Decent, but is quite disappointing

Rating: 6/10 (31 August 2019)

So, Endgame. It's a bit of a letdown for me, for a number of reasons. But let me start with some of the stuff that I liked.
First of all, the final battle is very well done and feels like a final gambit from both the Avengers and Thanos to destroy each other for good. The way both sides gradually lose strength over time is awesome.
Second, a lot of the acting and special effects are pretty good. So, yeah, that's about it for the good stuff. Now on to the problems, and there are a lot of them.
First off, let's talk about the pacing. Infinity War worked so much better. We get some semi-slow scenes, but the film is very fast paced the whole time, and this worked for the type of film Infinity War was.
Now we get to Endgame, the opening is pretty fast, then we get about an hour and a bit of mucking around with the time travel, then the Avengers collect the stones across time, which is kinda fast paced. Finally, the heroes reverse the Snap, 2014 Thanos shows up to reboot the universe and kill the Avengers, which is all a really fast ending scene and battle and then semi-slow ending wraps things up. I understand that there were some stakes after the Snap that needed to be reflected on in Endgame, but the pacing should have been more fast-paced in my opinion.
Now we get to the problem of Thanos in this film. He feels completely weaker as a character in this film compared to Infinity War. Let's look back at that for a sec. In Infinity War, we see instantly that Thanos is a powerful, intimidating threat and over time we see the logical and personal reasons for him to carry out the Snap. He felt like a character and a villain you could understand and even kinda root for. He's a great villain.
Then we get to Endgame. The Avengers kill him easily in the beginning, which isn't my problem; it makes sense for the plot. Thanos is wounded from destroying the stones and is content to die. But then we get introduced to 2014 Thanos, who ends up being the film's antagonist. He gets zero development and feels very one-dimensional the entire film, a far cry from Infinity War. I know a rebuttal to this might be that he was already developed in Infinity War, but this doesn't make sense to me. He's still the antagonist of the film, he should get at least mild development, otherwise he just feels like a chess piece for the plot in order to have a final battle; which is exactly what happened here. At least he still feels like a threat, and almost wins the battle three times throughout its course. The Infinity Blade is a clever way to replace the Gauntlet he had in Infinity War too, so I'll give them that. However, think that this film could have included a couple of flashbacks to give Thanos' 2014 character more development and weight so that he feels much more integrated into the plot rather than a plot device for a finale.
Another problem is that the tone of the film feels completely off compared to Infinity War. The film feels like it's trying to juggle a light Guardians or Ant-Man film and a world-ending finale like Infinity War both simultaneously and it doesn't work. The opening of Infinity War executes things perfectly: Thanos theme swelling ominously over the Marvel Studios' opening. The opening of Endgame feels really off: An 70s or 80s sounding light-hearted song playing over the Marvel opening. I think this was a poor direction choice. In summary, the tone felt off and not what a film like this should have been like.
I know most of the plot holes of this film have been debunked by now, but I do have one major one: Why didn't 2014 Thanos, instead of travelling willy-nilly to 2023 where he knew he would be at a major disadvantage as the Avengers had the stones, go to 2018 where his future self who had a full gauntlet, find him, tell him the future, and then they both travel to 2023 to reboot the universe? I know that sound complicated, but it makes sense to me. That's the main plot hole for me.
Another problem, in my opinion, is that I think it was a terrible idea for the main plot of this film to be about reviving everyone who died from the Snap. I think a much better and well written plot would be about avenging, not reviving, everyone who died. The reason for this is that reviving everyone removes the stakes and consequences of Infinity War immensely, which to me is poor writing. The plot should have been about the Avengers struggling to come together after their failure of Infinity War, then coming together to avenge the fallen by killing Thanos for good. "If we can't protect the Earth, then we could damn sure avenge it." It would bring things from the first Avengers full circle. And in this version of Endgame, Thanos would get more development in his past and put up much more of a fight(I know this is contradicting my earlier point of Thanos' contentedness, but I think he would be written with a bit more motivation to defend himself in this film), and possibly have the stones. In my opinion, this would be a much better direction for a sequel to Infinity War.
Another problem is that I really dislike the new time-travel component they added to the MCU in this film. It would have been fine if it was a single-film event, where Ant-Man was killed in the final battle and the last Quantum Realm machine was destroyed in the final battle. But they leave the possibility open for more time-shenanigans in future MCU films, which removes the stakes for any future MCU films. Think about the cliffhanger at the end of Far From Home. That can be undone somehow with the time-travel device. In summary, this device removes the stakes for any future MCU films because it exists beyond the film it was introduced in.
I think that about sums it up for my issues with Endgame. Now for some more of the stuff I liked. The effects were pretty good, some of the shots in the film look very impressive and well framed, the acting was pretty good for the most part, and the action scenes were really well done. The music was also pretty decent in some parts, and the way the film wrapped up was very satisfying too.
Overall, Endgame was quite disappointing for me, but still pretty decent and very well made film.