Questionable writing, but the main cast shines.

Rating: 5/10 (1 May 2019)

Avengers Endgame is a movie I've been excited for since the end of Infinty War. I purposefully avoided any and all information about the movie, to allow myself to see it without any clear ideas of what to expect. However, while I was surprised, it wasn't of the pleasant variety. Unfortunately there seems to have been some kind of oversight with the writing of one character in particular, which causes the whole movie to fall apart, both in terms and the story and emotional weight.
Without getting into spoilers, Endgame introduces rules, and not only goes on to break those rules, but completely renders them meaningless to ensure the final set piece can take place. While it was previously mentioned in the movie that resources are limited, so they can only attempt their plan once, a character then goes on to show that they were apparently capable of doing what they were planning to do, seemingly all along. Whether this character knew that or not is up for debate, but it was incredibly distracting and lowered the overall emotional weight and tension.
This character, for forever reason, also doesn't reveal important information, which only serves to progress the plot. This then leads to the previously mentioned action that completely ignores all the stakes set in place, leaving those in the audience with their brain turned on feeling annoyed.
Endgame attempts to build an emotional story, but due to the ability the previously mentioned character is shown to have, all emotional weight is completely lost. While this movie may have brought tears to the eyes of many, it simply left mine rolling.
Endgame also has a 3 hour runtime, and for at least 2 of those hours you can feel every minute of it. It also doesn't do a great job of juggling all of the talent as a large number of characters server more of a cameo role than anything else. However, the main cast do a fantastic job from start to finish. These talented men and women understand and portray their characters so well, it's easy to forget one is watching actors at all. If I had to praise one aspect of this film it would be the performances.
While the final battle is interesting, in concept it also raises its share of questions, regarding the power levels of certain characters. While most may be able to overlook these, anyone who has been paying attention well enough will start to wonder if the writers even watched the previous film.
Furthermore, the story of Thanos in this film completely undermines the spectacular work the previous film did, both by the writers and Josh Brolin. This changes Thanos from one of the most compelling and three dimensional antagonists in modern cinema to a big purple CGI monster who wants to destroy the world.
It may sound like I hated this film, but I do recommend that every fan of the MCU see it, as it does wrap everything up, so long as you don't think about it too hard.