Repeat after me. We are cash cows.

Rating: 1/10 (26 April 2019)

I love superheroes. I was raised reading comic books. I watched every film since the first Iron Man. I know when the MCU gets something right. And in this film, they got some things right, and some things wrong.
Don't get me wrong, this film is a spectacle. But so was Infinity War. And because Infinity War came first, it was more spectacular. It doesn't matter if you increase your numbers, at least not to the crowd I was watching it with, because we didn't have those instinct reactions I lived through and enjoyed when watching Infinity War for the first time.
There's a simple explanation for that. Whenever I, as an audience member, stop and think to myself "that doesn't look/sound right" I lose my engagement to what's happening on screen.
The truth is, you need a strong story to get the crowds to an emotional high, to remain engaged. This film did not have a strong story. The plot had lots of holes, like all films that involve time travel, and while I appreciated the character moments, it did have huge spaces where I simply lost interest. It also contradicted itself, as well as previous films, in order to serve the existing plot, which means I got to roll my eyes a lot whenever the writers were pulling stuff out of their little clown hat. All that really gets one out of the film watching experience.
Also, for the first time in the MCU, there were moments when I felt the actors were not even acting. Some of the character story lines were so ill-developed that even the acting was off, especially for Cap. I was looking at Chris Evans, and seeing Chris Evans and not Steve Rogers in many occasions. I don't even blame the guy, the script he was handed was a mess.
For those who don't believe me, that the writers did a sloppy job, I will give you an example. When Natasha dies, they try to pull at our heartstrings by mentioning her family. Her father's name. Ivan. Only, that's not her father's name. We know her name, it's Natalia Alianovna Romanova. Russians take the middle name from their fathers. Alianovna literally means daughter of Alian. They wrote a main character death and yet they didn't have the decency to research enough to get her name right.
Anyway, I know it doesn't matter what I think. I know it doesn't matter what any of us thinks because at this point, put the Marvel logo on anything and it will sell. Which is why the writers care less and less about their stories. I'm not saying don't go to see it, I'm saying don't expect too much.