Thanos will be back, and I never thought I'd be excited about saying that!

Rating: 9/10 (27 April 2018)

I always enjoy a surprise at the cinema, I just didn't expect to be surprised in the way that I was.
I've invested a lot of time in the MCU, and just when I think I'm tiring of superhero films, Marvel step their game up again. They did it with Ragnarok, Winter Soldier, Spiderman Homecoming, Ant Man, Dr Strange... these were all films that I wasn't so much as excited, more nervous that they might finally start underwhelming after 10 years of very serviceable and more often than not extremely good film-making.
I, however, expected Infinity War to deliver. And it did. The gravity of this film just felt so much bigger. All the traditional "they'll have a couple of punch ups, but nothing will really happen" worries faded completely in the opening sequence. This was a film that meant business. The action scenes were great - especially the battle in Wakanda. It was LOTRs -esque.
Quips aplenty, and some very good acting (Holland especially) made this film extremely watchable, and the CGI was magnificent. Where the storyline strains a tad, the screen still pops and the characters really feed off each other.
I, like many others in the build up, was worried about the law of diminishing returns with so many characters on screen. However, the Russo brothers took a step back and approached it logically - don't have them all in the same place. It worked very well, and whilst certain characters really did cry out for more screen time, there were no real complaints. Why? Because this film, whilst an Avengers film, is really all about...
Thanos. My god. How wrong I was. I was so against yet another wooden CGI villain, but Brolin and the CGI team have nailed one of the most memorable super-villains in... well, all time. There are problems with the consistency of his powers and how he uses them, but he really dominates both the screen and the movie as a whole. Thanos manages to actually be fearsome, where so many other Marvel villains have failed. He's got a cliched backstory, yet you can still empathise with him. I never expected Thanos to have so much depth. Thanos is the real triumph of this film, which is the biggest surprise by a longshot. For me, he's as ground-breaking as the first time we saw Serkis' Gollum on the big screen.
Infinity War certainly sits in the upper echelons of the MCU to date. With the new raised stakes, I find myself refreshed and reinvested in the franchise, and desperately awaiting news on how both Ant-Man and Captain Marvel come into this story. Because, at the moment, you truly believe in Thanos' power, and the futility of the Avengers' plight.