Perfectly fine entertainment

Rating: 5/10 (27 April 2018)

I have rated this 5 stars, predominantly because I think 9s and 10s should be provinces reserved for truly great movies. This is an entertaining one, which kept me interested for most of its overlong running time, but which won't leave me with much lingering sense of a tangible movie - it felt like a solid episode in a series I'm binge-watching, but I'll struggle to treasure many specifics of this movie from a line-up of Marvel titles.
There are a ridiculous number of characters in this; the film is using that as its "event" selling point, but in truth it was the factor which made me most apprehensive before watching it. To the filmmakers' credit, the juggling of storylines and superheroes (and their endless sidekicks and sub-teams) was almost impressive - it never felt as though many were shoehorned too awkwardly into the forward trajectory of the overall narrative, though some characters - including leading players like Spider-Man and Black Widow - inevitably get shortchanged.
The series' most rewatchable movies - for me Avengers, Winter Soldier, Civil War, Ragnarok and Black Panther - all have something compelling that feels unique to them. I'm not sure this has a unique selling point beyond a huge cast jostling for billing position on the poster, but whilst it plods along it's perfectly decent, and fans of the franchise will likely lap it up.
At the time of writing, the film is ranked number 10 on the IMDb list of the Top 250 movies OF ALL TIME. I'm certain it will plummet once the general public start to supersede the fanboy rush, but this kind of kneejerk over-ranking in the context of cinematic history is a nonsense.