Marvel Studios deserves a round of applause for pulling this off. We are moving towards an end of an era, and that starts here. Keyword starts. Avengers: Infinity War highlights the strengths and weakness of ten years of living in this cinematic universe.

With the fate of the universe at stake, the splintered Avengers must reunite with new faces as well as the Guardians of the Galaxy to take down Thanos (Josh Brolin), who seeks the legendary infinity stones to alter reality itself.

Thanos has been teased now for six years since he popped up in the first Avengers film. It was worth the build-up as not only from the first frame do we get how big of a threat he is, but we see what makes him tick. Thanos’ reasoning for doing what he’s doing makes sense. It’s horrifying for sure, but I was so worried he was gonna be a mustache-twirling villain, but he’s fully realized and fleshed. Walking out I understood why Josh Brolin said he got more out of playing Thanos than playing Cable. Much credit is due his way for a really incredible performance.

Once this film starts, it keeps moving. I can say that there’s not a wasted moment in this as the film has a lot to accomplish. For those of you who have theories on the Soul Stone, throw them out the window. One of the biggest surprises as well as emotional beats in this film comes from the Soul Stone sequence. That sequence is important on why you have had to see every single MCU film up until this point as this film makes references big and small to what’s come before.

The Russo brothers deserve a lot of credit for making this film works. The film consistently shifts from funny to super dark walking a tightrope that could’ve teetered into a mess. Part of what makes this work is the handheld camera work that’s being used. The shots and the way the camera moves makes this the most cinematic Avengers film thus far. It’s true that the first two Avengers films have a television film type quality to them, but here Joe and Anthony make you feel the stakes. The scope of this thing is so big, I understand now why every frame of this was shot in IMAX.

With that said, this film does have its problems. Look, the ending here will have you shocked, I’m still shocked by it. But this is only a part of a whole. I’m frustrated that this didn’t exactly have an ending. One of the most referenced sequels of all time The Empire Strikes Back, has a beginning, middle, and end despite its various cliffhangers. Same goes for The Last Jedi. To even further this point each film in The Lord of the Rings trilogy has a beginning, middle, and end despite the fact that it’s one narrative. You can clearly tell this is Infinity War Part 1 before Marvel Studios decided to ditch that for now obvious reasons. Look, whatever Avengers 4 (Infinity War Part 2) is gonna be called, I can go back and judge this as a whole instead of the sum of its parts.

I don’t really like the split narratives either. The Guardians are split up with Thor and going on their own quest eventually meeting up with a group of Avengers. And the rest of the Avengers are globetrotting place to place. I understand why this had to happen as there are so many characters in the MCU (two of which do not appear at all and their absence is mentioned), but this also took the wind out of the sails at times as some stories became less interesting than the others.

The children of Thanos cannot match Thanos’ presence. They are uber-powered stand-ins with no depth to them. In fact, I wondered why were they in the film in the first place. Thanos has a generic army of aliens (not a good thing) for our heroes to punch, these guys added nothing other than getting three of our heroes out into space and setting a trap for later.

And while there are some very cool setpieces, some had me glaze over after a while. I know people are getting tired of CG cities being knocked over, well sorry to say that this has multiple cities being leveled. And speaking of, they gotta do something with the Netflix characters (the whole of Marvel TV in general) cause it’s so distracting to see Midtown under attack and not see the Defenders join in.

Look this works more often than it doesn’t. I enjoyed the film, just not as much as I would have hoped (that’s the problem with hype). With Black Panther literally just having been released upon the world, it’s a tough act for Infinity War to follow. Even more so considering that that’s one of the best comic book films made yet. Moving forward this will have serious consequences and that ending has me wondering just where do they go from here. Seriously, if I was a screenwriter, I’d be lost on how exactly do I resolve this. And going forward one this Marvel and DC should consider is having their heroes meet earlier in solo films or have certain characters costar like Hulk did in Thor: Ragnarok. Avoid everything until you are able to lay eyes on this. You don’t want this spoiled for you.