The unpleasant task of surpassing yourself

Rating: 8/10 (25 April 2019)

Let me first start by saying that Endgame is a fine and entertaining movie that does the job. However I expected quite a lot more. Infinity War was fresh and unexpected, emotionally powerful movie. Endgame is typical Hollywood. The creators had to please everyone, from the shareholders to the audience and it amounts to a movie that takes a standard approach towards resolving the problem created in the first part.
I think the biggest mistake was the use of time travel as a plot device. It stifles creativity. But I guess there was no easy way to solve the problem of facing an enemy that is basically an omnipotent God. The creators put themselves in a corner, by creating an unbeatable enemy and had to use the cheap trick of time travel. In essence, all-stone Thanos remained unchallenged and unbeaten. I would've preferred a story-line that somehow didn't use time-travel to fix things. Definitely a thankless task for the writers, but this is not science, I think it was still possible. Anyway, with Infinity war for a moment we forgot we're watching a silly superhero movie, but Endgame brought us back to reality.