An incredible experience

Rating: 10/10 (29 April 2018)

(spoiler free)
I've only become a Marvel fan over the last couple of years, and boy was I hyped for this movie. A small part of me was still worried that it wouldn't be as good as I'd hoped (*cough* The Force Awakens *cough*). However, I left the cinema shell shocked. It was as great a movie as I could have ever hoped for.
The basic plot is well known already: Thanos is trying to collect the six infinity stones so he can wield ultimate power. It's up to the Avengers and the Guardians of the Galaxy to stop him. And that's really all you should need to know to go and watch it yourself.
The pace is unrelenting; there wasn't any time wasted. Everything kept moving the plot forward and it never became boring. Scenes with Thor and the Guardians were some of the funniest; they played off each other very well. And almost unbelievably, Thanos was a somewhat sympathetic villain (which I was sure beforehand that they wouldn't be able to do)! I don't agree with him personally of course, but can at least understand where he's coming from.
One of the criticisms I've seen was that there wasn't enough character development and this is very much unjustified in my view. Why? Well for one, when you have 20+ characters we've come to know and love, having individual character arcs would be completely impossible and frankly boring. Two, we've already had all the movies *before* to build up the characters! This is a crossover movie; we don't need to see all that. Three, there was enough of it for some of the characters, and I felt that there was a lot of depth to them, particularly in some of the more emotional scenes.
If you're one of the snobby film critics who thinks they're too good for superhero movies then don't bother. Stay at home and enjoy your movies about women falling in love with fish-men. But if you're still in touch with your inner child and want to have a great time escaping to another world for 2Â½ hours, I heartily recommend you watch this.