A good MCU finale that should have blown me away

Rating: 8/10 (26 April 2019)

I was super hyped for Avengers: Endgame after the fantastic Avengers: Infinity War last year. I always wondered "How were they going to top it?" so what was the result after sitting in a cinema for almost 3 hours? I came out a little underwhelmed, honestly. I must stress that I don't think Endgame is a bad movie by any means, it's just the bar set by Infinity War was so high for me that all the shortcomings and issues I had with Endgame made me feel like it was the weaker half of the story by quite a significant amount in comparison.
One thing I really noticed in Endgame was the pacing and structure of the movie was all over the place. There were weird tangents in the story that didn't really go anywhere and were just used as a quick gag or fan service. Compared to Infinity War where everything flowed so smoothly, it felt to me Endgame's writing was quite sloppy in places. The jokes were not hitting quite as well, and characters were acting differently just for the sake of a contrived moment or joke to occur. Without spoiling anything, Thanos for example seems completely different in Endgame to what he was in Infinity War. There were just so many moments where characters were acting un-natural, that it was distracting.
As for the characters and emotional moments, Captain Marvel honestly might as well never have been in this movie. She barely does anything. Iron Man and Captain America get the most screentime for a good reason and have nice conclusions. The Hulk feels toned down here alot and left to the sides. Thor is mostly comic relief here, so if you never found Thor: Ragnarok funny, you might hate him big time here. The others have shared screentime and you do see alot of characters in this movie. It does have a big finale feel to it, and there are many nice references to previous Marvel movies in there too. If you've seen Back to the Future: Part II, that's basically how the Time Travel stuff works. Just try not to think about it too much, otherwise the inconsistencies might annoy you.
Overall, I still had a blast with Avengers: Endgame. I was never bored despite the lengthy running time. However, the reason why I felt a little let down, despite still liking it, is that re-watching Infinity War just the night before was close to perfection at telling that side of the story. The sequence of events, the humour, the emotional beats, and the characters all acted at their very best in Infinity War. Endgame to me, felt like a noticeable drop in quality despite the grandness and scale of it acting as a swan song to the MCU Universe. I'm not sure where Marvel can go from here. They've pretty much done the most epic Comic Book Superhero movie storyline they could have ever done, so what's next?
7.5/10