1. Hell of an opener. It was pretty clear how that was heading as soon as the first frame hit the screen.
2. So, we are in the post "Tony Stark" world. It wasn't much of a shock even WITHIN the story itself (regardless of our audience knowledge of movie contracts for RDJr). Infinity Wars telegraphed it -- the one thing that made Dr. Strange give up the Time stone was Tony's imminent demise, and that couldn't happen if the one victorious scenario was to unfold -- and pretty much Endgame telegraphs it through and through. Tony's video last will and testaments, his anger at Cap and refusal to initially join because he found some happiness, his inability to let go (ironically something shared with Nat), his meeting with his dad in the past to talk about fatherhood and resolve matters, the fact the stones were built into an Iron Man glove, the plot points go on and on that this would be Stark's swan song so it hurts when it happens but you kind of see it coming a mile away. This threat was bugging Tony for years and years, esp since Loki's attack on NYC; and this was his endgame. Do we really understand how he swapped gloves with Thanos? Hmmm probably not. The only "after credits" scene is an audio bit -- I knew what it was because I just watched Iron Man on Thursday, it was Tony in that cave banging out his first clumsy prototype suit. Goodbye, Tony. Thanks for the run. EDIT: I found a streaming copy (low quality) but it's enough that I *think* Tony got the stones due to the nano-tech -- if both gloves are nano-tech, then grappling the glove with his glove would have allowed the stones to simply shift over to Tony's glove. The glove Thanos wore could change sizes, so ... -things were shiftable. Only Tony could have pulled this off.
3. I suppose the Black Widow film will need to be a prequel. I did enjoy the back and forth of Hawkeye and Widow deciding who would live or die, with the loser getting to survive. It went on longer than expected. I'm not sure they made the right choice, for various reasons. I'm also not thrilled that Iron Man got a freaking group funeral, where Nat only got a bench thrown into the woods in her name. Maybe everyone knew who Iron Man was, but the net effect on the film was that people only gave a shit about the man in the suit, not the woman who made victory possible and in fact was the one person holding hope together for years. We love you, Natasha. Also, maybe it would have been a far more powerful moment if we actually had known Natasha's back story BEFORE Endgame, instead of in a later film. I hope this ends up being something that brings new life to a rewatch of Endgame, if we actually get what Nat was dealing with before she reached these series of choices. But why did they have her land in exact the same pose as Gamora? I think the blood splatters were even the same. (I watched Infinity War right before seeing Endgame.)
4. Karen Gillan is another who gets MVP for this film. She gets to play two versions of herself, and we see how far she has come. I've always been a fan of hers, even without her long locks. her two Nebulas seem actually different, which is rather cool.
5. Remember, Gamora was about to betray her father at the beginning of GotG -- and this is that Gamora. So her turning on dad when she meets Future Nebula isn't that surprising, she was ready to do so. It just gave her a little extra push. But this is the Gamora who has no memories of the rest of the Guardians, who seemingly is running around out there somewhere. She doesn't remember anything with Quill. That unspoken thing is gone. It's all rather sad, simply because there are scenes I love in both Guardian movies -- memories that the Future Gamora had -- that now do not belong to this earlier Gamora. The Future Gamora really is dead. Will this be the topic of the third Guardian script that Gunn already had in the can? He's been an executive producer on these two Avengers films, so he's been aware of the plot impact for quite some time. EDIT: I'm wondering if they will ever do anything with the Soulstone, if dead Gamora's soul is trapped inside -- is it possible to release dead Gamora into living Gamora and thus 'update her memories'?
6. Captain America is retired; long live Captain America (Sam). Not sure what they'll do with Bucky. I knew before Cap flickered out on the time pad that he wasn't coming back, and I knew exactly where he would be. And so as soon as you see a man on a bench, well... there you go. Was it believable, though? Could the real Cap have truly retired for years like that, knowing what was going to happen? I don't know. We have never seen a Cap who was about anything but duty, so it really doesn't feel like he could have just stepped away when he had power to engage. I'm not sure I buy it.
7. Thor. I saw some people on social media bitching about fatphobia and wasn't sure what they meant, until obviously i saw the film. I read that Chris Hemsworth actually helped determine the direction of his character in the film, to "do something different," but I don't know if it was good story telling. Maybe there are ways to deal with a washed-out Thor who has run to flab and become a shadow of his former self, but this iteration didn't really do much for me. It simply felt like one long joke that far overstayed its welcome. This was the freaking climax of the current MCU, and it needed to be more heroic and/or done better; it simply wasn't worth it, especially not with all the time invested. And boy did they spend a LOT of time on whiny, mopey, chubby Thor.... I thought he was pretty bad-ass at the end of Infinity War and had already overcome a lot of bad stuff. I have trouble imagining him just not killing himself, if he blamed himself this much over what happened.
8a. As far as the film structure itself goes: I really liked the first hour. Yes, there are obvious "The Leftovers" comparisons here and it will never hold up to that drama show (which is like 30 hours of show time or something, versus 1 hour of comic book movie), but this was perfect to try to create a feeling of loss that was needed to drive the plot. The characters' first obstacle is to decide to even try. (Oh yeah, and it's also kind of a shocker for them to literally go murder Thanos within a few weeks of him enacting The Snap. Farmer Thanos only got a month of enjoying the fruits of his labors. I'm not sure how destroying the stones didn't derail reality in some way, but... whatever.) Anyway, maybe not a PERFECT hour, but it felt meaningful and far more than adequate to set up the rest of the film.
8b. HEre's where I started to dislike the film. I really did not like the second hour. After Infinity War demanded a lot more time to get the stones, suddenly the Avengers (in little 1-2 person groups) manage to collect them without much trouble in about 50 minutes. Half the time is spent a la "Back to the Future 2" watching past selves rehash events we've already seen, which is part of time travel movies I personally hate -- it's redundant (stuff we've seen), it feels like it derails the good feelings from the other films, and just feels convoluted. The other half is spent doing nostalgic / sentimental fan service that feels out of place in this plot. It might have been the story that some of the very general audience wanted, but it wasn't the film we needed. I was just really disappointed and emotionally checked out during this time. I think the most interesting was the side-plot with Past Thanos and Nebula and Gamora, and maybe the interplay between Hawkeye and Widow.... but that all felt drained of power too because we'd already seen it before, there was no "surprise" over the price and it wasn't nearly as compelling as Thanos and Gamora. Also, while the writers tried to explain the time-travel mechanics so we could understand, it is still difficult to understand. Anyway, there are some funny jokes here ("hail Hydra" which is either amusing or painful on a few different levels if you follow comics), but not enough to emotionally get me into the film. Thor getting some proper mothering, and so forth... wtf. It just comes off as platitudes, not catharsis, no matter how much I love Renee Russo. Anyone really understand why the Reality stone was in liquid Aether form and how confusing it is to explain? (Note: I consider The Dark World to be perhaps the worst MCU movie, or at least in the bottom three.)
8c. Okay, the third hour was the "money" shot sequences. It's the Battle to End All Battles. And you know as soon as Hulk uses the stones, that every freaking former and would be Avenger -- and lots of others -- are gonna show up for this fight. Avengers Assemble? Hell yeah. There's even some audible gasp sequences -- like when someone else picks up Mjolnir and wields it... cool stuff. But did I feel the sense of urgency or care as much as in Infinity War? No, I personally did not. Again, Thanos is a total badass, he gets his ass handed to him briefly and then completely trashes the other team... all without the stones. he can be terrifying. (And this Thanos is less philosophical than the one from Infinity War, and more warlike... although I think the Philosophical Thanos was more terrifying because he felt more reasonable while being insane and also so much more relentless.... as he couldn't be stopped, it was like the slow erosion of time in Infinity War that brings death to all.) Anyway.... yes, there was a crazy full battle sequence with everyone and their brother and mother fighting. But the individual fights lost some urgency. The "keepaway game" with the glove was rather fun. It ends in a poetic and predictable way. But the Black Order who was so fucking terrifying in the first film (I mean, 1-2 of them could take on about 4-5 heroes at once) ended up barely getting a blip of attention in this. It just didn't feel like it scaled well. Still... it was every freaking hero on screen. So....
9. Captain Marvel. She still is used as a deux ex machina. She saves Stark and Nebula. Conveniently she has to disappear again, but of course arrives just in time to destroy Thanos' ship. She goes head to head with Thanos wearing the glove, in the same sequences that Steve Rogers gets his ass kicked in the prior film, and takes a punch to the face (the one that downed Steve) with no apparently effect on her. When she gets "girl support" to run the gauntlet, we're left asking, "Does she really need it?" I don't feel like I know her any better as a character; she's merely a plot device meant to save people's bacon. it's kind of disappointing.
10. Girl power. Yeah, okay, there's supposedly this "empowering" moment when all the females of the MCU team up to help Captain Marvel. It should have been awesome. Instead it just felt very contrived and silly... like this would not happen in a real fight. But worse, the MCU has had all this opportunity to expand on women's roles in their films. Do they? They've tried at times, but not really. It took until film 20 or so to have a solo female hero film (Captain Marvel) that despite setting box office records wasn't actually "great," it didn't know how to truly develop her as a person. They killed Gamora in Infinity War. Now, in a team full of guy avengers, who do they kill first? Natasha in exactly the same way they killed Gamora. At least Nebula got some time, but really.... the women are typically short-changed, so doing a brief "battle role call" ain't exactly progressive rights. Now supposedly the Asgardians have a Queen, not a King, so I guess that's supposed to mean something. And they seem to focus on the girl kids (Stark's daughter, Scott's daughter, Hawkeye's daughter) -- so now you wonder if they are preparing a bunch of girl replacements to somehow compensate in MCU Phase 4. If so, it's been a long time coming in terms of getting actual female representation than mostly token gestures and otherwise some amount of undermining / not actually developing them well overall.
I guess that is all pretty long, and there is probably more I have to say, I'm just trying to work through it all in my head.
(We watched Infinity War together on Netflix earlier this week, that was the last movie I needed to see in order to get a better sense of what's going on... Vision and Spiderman's demise really hit me the most 
