Now that I’ve finally seen it, I am happy to say that Avengers: Infinity War pays off as the climax to a decade of movies that have built up the Marvel Cinematic Universe. There’s been jokes made (by the actors themselves) about how bringing together so many stars and characters should render them each with trivial parts, but on the contrary, the movie actually gives most characters significant screen time and meaningful scenes (though some, like Black Widow and Winter Soldier, only show up for the action scenes). As well, there’s lots of good dialogue (especially lots of great one-liners — not just from Rocket Raccoon or Drax, either). So, to close off 10 years of stories, Marvel brings together the Avengers with the Guardians of the Galaxy, and recent additions like Dr. Strange, Spider-man, and Black Panther, all to stop the mad Titan Thanos (who has already appeared in several post-credit scenes) from bringing together six all-powerful cosmic artifacts known as the “Infinity Stones” and becoming a death-dealing god. It’s a relatively straightforward plot line, so there’s room for a lot of fun and action.

One of the best parts of a super-hero cross-over story is when characters who don’t normally interact, end up forming some interesting temporary teams. This device always brings out some fun, new dynamics. It was delightful to see Starlord Peter Quill get all insecure when everyone else in the crew could barely contain their admiration for Thor. As you might expect, sparks fly when two egotistical alpha males like Tony Stark and Stephen Strange begrudgingly team up. There’s even a kind of warrior sisterhood forged between Wakanda’s Okoye, Black Widow, and Scarlet Witch when they face armies of baddies together. Only after investing in all the precursor movies could these new combinations have even been possible — score one for Marvel Studios.

The other major aspect to super-hero cross-overs (or even any super-team stories) in the comic books is the coordinated attack. I don’t know if it’s because of the constraints of the visual effects budgets, the lack of variety of super-powers, or simply deficiency of imagination, but so far the top super-team battles (Captain America: Civil War was probably the best so far) have been only mediocre from this perspective. They mostly find new ways to punch and kick each other, in teams. This time, when they face a big bad behemoth like Thanos (the guy’s like 10 feet tall!) or even his pretty bad minions (who aren’t really named in the movie but are known as The Black Order), the supers have to cooperate and use their powers in new and interesting ways. (As a Dr. Strange fan, I was gleeful to see a classic spell known as the Crimson Bands of Cyttorak used to bind Thanos while Spidey blocked his eyes with webbing and allowed the others to gang up on him.)

MCU has already made a reputation for doing some pretty good action sequences and this movie has these scenes in spades. From New York City, to Edinburgh, to Wakanda, to alien planets, battle after battle was awesome to watch. I know a lot of it was CGI, but it didn’t really feel like it. Even Thanos, who was all CGI over motion-capture, was really lifelike — especially his face and his expressions, which were actually more soulful than what I’ve seen from the real face of actor Josh Brolin, who plays him.

I don’t want to spoil, so I’ve been careful to avoid any real plot points here, but there’s a lot of big things happening in this movie. I even impressed myself by staying in my seat for the entire 160 minute run — there’s not a good time to leave. I think this is a landmark movie simply because Marvel Studios was able to bring together ten years of almost 20 movies into a thrilling quasi-finale, and that’s never been done before. For fans like me, it’s a huge reward for all the time and emotion spent with these characters on screen (and I even just rewatched the whole series prior to seeing this movie). To top it all off, they were able to conclude the story but not close off the future — in fact there’s many aspects for which I am dying to see what’s next. (4.5 out of 5)