For more than three and a half years, Avengers: Infinity War has been built up as the biggest entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe yet. We've waited for a long time for Thanos to come out of the shadows and fight this franchise's heroes for possession of the six Infinity Stones, and now we're only a couple days away from watching this conflict unfold. However, reviews for Infinity War are now trickling in, and the general consensus seems to be that it lives up to the hype that's built up after all this time.
Starting off, CinemaBlend's own Eric Eisenberg awarded Avengers: Infinity War four and a half stars out of five, commending the creative team for being a "heart-stopping experience built on huge stakes, fantastic character interactions, pulse-pounding battles, and devastating surprises," as well as how effectively they fully introduced Thanos.
It's a unique, exceptional achievement that somehow leaves you both fully satisfied and desperate for more, and ranks among the best adventures we've seen yet from this stellar franchise.
Next we have Scott Collura from IGN, who was pleased with how despite having a packed cast, none of Avengers: Infinity War's starring heroes were relegated to being stock players, no matter how small their roles were.
Using the strength of its powerful and interesting villain to set the stakes higher than ever, Avengers: Infinity War successfully brings together the past 10 years of Marvel movies into a largely effective cocktail of super-heroic dramatics.
io9's Germain Lussier stated that if you've been a fan of the MCU in the years since it started, Avengers: Infinity War gives everything you've asked for and more.
Avengers: Infinity War is demanding, heartbreaking, exhilarating, massive, and dense. More than seemingly any movie so far in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it requires its viewer to be intimately acquainted with all the films that come before it---and, if you are, it's rewarding and audacious in ways the franchise has never been before and isn't likely to be again.
Owen Gleiberman from Variety called the movie "overstuffed," yet "sharp, fast-moving, and elegantly staged." However, he also pointed out that the size of this movie may cause you to "lose hold of what made each of these characters special."
If, for decades, the metaphor for propulsive blockbuster filmmaking was the 'ride,' then watching Avengers: Infinity War is like going to a theme park and taking three spins on every ride there.
The Hollywood Reporter's Todd McCarthy mentioned that Avengers: Infinity War 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," and also pointed out that fans will leave with more questions than answers.
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.
Finally, Indiewire's Eric Kohn gave Avengers: Infinity War a B, saying that the movie is filled with messy battles and seems intent on exhausting viewers, but it leads to a finale that is "the most dramatic cliffhanger of any major blockbuster since The Empire Strikes Back."
Even as the movie forces audiences to submit to so many cataclysmic events, the directors manage to direct the cascading mayhem to a unique kind of cliffhanger.
These are just a sampling of the Avengers: Infinity War reviews that are now available, so feel free to browse the interwebs and find out what others thought of this spectacle. You can judge the movie for yourself when it opens in theaters this Friday, April 27. Don't forget to look through our Marvel movies guide to learn what else this franchise has in development, and as for the non-Marvel major motion pictures, you can find release date information in our 2018 premiere guide.
