Marvel movies are a staple of movie fun. These films aren’t made by visionaries, with stories defining the generation. Neither are these films pandering to the lowest common denominator, with bad jokes and scripts written in less than the movie’s run time.

Marvel films are just fun.

On top of that, the Marvel cinematic universe is consistent and well schemed, sprinkled with charm and diverse visions.

Avengers: Infinity War is the film (or, two films) that Marvel fans have awaited for the past decade. The movie boasts some impressive sights and sounds. By all standards, the cinematography is pretty good, and no sound effect felt out of place.

The CGI is almost always good in this film, especially for Thanos, the main villain. It was so good, I thought that they used an actor’s face with a computer generated overlay

The acting is what you would expect: Cream of the crop actors paid high-as-the-sky salaries to give some above-average performances throughout the movie. I did not see any problems with the acting. It seems that the cast gave it their all, knowing that this movie is one of the more important ones in the Marvel series.

Since every chapter in the Marvel universe is, at its core, an action movie, you would assume the action should be good. As usual, the action scenes are hobbled by an over-reliance on cuts between shots that makes the action hard to track.

Additionally, the filmmakers have introduced many new elements to the action through fresh plot devices, so the action is quite a joy.

The plot of Infinity War is truly unique. Since there are so many characters, the film cannot follow a traditional three-act structure.

Luckily for the filmmakers, all of the characters were introduced and developed in previous films. That is, except for Thanos. This was one of my main concerns before the release of the film. How can the audience be interested in a villain who has done absolutely nothing throughout the Marvel epic?

Sure, he’s the boss of most other villains, but he never did anything himself. Luckily, the filmmakers knew this, too. To compensate, Thanos gets a lot of screen time, probably the most in the movie. By doing this, the filmmakers accomplish two goals: Making Thanos an intimidating and interesting villain, but also an understandable one.

As for the other characters, they go on some interesting adventures. While not reliant on a three-act structure, on pattern that can be relied on when thinking about this movie is comparing it to Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”

I make this comparison because many of the characters can be categorized into groups, not necessarily out of different series but rather agenda, background and visionary style. In Shakespeare’s classic comedy, the characters fall under “aristocrats”, “lovers”, and “fairies”. The difference between these groups is night and day, but their stories are brought together in clever ways.

In Avengers, though dependent on the events from previous installments, characters from all groups mix together in interesting ways. This results in never-before-seen character interactions, which can be very interesting to watch.

My only complaint with this film is that it is just too long. Three hours is a long time to sit down and watch a movie. This is one reason why readers of this piece might consider getting their own copy of Infinity War, but I doubt anyone could avoid spoilers for that long.

To conclude, Avengers: Infinity War is a good first part of a big finale. It does this by breaking the mold of previous movies before it, resulting in an unorthodox but satisfying addition to the Marvel roster. I give Avengers: Infinity War an 85/100.