Huge crossover exceeds expectations

Rating: 10/10 (25 April 2018)

This review is no more spoilery than what's already been in the tv ads...
There's a shot in one of the tv commercials for The Avengers set in a forest where we see for the first time together on screen, Iron Man, Thor and Captain America facing each other. The spine tingling electricity that engendered in me lives fresh in my memory: "Look at them, all together at the same place! It's just like a scene from the comics!"
Avengers: Infinity War taps into that same power source, amplified by an order of magnitude or more. There are so many wonderful interactions between never-before-seen combinations of characters, watching it is regularly delightful. (Particularly entertaining is Thor amidst the Guardians of the Galaxy, but Stark, Strange and Spider-man have some great moments also.)
The tv ads already give a hint of the scale and scope of the battle in Wakanda, but fortunately the actuality exceeds expectations. In fact so many moments from the film have appeared in the tv ads that one might be worried the whole story (or at least too much of it for its own good) has been laid out in advance. It's a real strength of this movie that it has avoided this risk. There are plenty of plot strands barely hinted at in the promotions, many hitherto-unseen (did I really just say that?) powerful moments that deliver hugely satisfying or heart-breaking emotion, and regular genuine surprises.
It's a busy movie but never confusing or flustered. There are references or call-backs to pretty much every single preceding MCU movie, which add to the enjoyable feeling of watching a shared universe develop. Being familiar enough with earlier movies to recognise these various elements adds to the pleasure of watching, but is not really required to follow and enjoy the story.
With criss-crossing subsets of heroes grouping and regrouping across multiple locations on multiple missions, it really does capture the feeling of reading one of those massive company-wide summer crossovers so popular in mainstream comics these last few decades.
It's a great success. If you've seen and enjoyed any MCU film in the last decade, there's something here for you and you shouldn't miss it (and I hope and expect you won't)!