They just went for our money (and they got it)

Rating: 5/10 (2 May 2019)

For a standalone movie, I give it a 7/10. Sadly, this is not a standalone movie because it just happens to follow up one of the best action movies ever - for that I give it a 3/10 to balance things out, so a total of 5/10.
What I really don't get, even for people that only think of how to pocket more cash, is why they show such disrespect for their customers from whom they expect recurring revenues. I mean Marvel and in general franchise movies totally count on coming back viewers, so the previous movie literally pays the next.
In Endgame's case they spent $400 million expecting to gross $2 (at least) billion, and they felt sorry for the few dollars more they would have spent to hire a decent writer to come up with a decent script - the single thing that pushed Infinity War to break away from the pack. That's a cheap attitude, which will eventually backfire.
Where to start?
The story is a disconnected, incoherent mess. Think of Infinity War script? Well think of the exact opposite for Endgame. There is absolutely no story connection whatsoever and it clearly shows in the way the actors perform on screen. The confidence everyone had in Infinity War simply is not here; it's like they don't really get what they are up to.
The humor that flows naturally through to discharge the intense moments in Infinity War is tried to be copied here, only in a bad manner. I don't want to spoil things, but having Cap commenting on his butt, I mean, come on people..
Time travel? Seriously? That was the best you could come up with to get over it? What a brilliant, original idea! Only a couple of hundred other movies and TV series have already thought of that, only to come up with a messy mindjob, regardless. Putting RDJ mumbling mumbo-jumbo quantum stuff to explain how time travel works (btw quantum mechanics has absolutely nothing to do with time in general), just left everybody in awe of what the heck he is talking about. Having watched the trailers, and the theories that crawled through the Internet, I was ready to go there and watch that, but somehow I was hoping otherwise - that was an absolute letdown, especially the way it was delivered.
Robert Downey Jr. and Chris Evans managed to save some of it in their own way - nothing spectacular though. Others like Chris Hemsworth and Mark Ruffalo were totally crashed under the burden of the ridiculous script. As for the rest of the crew, well, ok, let's get paid and get outta here..
Thanos, the more complex character of all, and the one that made Infinity War a success, appeared here just like all the other villains before him - think of Loki and Ultron and you get the idea of what Thanos has been reduced here to.
All in all, Infinity War was truly hard to match and for that it made Endgame truly hard to watch. Infinity War, for its own reasons, set the bar really high. We have seen that coming in other sequels as well. What comes in mind as an example is The Matrix followed by Matrix Reloaded; the kind of standout movie that is plagued by its own successor.
Infinity War followed by Endgame is not an exception. Many of us already knew that before walking into the theater. Sad to say though, Endgame eventually turned out as another example of what you get if you only do it for the money.