this Machiavellian mess is the culminating message of the 20-something movie series? The guy with the most power wins using whatever means are available? That's literally everything; it's the only message. The reason the Lord of the Rings had such a great story was that the characters had a massive power, but couldn't use it, and that caused a deep psychological tension. Here there's nothing; just grab the most powerful stuff there is and use it to kill your opponents and 'win'. It sucked. The most real kind of courage is when people know they're going to lose and keep fighting anyway. It would have been nice to have that here instead.
The script: -3 stars. We don't expect great scripts from these movies, but at least they're usually funny. This is probably the least funny Marvel movie ever, with barely a single joke landing. (Fat Thor could have been funny but they sucked the humor out of him by having him sulk almost all the time). All of War Machine's 'funny' lines are truly cringey, as are the couple of belated, out of place jokes from the many actors who cameo at the end. So, it isn't funny. The screenplay then drains the rest of its energy trying to cover up plot holes it knows the audience will anticipate, but doesn't even succeed and all that dialogue just highlights the inconsistencies. Case in point: the infamous 'baby Thanos' dialogue. Case in point: the entire stupid 'time travel doesn't work that way' saga. Calling other time travel movies garbage is not a way to give your one a free pass. If they would have just owned up to the plot holes instead of attempting to explain them away with meta, lazy dialogue, it would have been more bearable. And don't even get started on the emotional dialogue, but at least they tried to be somewhat serious for once.
The acting: -1 star. I never realized how bad an actor Chris Evans was until he tried to be emotional in this movie. RDJ, once so charismatic and funny, is reduced to the stale shtick of pop-culture references and product placement. Lots of the others looked bored as they spent a huge majority of the movie sulking, moping, getting drunk, having therapy, whining, killing for spite, etc. And then all they can obsess about is reversing their loss so they win; it's even worse than the Democrats after the 2016 election. Are they really that sore of losers? It's been FIVE freaking years! Get over it. It's surprising they didn't just kill themselves in their mire of self-pity.
The positive: Well, I can't find any. This is the first one star review I've given on this site.