First of all - this movie had to be brilliant to back up all the hype and legacy from earlier films. So is it brilliant? No, it's not even close.

Second of all - Endgame just isn't a very good movie in any noteworthy sense, outside of effects and really good action scenes. And this brings me back to my first point. Perhaps this formula would work during the rise of comic films, but I can't see this film as anything but a huge disappointment.

After a brutally emotional opening scene, that I have to admit - is really good, Endgame then proceeds to jump from scene to scene with inconsistent tone, pace, and development. A serious movie can have great humor, but the way Endgame uses slapstick humor, and non-serious characters is, well - silly. Is this a serious movie or not? Many of the films rules or conventions are openly broken to serve secondary storylines, and much of the 'science' is just plain dumb. I can suspend disbelief and get into stylized movies, but so much of this movie just comes off shallow and not really well thought out.

This includes the story arc that to me has little natural flow. Many comic movies today seem to come off more as bad, incomplete TV episodes that rely on being part of a series for relevance. Movies should never be like that, and Endgame felt to me like three TV episodes jammed together, with three to five tac-on false endings.

While I really liked many of the action scenes, which are clearly well conceived and beautiful to watch - at this point action scenes should be a given, and the story should have the same excellence. I don't feel like I'm being to picky when great movies in the Marvel universe exist (Dr. Strange for instance). I don't consider Infinity War one of them, but it's a heck of a lot better than Endgame.

To me, outside of the opening scene, all the emotional moments fall absolutely flat. Considering the conclusion of Infinity War - there is a blatantly obvious sequence that should exude the epitome of joy. This part of the movie is hard to explain without giving spoilers, but in my opinion - this sequence is the writers biggest failure of the movie. The reunions are not well executed.

Objectively, this movie probably deserves a 6 for production values, great action, and resolving the Infinity War outcome. But subjectively? I really thought this movie kinda sucked.