Avengers: Infinity War (Anthony & Joe Russo, 2018)

Fight, fight, fight; fight, fight, fight, as Itchy & Scratchy taught us. And so with MCU 19, which is now forced to cram in all its stars in a top-heavy self-styled epic as the Avengers, Guardians of the Galaxy and Doctor Strange. plus assorted hangers-on, attempt to avert mega-supervillain Thanos (a CGId Josh Brolin who curiously looks more like himself than the real version) from killing merely a randomised half the population of the universe according to some half-baked personal code of his.
Of course, this would be to suggest that we're just dealing with a cynical market-tapping superhero blockbuster to end all blockbusters here. Which naturally it is. But an effort towards a workable film is actually made, even if that too is necessitated by having to preserve the individual selling points of all its zillions of characters, not all of whom have had their own films yet (though that will most likely come), so there's one-liners through the Guardians, manly grieving through Thor, bitchy superciliousness between Downey Jr. and Cumberbatch and teen geekery through Spider-Man. And that serves to make it watchable despite the endless cycle of each big hitter being put in a queue to have their go at the uberbaddie, just enough that when the end comes at last and it's actually surprising, it's a fair reward for the slog. Just don't expect too much from the sequels when the world gets rectified again. 

6/10