SPOILER WARNING DO NOT READ ANY FURTHER UNLESS YOU HAVE WATCHED THE MOVIE YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!!!!!

With that said, let's jump right into it. Avengers: Infinity War has been a long time in the making. 10 years since Robert Downey Jr kicked off the MCU with Iron Man, and 6 years since the Avengers first teamed up and Thanos was first teased, this movie had a lot to live up to and it had a lot to do. So, did it do it?

Oh. My. God.

The first thing I did when I saw it in cinema was walk out of the theatre and buy a ticket for a showing the next night. I have never experienced anything like it. It was unbelievable. It was absolutely incredible. It not only lived up to the hype but it totally smashes any expectations I had for it and I had very, very high hopes. Now that I've seen it 3 times and I'm pretty certain everybody's seen it, I feel comfortable in writing my review.

One of the major complaints of the movie in general is that you have to do too much homework. I mean, you had to watch like 18 other movies first, right? Well, sorta. It's true that having watched all of those movies will enhance the experience but that's only really true from knowing all of the characters. There are moments in the movie that made the nerdy Marvel fan inside of me physically squeal with excitement. Moments like when you first hear some 80s style music playing and you know that the Guardians are about to show up. Or when Cap is thinking about a place and some African music begins to play you know we're about to go to Wakanda. Thing is, those moments don't really detract from anything if you're not a super fan. To test this, I dragged my parents out to watch it who knew almost nothing going into it and surprisingly enough, they really enjoyed it. They were thoroughly entertained throughout. (including my Dad who can literally fall asleep at ANYTHING, especially at the cinema)

What I love about this movie is just how bold it is. It has a million different super heroes to juggle for screen time and yet it dedicates a lot of time to Thanos. Heck, he's pretty much the main character and as such, it does't fall into the usual Marvel pitfall of having great heroes but shitty villains. We're shown so much of Thanos, from his immense power, strength and will, to his emotional weaknesses and his motivations. Throughout the film, there are many tough decisions forced upon all of our characters but as he himself claims, Thanos is the only one with the will to act and he's the only one prepared to make thse tough decisions. He's the only one who "trades lives". They managed to set up a villain so incredibly powerful, capable of destroying the entire universe but they also showed his weakness and how defeatable he can be. In almost every fight he's in, he starts out on the back foot and he almost loses but then he always manages to turn it around, just like our heroes usually do. The more you look at Thanos and analyse his story arc, the more you realise that this was his movie and he has the heroes arc. The villain is the main character! Told you it was bold.

The fight scenes are straight up spectacular. Every single time Thanos does anything you get a tremendous sense of his power whether he's shooting fire out of his fist, or dropping an entire freaking moon on Tony, you just feel like he can't be beat. And yet, through some incredible teamwork and clever planning they almost, almost do beat him. Even after Thanos escapes the teams clutches, we get a series of really cool 1v1s with Strange and Tony and Thanos. On top of those fights, you've got the amazing Wakanda fight with Thor's incredible entrance, you're got various fights with Thanos' bitches and each one is pretty fantastic. It's very difficult to point to a fight scene and say "That was boring and rubbish wasn't it?"

With so many characters to juggle, it was always going to be a near impossible job to give every character a chance to shine... but they somehow manage it. Some of the character dynamics are just phenomenal. They kinda separated into various groups and they all play out in wonderful ways. It's amazing to see the arrogant egos of Tony, Strange and Quill clash. The sheer fun of Thor and the Guardians was fantastic and seeing the struggling band of remaining heroes on Earth all coming together was great to see. Pretty much every character has their moment and given that everyone has a different favourite character, that was a vital thing to get right. There's maybe like 1 or 2 characters who don't get the spotlight but it's understandable.

Another thing that impressed me was the pacing. Given how much stuff they had to pack into the movie, it should've really felt overstuffed and rushed. But it didn't. It's fast, don't get me wrong, but it's not like it's constantly moving at a million miles an hour. It stops and takes its time when it needs to and everything feels focused enough to where I'm not disappointed. This would've been an easy area to fail and they just nailed it.

I was also very impressed by the humour. Thor Ragnarok  is known for being totally hilarious and just a boat load of fun. The problem with Ragnarok is that it takes away the seriousness of the situations because there's always a joke followed up (for the record this doesn't really bug me, I love Ragnarok). On the opposite end of the spectrum you have Black Panther, a movie with virtually no comedy at all and so when a character does crack a joke, it feels totally out of place and weird. Infinity War somehow gets it perfect. It's one of the funnier Marvel films with a lot of standout jokes but it also has a lot of dark and serious moments. The good news is, the serious moments are never undercut by the comedic moments, meaning we get the best of both worlds. I was honestly envious of how well this was done given what I have a tendency to do in my own writing.

A good example of a moment that was almost ruined by comedy is when Quill attempts to kill Gamora. It's a scene revolving around the Guardians so obviously, it's going to be funnier than most but it's also a very serious scene. Quill's insults towards Thanos can produce a laugh and also the constant repetition of nobody following his orders is pretty funny. However, it gets dark when Gamora asks Quill to shoot her and after an intense and kinda heart breaking scene, he manages to pull the trigger. Unbelievably, his gun fires bubbles. Thanos just smiles and leaves with Gamora. This should be funny. I mean his gun just fired some freaking bubbles! But somehow, the effect is the opposite, and the audience audibly gasped as a kind of "what the shit just happened?" Basically, just a really well done scene that could have lost all meaning if they went too far.

Speaking of Quill and Gamora, I love their relationship in this movie. It was whatever in the first Guardians, it was ok in volume 2 but man they killed it in this movie. Just that opening shot of Quill and Gamora being the only ones singing and then Gamora constantly giving Quill the look when the team are bantering about the distress call they've received. It felt like they were the mother and father of the group and it was honestly really sweet.

Which is why I CAN'T BELIEVE THEY KILLED HER!

To reiterate, this movie is bold. Right out the gate, Idris Elba is killed (what do you mean that's not his character's name?) and then Loki is killed for real and then the rest of Thor's ship is destroyed. This is basically the filmmakers saying "yeah that's right. ANYTHING can happen". And so whenever anything happens, you're constantly unaware of what the outcome will be. Usually you know exactly what's going to happen in a superhero movie because nobody ever dies right? Well you don't feel that during this movie. As soon as it became apparent that Gamora was going to be killed I was going "Yeah, but they're not actually gonna kill Gamora are they? Are they? Wait... they're not actually... no... OH MY GOD THEY ACTUALLY KILLED GAMORA!"

This becomes key later again when Tony is fighting Thanos. That moment when Thanos stabs Tony is just shocking and Robert Downey Jr sells the moment like a boss. Because... well you can't kill Tony! Marvel created an empire on the back Iron Man! But because of everything that's happened so far, you're still uncertain and for even half a split second, you think Tony's all but dead. They had me going that's for sure.

Ok, now let's take a look at some of my favourite moments from the movie that I couldn't really work into the review in a good way but couldn't go unmentioned. Fair warning, these are my fanboy thoughts and nerdgasms.

That Cap reveal though
Holy shit like the train goes past and then there's a silhouette and you're like "holy fuck it's Cap" and then he catches the staff and the music plays and he steps out and holy fuck he's beautiful and god dammit that was fucking epic.

Wakanda forever!
My favourite moment from the whole movie was seeing Cap and T'Challa leading the charge, pacing past everyone as everyone sprints towards the oncoming alien army. It was very like Cap to charge in ahead of everyone and was a really epic moment to see those 2 great leaders leap into combat together.

Girl power bitch!
Watching all our favourite female heroes in 1 kick-ass action scene? Hell freaking yeah that was cool to see.

Cap is stronger than Thanos?
I kinda wish that Cap had had a longer fight with Thanos because if you couldn't tell I kinda like Cap and the brief fight we got between them was really interesting. Cap bravely slides in, gives him a good punching and then Thanos comes at him with the gauntlet like "Dude, c'mon. I'm fucking Thanos."

But Cap's just like "Yeah, well I'm fucking Cap!"

And Thanos is like "Shit, he's fucking Cap!" Before taking him out with his other hand. That one moment when Cap just grabs the gauntlet with his bare hands and matches Thanos for strength was really cool to see. For a split second Thanos looks totally bewildered like he can't even conceive that kind of strength. Just another great moment for Cap.

Why is Gamora?
The whole Guardians vs Avengers scene was really fun but man this line was fucking brilliant. Yet again Drax steals the show as a comedic genius.

Ok then, let's talk about the ending. Holy shit the ending. Holy fuck balls the ending. I just... I just... WOW. I have never, ever seen a more what the shit with shit on top thing in my entire god damn life.

Throughout the whole movie, everyone talks about how Thanos will be able to snap his fingers and wipe out half of all life if he gets the Infinity stones. And well, he snaps his fingers. He actually succeeds. Then with half of the universe dead, Thanos watches the sun rise with a smile on his face. What. The. Fuck.

One by one we see our favourite characters fade away into nothingness, confirming the victory of the villain. Some are quick, such as T'Challa, and some are slow, painful and heart wrenching like Peter. Then the remaining heroes just sit there, totally defeated and the movie ends, stating that Thanos, not the Avengers, will return (again, confirming that Thanos is the main character).

Just wow. What a movie. What a villain. What an ending. I'm not sure anything like this has happened before in cinema and I'm not sure anything will ever happen like this again. Hats off to everyone involved, it was fucking fantastic.

For anyone wondering, my favourite fade away to dust death was... Drax. It was surprisingly touching to see a maniac look down at his disappearing body, look back up at his friend and just utter one scared little word, "Quill?" before fading away to nothingness. Can someone explain why yet again, Drax the Destroyer, played by Dave Bautista gives the best performance in a stacked movie? You know, the guy who said "Shit!" in Spectre? Why is he so damn good?

Anyways, I've talked a lot about the things this movie did well so let's move on to the bad stuff. Erm... err... hang on gimme a second... ok so I don't really have any good criticism. All I have are very minor nitpicks. Let's take a look at them.

Rhodey's 180
At the end of Civil War, Rhodey stuck by his decision to sign the Sokovia Accords, adamantly claiming he signed because it was the right thing to do. Given that I'd never really cared for Rhodey, this was a pretty strong character moment and a good way to reflect on the conflict in Civil War that tore the Avengers apart. And his first line in this movie is just "Yeah, no, I was wrong. Woops." Really minor point but hey, that's nitpicking for you.

Cap didn't have more screen time
Ok fine, maybe I have an unhealthy love for Cap. But I just thought he would be one of the more main characters and he got surprisingly little to do. Fortunately, every time he was on screen, it was totally epic.

Thanos totally just ditches his armour!
Whenever we've seen Thanos up until this point, he's had some swagilicious golden armour which he's wearing at the beginning of this movie. Then he takes it off. And never wears it again. Kinda makes you wonder why he wore it in the first place.

If half of all life gets wiped out, why is all the plant life fine?
Ok, it's stupid but it's technically a flaw. What more do you want from me?

Ok, here's my actual genuine gripe. My only true annoyance. The one thing that I think could have improved this movie. I wish that other movies did not exist.

That sounds weird but here me out. Guardians 3 and Spiderman 2 are movies that have been confirmed. Black Panther and Doctor Strange have plans for sequels but aren't 100% booked in yet. I actually saw Chris Pratt doing an interview about the script for Guardians 3. Seems strange given that literally only 1 Guardian survived.

Do you see what I mean? The epicness of the ending is undone slightly because I know it can't be permanent. Not when all of the characters set to appear in later movies have all bit the dust. Imagine how crazy that ending would've been if no more Marvel movies had been announced. Just imagine being able to completely believe that that ending actually did happen and actually will have lasting consequences. As it stands, we have enough evidence to believe that the dust people will probably come back. And as much as I want to see those characters return... I don't want the ending of Infinity War ruined. Avengers 4 has it all to do. Again.

And so those are my thoughts! Taking the movie as it is and not thinking about the future, it's near enough perfect. I'm still feeling super hyped about it so I'm not going to make bold claims that I can later go back on, but it's probably my favourite Marvel movie and one of my favourite movies of all time. Maybe even number 1. But maybe not. I do really love Jurassic Park. But I really loved Infinity War. Top 5? Alright, fine, we'll call it top 5 and not put it in pen.

But yeah, fucking amazing movie.