Great film, Fell far below my expectations

Rating: 7/10 (29 April 2018)

So, I'm being extremely critical of this movie in my review, and it's worth noting before reading this that as a film major in college, my perspective of movies has changed dramatically over the last several months. If this movie had come out a year ago, this review would most definitely be a 10 star. That being said, let's get into it.
Pros:
The character interactions were phenomenal. I loved the banter and the jokes, and the serious conversations were enjoyable as well. The action scenes were amazing, and I'm so glad that I went and saw it in theater for these alone. I absolutely loved several moments of the film, especially the dynamic between Tony Stark and Peter Parker. The Guardians of the Galaxy brought a more lighthearted tone to the film, but the plot still managed to keep rolling. The villain was multidimensional, something you don't see in a lot of Marvel films, so kudos to the Russos for that. Red Skull made a reappearance (it wasn't Hugo Weaving, so that was tough to stomach) and I was pretty satisfied with the role that he played in the film.
Cons:
It was one giant action scene. I don't like that in a film. There were moments of character interaction interspersed within the action scenes, but in my opinion, they were few and far between. The entire movie just felt like the third act of your standard action film; just fight scene after fight scene. The dialogue was lacking, and while I said earlier that the interactions were phenomenal and that I enjoyed the banter, the main problem here is that there wasn't enough of it. Hardly anyone had more than a few lines of dialogue that wasn't shouts during a fight scene. There was very little character development. I think only a handful of characters actually changed over the film, and not for the better necessarily. And most of the ones who did develop ended up dying at the end anyways, so it ended up not mattering, which was really difficult for me to stomach. Gamora's death could have been handled so much better, but I didn't feel anything but hatred for Thanos. I didn't feel like there was a good story, and before you jump down my throat, hear me out. Plot and story are two different things. Plot is the backbone of the conflict, and story is completely dependent on character reactions to that plot. Since there was so little character development, the story suffered astronomically. I could give you a plot breakdown in two minutes flat, but I couldn't tell you the story for the life of me because the characters changed so little. The little bit of development I saw was in Dr. Strange, Spider-Man, and Iron Man. There was also some in Thor due to the events at the beginning of the film (which we didn't see). There were tons of plot holes. Like last time we saw Steve, he was in Wakanda, and now he's a vigilante saving Vision and Wanda. Tony has a new nanite suit, for no other reason than we could have cool special effects with it. Hulk won't show for whatever reason. How did Thor survive the Power stone destroying the Asgardian Ark? Dr. Strange has a sudden change of heart over the Time stone, and while I understood that he say 14 million possible outcomes of that fight, he had to have understood that with the Time stone, Thanos would have just killed them all anyways.
Final Thoughts
I enjoyed this movie; I really did. I know it seems like I'm ripping it apart, but this movie was a bit of a let-down for me, especially since Marvel has had a pretty good run of movies these past two years. I know that this is the culmination of everything that's happened the past ten years, and that most characters have already developed, and the story (or lack thereof) will likely come in Avengers 4 next year. I love the action sequences. But I was disappointed in this movie. I was expecting so much more, and I barely got what I expected.
Tl;DR
This movie was good. I won't argue that. I enjoyed it. But it could have been so, so much better than it is. Definitely worth the hype. I would go see it again even. But it could have been so much more if they chilled with the action for like ten minutes and tried to tell a story rather than wowing people with the special effects.