A mess ov a movie

Rating: 2/10 (10 August 2019)

Infinity War was clever. Endgame is just silly. You could write a novel about all that is wrong with it, but let's mention the most glaring examples:
1. Time travel. Never use it as a plot device. It becomes dumb, and removes any sense of consequence. It is basically a reset button. And Endgame takes the price for amount of self contradictions when clumsily making use of it.
2. Thanos was an interesting character in IW; here he is just a cartoon villan.
3. Everything with Thor. Ragnarok identified him as a true god of thunder; the hammer was just to focus his powers. And now suddenly Steve Rogers can call lightning?
4. Political correctness. Cap's main motivation for several movies has been his old pal Bucky, but now at the end it's suddenly black wing guy who gets the final moments with him and takes over the shield? I guarantee that was NOT the original plan. There's lots of PC in the movie, but this is the most glaring example. Another grating example is the whole presence of Captain Marvel; over-powerful, and yet useless.
5. Humor. In IW it was clever. Here it is mostly reduced to fart jokes.
6. Don't just copy yourself, Russos. The soulstone sacrifice in IW was moving. Here I could not care less.
7. Thanos, again. In IW a handful of Avengers almost defeated him when he had the glove and most of the stones; they only failed because of the emotional stakes (again, clever). Thor bested him after he got the whole thing. And in Endgame the whole lot of them, including supergirl cannot get in a good punch when his only weapon is a big axe?
There's tons more, but I'll pause at that. Final thoughts:
Infinity War was clever and more importantly full of tension, from the very first scene. Endgame was boring, and more that a little annoying. I found myself distracted by my phone whilst watching it, which only happens with really bad movies. What bothers me the most is that is makes a mockery of all the ground work laid down by the best of the Marvel movies; Winter Soldier, Ragnarok, Civil war, Infinity War.
It is comparable to Alien 3 after Aliens - there are good moments but you mostly want to un-see it.