Perhaps it’s simpler to say what you won’t see in Avengers: Infinity War. This is a movie, after all, that features large-scale battles on multiple planets, no less than 25 recognizable costumed characters, three strapping golden-haired actors with the first name Chris, a few stolen kisses, a trail of tears and one whaaa? cliffhanger. It’s all there, save for banter between Spider-Man and Star-Lord about Kevin Bacon’s dancing in Footloose. Wait, nevermind. You can check off that box too! Scariest Horror Movie Villains of All Time Welcome to the ultimate superhero extravaganza. The culmination of a decade’s worth of Marvel Comic Universe films, Avengers: Infinity War is a massively ambitious, thrilling, satisfying, rock ’em sock ’em epic crowd-pleaser to the highest degree. It’s not the best MCU movie ever, not by a long shot. And thanks to Black Panther, it’s not even the best MCU movie of the first half of 2018. (For starters, Part 1 of a two-parter inevitably lacks closure). Still, what co-directors Joe and Anthony Russo have accomplished on the screen is astounding. All the fireworks of summer movie season have been crammed into April. 
 
 Spoiler: This is a spoiler-free review. I won’t even lean heavily on a storyline description, except to note that it’s blessedly streamlined and easy to follow. All you need to know going in is that the Avengers are still splintered in the wake of 2016’s Captain America: Civil War. Robert Downey Jr.’s Tony Stark/Iron Man remains hesitant about calling Chris Evans’ Steve Rogers/Captain America for help etc. etc.. Also, remember all those much-coveted Infinity Stones? The gems each represent a source of power: Mind, Soul, Time, Reality, Power and Space. 
 
 A Godzilla-sized alien named Thanos (Josh Brolin), the last survivor of his planet, is determined to collect them all so he can harness this all-encompassing power. His goal: Destroy half the universe’s population with the snap of his fingers. He already has one when the action starts. He’ll have another before the Avengers: Infinity War title card even pops up on the screen. The action is that breakneck. His deadly scavenger hunt serves as the catalyst for all your favorite superheroes to meet each other, form alliances and attempt to stop him. 
 
 The greatest source of joy stems from these mix-and-match interactions. Moviegoers that have followed the MCU since Iron Man in 2008 will no doubt geek out over Iron Man bickering with Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) and Star-Lord (Chris Pratt). Peter Parker/Spider-Man (Tom Holland) still idolizes and annoys Stark. There was a big round of applause in the theater when Captain America brought some of his cohorts to Wakanda to enlist Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman) and his partners in heroism (hey, Lupita Nyong’o!). The dialogue during the getting-to-know-you scenes are chock full of clever one-liners, highlighted by Thor (Chris Hemsworth) verbally sparring with the Guardians of the Galaxy crew. By 2025, I do hope the Russo brothers have figured out a way to spin-off a buddy comedy between Thor and wisecracking Rocket Raccoon (voiced by Bradley Cooper). 
 
 Unlike its D.C. Comics counterpart, Marvel has perfected the comedy-to-action ratio. And no doubt the crackling humor helps make the big heavy set pieces more palatable. There is galaxy’s worth of ground to cover in this 2 ½-hour-long movie, with the superheroes going to war everywhere from New York City to Scotland to Wakanda to a dank, grey planet called Knowhere. The world tour may be catnip those who want their money’s worth of CGI aliens and explosions; I thought the action needed a tranquilizer. You will miss the quieter — and literally down-to-Earth — moments that helped entries such as Black Panther and Spider-Man: Homecoming so enjoyable. There’s scant time here to process the story, the punchlines or the crying. And I assure you Zoe Saldana (Gamora) is an Olympian crier. 
 
 I promise I haven’t revealed anything. I couldn’t even if I wanted to! Though the upcoming Avengers movie is no longer titled Infinity War: Part II (they were filmed back-to-back), this installment can’t realistically be considered as a complete, well-rounded film. And this Part 1, like many before it, suffers because of it. That’s why nothing seems 100 percent decided and final, no matter how dramatic it plays out on the screen. I do wonder how audiences will respond to the end, but that’s a future fun debate for social media. ||||| Avengers Infinity War isn’t really anything you could call a movie—it’s more of a fulfillment center. All of the most well-loved Marvel comic-book characters are here, and something huge is going to happen. That something huge is set in motion in the first scene, which isn’t really a beginning, but more of a middle or an end with a new piece of yarn attached. You need to have seen and internalized every one of the previous 18 Marvel Cinematic Universe movies to fully get it, but the gist is this: The ambitious evildoer Thanos (Josh Brolin, in the form of a giant dude with a pronounced, corrugated chin, like the cow catcher on an old railway engine) seeks to acquire all six of the most powerful tokens in the universe, little glowing rocks that will give him the ability to do anything to anybody anywhere. They’re called the Infinity Stones, and each controls a very important thing in the grand scheme of things: Space, Mind, Reality, Power, Soul, Time and the Missing Sock. OK, I made that last one up, but you get the idea. 
 
 Thanos has a big glove with a little setting for each gem; his goal is to collect ’em all. As the movie opens, he demands that skinny Norse mischief maker Loki (played by the always awesome Tom Hiddleston) hand over the stone currently in his possession. (Loki has been hoarding one or the other of the things for years.) Loki holds out until Thanos comes desperately close to killing Loki’s brother, Thor (Chris Hemsworth), who, as you know if you’ve seen Thor: Ragnarok, now has only one eye. Long story short—this part of it, at least—Loki gives in and Thanos gets another stone for his jeweled glove. Though if you’re thinking that glove sounds like something Diana Ross would wear in Mahogany, you’re bound to be disappointed: It’s a big, jointed gauntletty thing, more like something you’d wear for intergalactic gardening than for swanning around looking fabulous. 
 
 Anyway, for Thanos to get all the stones in his glove would be a very bad thing, and the Avengers, who have broken up but not really, must fight him to make sure that doesn’t happen. The list of Avengers who show up in Avengers: Infinity War, includes, but is not limited to, Iron Man/Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.), Peter Parker/Spider-Man (Tom Holland), Steve Rogers/Captain America (Chris Evans), Dr. Steven Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) and Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson). A few are missing because they had to stay home with the kids, but basically, it’s all of them. Faves from Guardians of the Galaxy pop up too: Peter Quill/Star Lord (Chris Pratt), Rocket the Raccoon (voiced by Bradley Cooper) and Gamora (Zoe Saldana). Everybody in Avengers: Infinity War has at least a little something to do, and some have more to do than others. Thankfully, Saldana is one of the latter: Her Gamora, with that radiant green face, gets some of the movie’s best faux-Shakespearian moments. Saldana makes them seem almost not faux. 
 
 Sorry to be so vague about everything, but Marvel Studios has released an impassioned entreaty to critics: “19 films, 10 years of Marvel Studios, and thousands of hours of work by thousands of people have all lead [sic] up to this moment. Out of respect to them, and to everyone else who is still out there, patiently waiting to see what’s in store for our Heroes, we ask that you help us keep the secrets of our universe for the rest of this universe.” The studio has a point: Movies are personal things, and the joy of them unfolds in the watching. And so I will be compliantly unspecific in telling you, in what I hope is only a vaguely descriptive way, that the movie features lots of Avengers-vs.-Thanos clashes, complete with elaborate, if belabored, CGI effects. The most ambitious of these is a Henry V-style battle set in Wakanda, the home territory of T’Challa/Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman), where part of the story partially takes place. 
 
 Yet overall, Avengers: Infinity War—directed by Anthony Russo and Joe Russo and written by a team of about 26 writers (or so it seems)—is so different from Black Panther that it may as well inhabit a whole other universe. You didn’t need an encyclopedic knowledge of all things Marvel to respond to the story, and to the characters, of Black Panther. Its visual beauty came largely from faces, from costumes, from human movement. In making the film, director Ryan Coogler clearly had to obey all sorts of Marvel Universe-movie dictums, but he still managed to tell a story with some semblance of grace. 
 
 There’s no pacing in Avengers: Infinity War. It’s all sensation and no pulse. Everything is big, all of the time. Tucked amid the story’s numerous operatic sacrifices—barely a moment goes by when a character doesn’t almost die, or actually die, or temporarily die—there are jokes folded in, lots of them: Muttered gags having to do with Ben and Jerry’s flavors, jaunty references to the fact that two Marvel heroes are actually insects, knowing asides uttered by wisecracking raccoons. The Marvel Universe is not all serious infinity stones and stuff. It also wants us to laugh—but it will decide when it’s OK to poke fun, not you. It’s impossible to just relax into the zaniness of a Marvel movie—they’re never gloriously, inclusively, intergalactically loopy, like, say, a Sun Ra performance. Even when you’re supposed to be having fun, you’re really following a very strict set of rules. 
 
 That said, there’s potential poetry buried deep in Avengers: Infinity War. But it’s not a sturdy enough crocus to push through the movie’s ironclad surface. There is at least one truly poignant idea here: Thanos’ goal of destroying half the universe is much worse than pulverizing the whole thing, because those who remain will remember the world as it was—and they’ll be left to mourn those who are gone. The movie’s climax scratches at something close to melancholic grandeur, featuring a visual effect that’s Biblical in both its force and its delicacy. But it’s way too little too late. Avengers: Infinity War knows what a big deal it is. Just about all the Avengers together, in one two-hour-and-forty-minute movie, battling the most power-mad villain there ever was: Wow! Better not blow this one. And so the movie treats audience expectations like a set of ice-cube trays to be filled, and in the end, you have to admit it’s very thorough. That’s not the nicest thing you can say about it; it’s the most damning. ||||| 'Avengers: Infinity War': Film Review 
 
 Marvel's biggest, most star-studded film yet brings together characters from all of its franchises, including 'Guardians of the Galaxy' and 'Black Panther.' 
 
 “We're in the endgame now,” Benedict Cumberbatch's Doctor Strange intones in the final stretch of the indisputably epic Avengers: Infinity War — and, more than in any other comics-derived superhero concoction one could mention, there's a whiff of something resembling tragedy in a franchise that, for millions of fans, seems to play a role similar to what mythology did for the Greeks. 
 
 This grand, bursting-at-the-seams wrap-up to one crowded realm of the Marvel superhero universe starts out as three parts jokes, two parts dramatic juggling act and one part deterministic action, an equation that's been completely reversed by the time of the film's startling climax. "Huge" is the operative word here — for budget, scope and size of the global audience. 
 
 Back in Hollywood's big studio heyday, the grandest company of them all, MGM, boasted of having “more stars than there are in heaven.” Marvel could arguably make that argument today, and it's crammed almost all of them into this one densely packed superhero orgy, the first half of which is basically dedicated to finding a semi-coherent way of shuffling them into the same dramatic deck. How are ultra-egotists like Dr. Strange, Robert Downey Jr.'s Iron Man, Chris Hemsworth's Thor, Chris Evans' Steve Rogers, Tom Holland's Spider-Man and even Chadwick Boseman's more even-keeled Black Panther going to like having to share the heroic spotlight with one another, while also allowing some derring-do and dazzling deeds to be performed by at least another dozen characters with unusual talents? 
 
 The sharp-witted answer delivered by writers Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely and directors Anthony and Joe Russo, under the supervision of Marvel Films maestro Kevin Feige, is to acknowledge the traffic jam of egos and play it for laughs. The effect is both scatter-shot and precise, knowing and witty enough to be initially disarming and ultimately ingratiating. With more limited screen time than they're used to and even more limited elbow room, the actors and characters (in what at least some knew would be their swan songs in these costumes) snap off one-liners and sharp remarks with an extra edge of sarcastic disdain. They don't exactly send up their heroic characters, but there is more of a subtle commentary underneath it all (not so subtle in the case of Mark Ruffalo's and Evans' roles) about the frustrations of having two different personas in life. 
 
 Even early on, however, one makes note of tragic forebodings that Dr. Strange articulates. For all the activity generated by the superheroes, the fellow driving the action here is the heretofore glimpsed but never central Thanos (Josh Brolin), a brooding tree trunk of a man whose stated goal is to achieve universal dominance by acquiring all six Infinity Stones. Each of these variously colored gems confers distinct powers. As he acquires them, he becomes increasingly unbeatable, but along with his determination and brute force he brings a philosophical intelligence. 
 
 Thanos has thoroughly thought through his ambition, as well as the moral and emotional toll it will take to achieve it, and Brolin's calm, considered reading of the character bestows this conquering beast with an unexpectedly resonant emotional dimension, making him much more than a thick stick figure of a supervillain. 
 
 The imposing and unquestionable danger Thanos represents, and the way it increases exponentially with each stone he acquires, becomes quite serious after a while. So what begins as a lark — with the vast assortment of comic book characters trotting out their costumes; middle-aged Bruce Banner humorously being so out of practice that he can no longer transform himself into the Hulk; Tony Stark bantering once again with Gwyneth Paltrow's Pepper Potts; Holland's Peter Parker looking so childish even he seems to wonder what he's doing in this company; Dave Bautista stealing every scene he's in; Scarlett Johansson and Don Cheadle being given absolutely nothing fresh or original to do; Evans trying to leave his Captain America persona behind him — transforms into something genuinely threatening and grim, something, in fact, that has to be taken seriously: the prospect that evil can win. 
 
 With so many ingredients to stir into this overflowing pot, you have to hand it to the two experienced teams of Marvel collaborators who had a feel for how to pull this magnum opus off. Markus and McFeely wrote all three Captain America entries and have a deft, jokey, sometimes glib touch that spreads the humor around and prevents this long film from ever getting stodgy. The Brothers Russo directed the last two Captain America features and have a breezy approach that prevents the action here from sagging in any serious way. 
 
 And the scale of that action is astonishing. Some of it is set in space or in different realms, while other scenes take place in New York and elsewhere on Earth. When the intergalactic conflict winds up in Wakanda, Black Panther's African homeland, it provides a bit of a start: Wait, we were just there a few months ago, and here we are again already for another giant battle? 
 
 Another major dramatic thread concerns the hitherto secondary figure of Vision (Paul Bettany), who crucially possesses the final stone sought by Thanos and hies to Scotland with Elizabeth Olsen's Wanda Maximoff/Scarlet Witch before being tracked down. 
 
 But, after Thanos, the most significant figure of all, and the character who lends the tale much of its ultimately tragic stature, is Zoe Saldana's Gamora, Thanos' adopted daughter. This relationship and story strain emerges from the distant background to play a decisive role both in the plot and the work's ultimate thematic resonance, and the way it plays out is highly dramatic, upsetting and inevitable. By the time Thanos and Gamora's relationship truly comes into focus, the film has rather remarkably shifted from a mood of larky fun to one of classical tragedy, not an inconsiderable feat in a comic book-derived entertainment. 
 
 Without giving anything away, the climax is startling in its gravity, and no Marvel fan will leave before the long final credits scroll gives way to the traditional kicker tease at the very end, which amplifies the ending by serving up even more questions, not answers. This will achieve the desired result of making millions of fans debate what it all means until the next installment. All we know for sure is that just one identified character will return. 
 
 No question about it, barely two months after the release of Black Panther, Marvel (and Disney, of course) has returned with another of the most expensive films ever made that will pull off another of the biggest commercial hauls of all time. This franchise isn't going away anytime soon. 
 
 Production company: Marvel Studios 
 
 Distributor: Disney 
 
 Cast: Robert Downey Jr., Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, Don Cheadle, Benedict Cumberbatch, Tom Holland, Chadwick Boseman, Zoe Saldana, Karen Gillan, Tom Middleston, Paul Bettany, Elizabeth Olsen, Anthony Mackie, Sebastian Stan, Idris Elba, Danai Gurira, Peter Dinklage, Benedict Wong, Pom Klementieff, Dave Bautista, Vin Diesel, Bradley Cooper, Gwyneth Paltrow, Benicio Del Toro, Josh Brolin, Chris Pratt, William Hurt 
 
 Directors: Anthony Russo, Joe Russo 
 
 Screenwriters: Christopher Markus, Stephen McFeely, based on the Marvel comics by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby 
 
 Producer: Kevin Feige 
 
 Executive producers: Louis D'Esposito, Victoria Alonso, Michael Grillo, Trihn Tran, Jon Favreau, James Gunn, Stan Lee 
 
 Director of photography: Trent Opaloch 
 
 Production designer: Charles Wood 
 
 Costume designer: Judianna Makovsky 
 
 Editors: Jeffrey Ford, Matthew Schmidt 
 
 Music: Alan Silvestri 
 
 Visual effects supervisor: Dan DeLeeuw 
 
 Casting: Sarah Finn 
 
 Rated PG-13, 149 minutes ||||| ‘Avengers: Infinity War’ unites Stark and Star-Lord in a massive Marvel mashup 
 
 “There’s an Ant-Man AND a Spider-Man?” – One of the many chuckle-inducing moments in “Avengers: Infinity War” in which even the characters are having trouble keeping track of all the characters. 
 
 Before you settle in for the massively enjoyable and just plain massive candy-colored thrill ride adventure that is “Avengers: Infinity War,” keep in mind this is Part One of a two-part adventure. 
 
 So don’t expect anything approaching a resolution in this, the 19th film in the Marvel Universe. 
 
 Not that we’re ever going to see Full Marvel Closure in our lifetimes. There’s always another story to tell, another adventure to be had, another character to take center stage, as we’re reminded in the teaser scene(s) that pop up after the obligatory 10-minute end credits crawl. 
 
 “Infinity War” might be the biggest and most ambitious Marvel movie yet, but it’s certainly not the best. (I’d put it somewhere in the bottom half of the Top 10.) However, there’s plenty of action, humor and heart — and some genuinely effective dramatic moments in which familiar and beloved characters experience real, seemingly irreversible losses. 
 
 One of the elements setting “Infinity War” apart from far too many superhero movies is the introduction of a villain who’s more than just another fire-breathing, multi-tongued monster-god hell-bent on destroying everything in its way while mouthing platitudes through some kind of filter that makes him sound like he watched “Star Wars” a thousand times and was always rooting for Darth Vader. 
 
 To be sure, the gigantic, all-powerful, merciless Thanos (voiced and performed by Josh Brolin in perhaps the film’s most interesting performance) is a genocidal maniac who DOES want control of all living things — but according to his twisted and demented and damaged mindset, if he can arbitrarily remove half the population through a snap of his mighty fingers, he’ll actually be saving the universe by thinning out the population to a manageable number. 
 
 “The universe is in need of a correction,” is the way Thanos puts it. 
 
 Also, Thanos is actually capable of love — and of making a heartbreaking sacrifice in the name of what he believes to be a greater good. Rarely has the seemingly unstoppable evil force in a comic-book superhero film been given such a richly dramatic background and so many scenes in which there’s actual dialogue and not just CGI-laden battle sequences. 
 
 In order to carry out a plan that will eliminate trillions of lives from the galaxies, Thanos needs to obtain all six of the brightly colored Infinity Stones, which are scattered among the planets. (Each time Thanos gains control of a stone, he drops it into place on the fingers of his enormous glove. That’s right: Thanos is bedazzling the heck out of that big armor glove thingy.) 
 
 When Mark Ruffalo’s Bruce Banner/Hulk (last seen in “Thor: Ragnorak”) returns to Earth after an extended absence to warn his fellow Avengers of the coming storm, Tony Stark tells him they’ve broken up and aren’t even in touch any more. 
 
 “Broken up?” says the baffled Banner. “Like a group? Like the Beatles?” 
 
 Yes, Bruce. Like the Beatles. 
 
 Once the severity of the crisis is evident, most of the feuds and squabbles and self-interests are set aside, with Steve Rogers (Chris Evans), Spider-Man (Tom Holland), Thor (Chris Hemsworth) and Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), among others, teaming up to save not only the world, but the universe. 
 
 “Infinity War” kicks into a particularly exhilarating gear when the action shifts to Wakanda, where Chadwick Boseman’s Black Panther gathers his armies and joins the fight; the genius Dr. Bruce Banner is stunned by the amazing mind of Shuri, and the great warrior Okoye (Danai Gurira) gets one look at the powers of the Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen) in battle and exclaims, “What was she doing [back in the lab] all this time”! 
 
 Ah, but of course this is more than a mere Avengers All-Star movie, as we also have the very welcome presence of the Guardians of the Galaxy, who provide most of the comic relief (along with a few moving dramatic touches). When the mighty and stunningly handsome Thor literally crash-lands on the windshield of their ship, Drax (the always likable Dave Bautista Jr.) marvels at this god: “It’s as if an angel and a pirate had a baby,” as Gamora literally massages Thor’s muscles, apparently in an attempt to revive him, while Star-Lord (Chris Pratt) stews. 
 
 Thor takes a liking to Rocket (Bradley Cooper), whom he calls “The Rabbit,” and he innocently calls the rest of the Guardians “morons” because he thinks that’s what they call themselves. 
 
 Oh geez, and we’ve yet to mention the presence of the fantastic Benedict Cumberbatch as Dr. Strange, Sebastian Stan as the un-brainwashed White Wolf, Tom Hiddleston’s ever-duplicitous Loki, Idris Elba’s Heimdall, Benicio del Toro’s The Collector and Peter Dinklage in a role sure to delight anyone who loves Peter Dinklage, and who in the world doesn’t love Peter Dinklage? 
 
 At times it’s nearly impossible to keep track of all the Guardians and Avengers who are banding together on Earth and on far-flung planets such as Knowhere and Titan. “Infinity War” has just enough self-awareness without becoming too jokey or winking at the audience. When Spider-Man rescues a number of the Guardians and says, “I got you, I got you, I got you! I’m sorry I haven’t learned everyone’s names!,” it’s just the right light comedic touch at just the right moment. 
 
 The final moments of “Infinity War” are haunting and impactful and mysterious, taking us to a nearly hopeless place but of course leaving the door open for a bigger and possibly even more ambitious second chapter. 
 
 And yes, you should stick around for the end credits, and a hint of what’s to come. 
 
 ★★★ 1⁄2 
 
 Marvel Studios presents a film directed by Anthony and Joe Russo and written by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely. Rated PG-13 (for intense sequences of sci-fi violence and action throughout, language and some crude references). Running time: 156 minutes. Opens Friday at local theaters.
– Your favorite Marvel superheroes from Black Panther to Spiderman rally against a villain hoping to destroy half the universe in Avengers: Infinity War, the lengthy (2 hours, 40 minutes) third installment in the series slated to wrap up next year. Setting the stage for an epic conclusion, the film directed by brothers Joe and Anthony Russo is pretty well received with a 85% rating from critics on Rotten Tomatoes. What they're saying: "Welcome to the ultimate superhero extravaganza," Mara Reinstein writes at US Weekly, calling Avengers: Infinity War "a massively ambitious, thrilling, satisfying, rock 'em sock 'em epic crowd-pleaser to the highest degree." She found the most joy in scenes in which superheroes get acquainted. They're "chock full of clever one-liners," she says. Richard Roeper ranks the film "somewhere in the bottom half of the Top 10" of Marvel's 19 superhero pictures, despite it being "the biggest and most ambitious Marvel movie yet." That doesn't mean it's not worth seeing. "There's plenty of action, humor and heart," he writes at the Chicago Sun-Times, noting the film "kicks into a particularly exhilarating gear when the action shifts to Wakanda." Stephanie Zacharek thinks the film tries to do too much. It's "more of a fulfillment center" than a movie. As a result, "there's no pacing … It's all sensation and no pulse," she writes at Time. "The movie's climax scratches at something close to melancholic grandeur," she continues. "But it's way too little too late." Todd McCarthy disagrees. "The climax is startling in its gravity" and an after-credits teaser "amplifies the ending by serving up even more questions," he writes at the Hollywood Reporter. He was also impressed with Josh Brolin's performance in this "densely packed superhero orgy." He gives villain Thanos "an unexpectedly resonant emotional dimension, making him much more than a thick stick figure of a supervillain."