The concept of “more” is a double-edged sword, and it’s also the ethos of Joe and Anthony Russo’s Avengers: Infinity War. It is the most movie. It is the culmination of 18 films. It has more primary superheroes than any other film ever made. It has a villain who wants to wipe out half the universe with a snap of his fingers. There’s no denying that Infinity War is a lot. And while you’re on the ride, it can be loads of fun. There’s great joy to be had in watching the crossover intended to end all crossovers from the studio that defined the crossover movie in the first place. And yet Infinity War is like a hollow planet. It sucks everything into its orbit, and yet there’s nothing on the inside. The movie flirts with some facile ideas about the value of life, but at the end, we’re left feeling drained and wondering if the sound and fury signified anything at all.

Thanos (Josh Brolin) and his henchmen, The Black Order, are on quest for the Infinity Stones, six singularities formed at the creation of the universe. If Thanos obtains all six Stones—the Space Stone, the Power Stone, the Mind Stone, the Time Stone, the Soul Stone, and the Reality Stone—he’ll be able to wipe out half the universe just by snapping his fingers. For Thanos, he’s a bit passionate about overpopulation crises, and believes that randomly killing half the universe is the only fair way to bring about balance. The Avengers end up breaking themselves into groups to protect the Stones on Earth—the Time Stone and the Mind Stone—and Thor heads off on his own mission to find a weapon that can kill Thanos.

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Image via Marvel Studios

Without spoiling anything, the way the characters get broken up into their various groups is pretty random, but also pretty fun. You get to see Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) sparring off with Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch), which obviously results in a pissing contest between two massive egos. You have Thor (Chris Hemsworth), a man who has lost just about everything before the movie even begins, confiding in Rocket (Bradley Cooper), a character who has spent almost his whole life pushing people away. These combos result in terrific banter that is unique to Infinity War. It’s a joy to watch characters we’ve enjoyed in some movies interact with characters we’ve enjoyed in other movies. There are even places where Infinity War improves on Marvel movies like making Doctor Strange a livelier hero with more interesting superpowers.

More than just mixing and matching, Infinity War also brings its own character to the table in the form of Thanos. Both an antagonist and a protagonist, Thanos drives the action forward even though his primary goal is absolutely insane and terrible. On paper, Thanos is kind of dull and his motives are ludicrous, but Brolin finds a fascinating “in” to the character. He sees the burden of Thanos, not just the loneliness of his quest or being a bad guy who sees himself as a hero. Thanos knows he’s doing something horrible, but believes he has the will to see it through. It’s this quiet sincerity that somehow makes Thanos relatable even if his face looks like a purple nutsack (great mo-cap, but none of it changes the design of the character).

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Image via Marvel Studios

But where Thanos has resolve, his movie lacks the will to see its ambitions through. It’s a movie that never shies away from being big, and Infinity War is certainly massive, spanning cities and planets with its huge cast. And yet this bulk ultimately works against the movie because we can’t really follow anyone through. For example, take Vision (Paul Bettany) and Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen). The movie basically has to tell us they have a romance, but there’s no time to show it because we have to jump to all the other characters. Their love is important to the plot, but completely without emotion or definition. They are technically in love, so there can be no emotional payoff for their story.

That lack of definition rears its head again and again as we see we’re getting superheores on screen, but minus their stories. When the action heads to Wakanda, we’re given a terrible vision of what Black Panther would be if it didn’t have anything to say. The Russos can namedrop all the inspirations they want, but it doesn’t change the fact that Infinity War is a whole lot of nothing. I don’t know what Captain America’s (Chris Evans) arc is in this movie. I don’t know what Iron Man’s arc is. The movie pulls in a bunch of characters and doesn’t really move any of them forward.

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Image via Marvel Studios

This leads to a film that isn’t really about anything, which is quite the sucker punch following Black Panther, a movie that’s about quite a lot of things. For all the sturm und drang, the themes of Infinity War are ill-defined. The movie is kind of about what a single life means in the grand scheme of things, especially when faced with the random mass killing Thanos hopes to bring about, but the film can never really slow down and do anything with that because the characters aren’t living as much as they’re trying to stop Thanos from getting Stones. There’s very little room for human relationships or just pausing to breathe.

Another problem is that this is half a story. We’re in the first part, and the ending is bound to be controversial (I’ll go into that ending in a separate article after the movie is released). It’s the kind of ending that will strike die-hard fans one way and strike the casual viewer a different way. To say more would be to lean towards spoilers, but I will say that the ending is definitely in the “more” realm where only a movie like Infinity War could go.

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Image via Marvel Studios

I’m a fan of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I like re-watching most of the movies in it. I like the characters. I like the way they interact with each other. And Infinity War puts them all in one place. The problem is that once they’re altogether, they seem at a loss on where to go other than banter and set pieces. In their individual movies, we see how they can be so much more, but Avengers: Infinity War, they’re less than the sum of their parts.

Rating: B-

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Image via Marvel Studios