A need to temper the hype

Rating: 4/10 (28 April 2019)

Like many others, I was excited for this movie following the end of Infinity Wars. I let my mind wander with all the elaborate plot predictions, new characters revealed, epic battles and an emotional thread bringing it all together that infinity wars did so well.
What I got was a good movie, rushed with minimal character development and what left me hoping for an extended cut when the movie comes to the small screen.
Thanos, such a complex character walking the tightrope of his moral compass in infinity wars, was suddenly a megalomaniac hell bent on destruction of all. Thor, given character by ragnarok and purpose by infinity wars, was completely trivialised into a humorous side character. Hulk was lazily reduced to a new hybrid version of "Professor Hulk" with little explanation why. And when all the "dead" characters came back it was just accepted and let's get on with it.
This movie had the potential to be a real emotional roller coaster but they blew it, rushed through he serious moments in an effort to play homage to the previous films (which I felt was a great touch though). The sequences of events in getting the stones just seemed a hastily put together series of interactions that needed more depth.
Then finally, the battle - I was excited when I looked at my watch and realised we had over na hour left in the film. Then disappointed when it effectively ended 15 minutes later.
I think this should have been split into two movies - the first an emotional journey into the past, reuniting heroes with their origin stories and showing how far they had come while bringing each deceased hero back with appropriate fanfare. The second, the right level of preparation, battlecries and depth to make a modern epic.
I still enjoyed it and need to watch again, probably when it's released to on demand. But the excitement I had from the hyped reviews quickly evaporated. Interested to see what the consensus is in a few weeks. My consensus, missed opportunity.