Marvel’s “Avengers: Infinity War” follows the heroes of earth and space uniting to stop the evil Thanos as he journeys to collect all six Infinity Stones, power ancient artifacts that if gathered give the power to change all reality to his twisted will. This is a film that Marvel fans have been waiting for since Thanos was first teased six years ago in the first Avengers, and they likely won’t be disappointed.

The main appeal of an Avengers film is also one of the films most major detriments. Infinity War has a roster of over forty characters, many of which are prominent characters within their respective films. While the crossover of different franchises is what makes the plot of Infinity War feel like such a large event, it puts strain on the plot and pacing of the film by having to try and allocate enough time to so many different characters and plotlines. Despite this, the film never leaves you bored or confused. Each plotline is pretty simple to follow and although there’s so much going on at one time, you never lose track of where anyone is or what they’re doing. Early on when the film is trying to juggle a lot of separate plotlines the pacing would suffer immensely, but that seemed to get much better as the film went on. 

The film reportedly costed over $321.2 million to make, and it shows. The visual effects are some of the best out on in the industry. While not everything looks great, namely interaction between any CGI character and live action actor which looks a little off, the majority of the film looks amazing. Unfortunately, what the film did lack visually was any sort of artistic directing style. Marvel films such as “Spiderman: Homecoming,” “Thor: Ragnarok” and “Guardians of the Galaxy”  all have had directors with specific artistic visions for their films, which “Infinity War” completely lacks. The directors, the Russo Brothers, who formerly directed Marvel’s “Captain America” films, are better at focusing on more handheld camera work as well as highly stylized martial arts fights. Unfortunately if the film attempted to merge all these separate styles together it would emerge as a Frankenstein’s monster of a film, which may have worked but was too risky for such a highly anticipated film. This leaves “Infinity War” without any real artistic vision or personality to it, which makes the film worse off as a result. The action was largely boring. The Russo Brothers talent of highly stylized martial arts really shined through in some smaller scale fights, but due to the sheer size of the cast they rarely get that opportunity.

One of the film’s shining stars, is surprisingly within it’s villain Thanos. Superhero films tend to have very one dimensional villains who either are overly serious and want to rule the world or can’t be taken seriously at all due to how lightly they take everything. The previous Avengers film, “Avengers: Age of Ultron,” heavily suffered from an overly humorous, unrelatable, onenote villain who was possibly the worst aspect of the movie. In complete contrast, Thanos is possibly the best aspect “Infinity War.” You never fail to understand his mindset or goals, and he’s humanized to a level where his mission is almost a sympathetic one. You may not agree with it but his motivation is clear, instead of the typical monster who wants world domination. He may not be on the level of Heath Ledger’s Joker, but Josh Brolin as Thanos is one of Marvel’s best villains.

The best way to describe Marvel’s “Infinity War” is ambitious. It has more than 40 returning characters that have already all been developed where the traditional three-act structure doesn’t really apply, leading to a kind of film that hasn’t really been seen before. It’s surprisingly and refreshingly dark for a Marvel film with real consequences, but is held back by the sheer size of itself. 

“Infinity War” has a run time of two hours and 40 minutes, and is rated PG-13.

I give “Infinity War a seven out of 10.