Avengers: Endgame (2019)

Just watched Infinity War again, and yeah, that movie is 10x more cohesive, pacing is damn near perfect, transitions are much cleaner between scenes, it felt logical in its ordering and shifting between characters/subplots. There's not much in the way of "cheese". It's mostly matter of fact, characters dealing with things as they come. Realized it was Tony's fault that Captain isn't there when he's fighting with Strange, even though he bitches at him for not being there in Endgame. YA DIDN'T CALL EM WHEN YOU HAD THE OPPORTUNITY YA DICK. He did do the most ass kicking, though, from the very beginning he's essentially stalemate with Thanos's underlings, then fights with Thanos for like 45 minutes, and makes him bleed, "If you could make God bleed, people would cease to believe in Him," Whiplash in IM2... but still gets wrecked because he's doing all the fighting by himself. The only really dumb moment is Wakanda being almost entirely a ground encounter. The ending is much less shocking after viewing it a few times, and honestly it cuts to credits rather abruptly. Then has the lamest post credit scene.

Other than Hawkeye's family scene, Endgame has a clunky beginning. Captain Marvel shows up but it doesn't matter because they've now "double lost". You have multiple deus ex machina, the rat, Ant Man coming back, and Tony solving time travel in what feels like a separate short story from the rest of the movie. It feels very "episodic" in its moments, where you could have split it into about 5 or so episodes. So Infinity War also had a girl power moment, where Scarlet Witch, Black Widow and spear chucker combine to fight lady minion. Lady minion says, "You're alone, now," or something, and someone says "She has help," and all the girls attack, which is basically what also happens in Endgame, just turned up to 12. Not 11, 12. They went too far, and went even further. And characters came out of no where, while in IW, they're very nearby on the battlefield.

Fat Thor is them also taking it too far. He ate the power of a star in IW, and Stormbreaker basically recharged his ass, so it doesn't make much sense his weakening in EG, other than to enable other characters to rise up who were sidelined in IW, namely Captain America. I mean, Stormbreaker busts through the power of the gauntlet with all of the stones, and yet Thanos kicks more ass without the gauntlet. Is that armor and sword staff that can carve through the shield stronger than the gauntlet? What. Power level inconsistency is really bad in Endgame.

The theme of the movie is also all over the place. There's too much of a separation and clunkiness when going between serious scenes and quirky, funny scenes, without much transition clarity. Hawkeye's family gets dusted, the team kill Thanos but ultimately fail, then you get a bunch of time travel movie jokes. The time travel scenes are fun, very well done, but it hops from hilariousness of the space stone to extreme seriousness with the soul stone. Some of the jokes also feel slightly jarring for the theme of the scene.

That said, Endgame is 100x more emotionally impactful. Heart was in the right place, but the big problem that was overlooked in creating Endgame was purely compositional with a couple heavy handed cheese moments.

Endgame also has so many more badass moments. IW has Groot creating the handle, Thor showing up and wrecking, but otherwise they're basically getting their ass beat. The hammer flying to Captain America, literally the most chills inspiring moment in all of the God damn movies. Scarlet Witch got her moment. That whole 45 minutes I was on the edge of my seat. Looking forward to seeing the screens when the 4K master comes out.

As far as re-watch ability, Infinity War is where it's at. Though honestly I could watch the first Avengers more than the rest of them, to the point I've basically memorized the lines. I'm kinna worried how I'm gonna feel after watching Endgame more than once. That shit fucked me up in public. Didn't realize I gave as much of a shit about Black Widow as I did (fucking killer acting, pardon the pun). And again, the movie as a whole is very disjointed. Is it a drama, is it a family movie, is it a romance movie, is it a comedy, is it a heist, is it a time travel movie, is it a redemption movie, IS IT A CHRISTMAS MOVIE (no), all of the above!

Side note, Dolby Vision on Infinity War made the viewing experience at home even better than it was in the cinema. Light peaking out from around objects gives a level of brightness and depth that isn't quite as present on the big screen. That said, it also makes background CGI that isn't as clean as closeups look slightly off - Bruce's head in the busted Hulkbuster, for example.

Anywho, rant over.