Does not live up to the hype by any stretch of the imagination

Rating: 8/10 (1 May 2019)

I went into this movie with very high expectations after being told "it's the best movie of all time" and was left disappointed by how forgettable it actually was. I was beyond excited to see it but it just struck me how much weaker it was than it's first half, if you really stop and think about it for just a second not one of the characters in endgame are as impactful as they were in infinity war, barring possibly Tony Stark and black widow (and of course Hawkeye and Ant-Man as they weren't there in infinity war). Infinity war did a great job of giving characters screen time to showcase what they brought to the movie and to the team, it brought out their emotions, their feelings, it brought each and every character to life. Endgame on the other hand fell flat in this regard the characters of Thor and Hulk for example had physical changes which detracted from their overall performance and feel of the characters. My main concern with this movie however is the portrayal of Thanos, Thanos is the ultimate villain he is the only strong villain in the MCU and after being ultimately the central character of Infinity War he seemed so tame this time round, he wasn't a menace overarching everything that you had constant fear of he was not "inevitable" but merely another punch and explosion villain, there was no grand scheme no plan no character to the mad Titan just a little more of the same. The pacing of the story was also slightly off for me as it felt like we get off to an emotional start with Tony almost dying in space then we got this break then the next thing that happens is we kill Thanos and go back in time, it just felt a bit all over the place and a bit sloppy. Do not take from all my criticisms that this is a bad movie. It is a wonderful conclusion to a great story told by marvel, but it is by no means the best movie of all time, its not even the best avengers movie or superhero movie for that matter. I do think for a concluding movie it hits the right notes in terms of its emotion, it's grandness and it's story, and I do think it may have benefitted from being further broken up into more movies to fix the pacing issue. Well worth a watch but don't believe the hype.