'Avengers: Infinity War': It's Marvel's Universe. We Just Live in It.

Considered on its own, as a single, nearly 2-hour-40-minute movie, “Avengers: Infinity War” makes very little sense, apart from the near convergence of its title and its running time. Early on, someone menacingly (and presciently) says, “You may think this is suffering. No: It’s salvation.” That’s a bit overstated either way. It’s puzzlement and irritation and also, yes, delight. But of course this film, the 19th installment in a series, was never meant to be viewed or judged in isolation. In that respect it shouldn’t really be thought of as a movie at all, at least in the ways people with jobs like mine are accustomed to using the word. Which poses a few difficulties, for me and also, I would argue, for you.

Directed by Joe and Anthony Russo, scrappy fraternal climbers up the 21st-century Hollywood ladder, “Infinity War” is a chunk of matter in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, a vast entity that long ago expanded beyond the usual boundaries of sequelization and brand extension. This synergistic expression of the corporate interests of Marvel Studios and the Walt Disney Company — which now include 19 feature films and much else besides — has come to be less a creative or commercial undertaking than an immutable fact of life, like sex or the weather or capitalism itself.

That makes the franchise hard to criticize. You can’t really be for or against Marvel (in spite of the conspiracy theories of some DC fans), and you can’t quite opt out of it either. They don’t call it a universe for nothing: Where else are we going to go? So we make our zigzagging ways, picking out our favorite planets and solar systems, accepting a baseline of tedious, standardized dead space that makes the brighter constellations seem disproportionately fresh and surprising. “Guardians of the Galaxy” was so funny and weird. Not like a superhero movie at all. Same with “Thor: Ragnarok.” Captain America is such a complicated guy. “Black Panther” gave audiences so much to root for and talk about.

Those interesting, unusual specimens — what we used to think of, in simpler times, as “good movies” — aren’t exactly accidents. They are carefully planned exceptions that uphold a rule (meaning a regime as well as a norm) of passive acceptance disguised as enthusiasm. This universe is engineered for variety and inclusiveness, within certain strict parameters. Above all, the Disney-Marvel combination is a giant machine that manufactures maximum consent. The cosmos is theirs. The rest of us just live in it.

I’m not complaining, but rather pointing out how pointless, how silly it sounds when anyone bothers to venture a complaint. Who wants to be a hater? Still, it’s worth noting that the ascendance of Marvel (and of other, not quite as universal entities like it) has narrowed the parameters of criticism. I’m supposed to tell you, in this review, how much fun you’ll have at “Infinity War.” (Yes, you will have some. Will you have enough? Almost.) But I’ve probably already gone too far in trying to think about what it means. The Marvel movies and others of their kind often produce an illusion of profundity, a slick, murky overlay of allegorical suggestiveness. This provides grist for the kind of think pieces that spar with one another — “Infinity War” is liberal; no, it’s conservative; but don’t you see that it’s a protest against Trump; actually, it’s an attack on the tyranny of political correctness — until they catalyze the inevitable anti-intellectual backlash. It’s just a movie! Don’t spoil the fun!

And of course it is with respect to “spoilers” that the policing of discourse is most ruthlessly and effectively practiced. Reviewers who attend advance screenings take a vow of silence about plot details that will be widely known within a week and all but forgotten a week after that. Government secrets are guarded with less care, and requests from public officials to go off the record are addressed with more skepticism. But if I mention which superhero dies, or which one has an unexpected relationship with someone else — well, I wouldn’t dream of it. Not because I’m afraid of Disney executives. It’s the wrath of their obedient, weaponized minions I fear. In other words: you.

This is not a healthy situation. The reasonable concern that major plot elements not be divulged has spawned a phobic, hypersensitive taboo against public discussion of anything that happens onscreen. If, for example, I were to share that Thor (Chris Hemsworth) mistakes Rocket (Bradley Cooper), who is a raccoon, for a rabbit — whoops, you already hit “send,” didn’t you? The joke is repeated a half-dozen times, so it kind of ruins itself. And until the end, the whole thing is weirdly free of any but the most superficial, mechanical surprises.

The action is especially tedious and predictable. I mean both the scenes of fighting and flying and the overall rhythm of the first two hours or so. People talk for a while, sprinkling jokes and morsels of personality into the heavy dough of exposition. Then they fight in the usual way, by throwing giant objects (and one another) and shooting waves of color from their hands. The noisy, bloated spectacles of combat were surely the most expensive parts of the movie, but the money seems less like an imaginative tool than a substitute for genuine imagination.

There is so much to explain, but basically a large purple fellow named Thanos (Josh Brolin) wants, on vague Malthusian principles, to wipe out half the life in the universe. As you try to keep track of all the good guys massed against him, you may decide he has a point. But he’s not a bad villain. I mean, he’s very bad, but his malevolence is laced with melancholy, and there is a ghastly grandeur to his ambition.

To fulfill his evil plans, Thanos needs to collect six “infinity stones,” which in spite of their awesome power look a lot like what you would find in the craft kit you have been meaning to regift since your kid’s seventh birthday. Also, come on: Another quest for magic gewgaws? This one lumbers from Vormir to Knowhere to Titan, with terrestrial stops in New York, Scotland and Wakanda. Along the way, Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) and Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) stage a Sherlock Holmes meta-duel and compare goatees. The hunky-Chris showdown — Hemsworth vs. Pratt (Peter Quill) vs. Evans (Captain America) — ends in a three-way tie. Zoe Saldana is heartbreaking as Gamora. If you end up wanting more Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman) or Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) or War Machine (Don Cheadle), or whoever your favorite happens to be — well, that’s kind of the idea, isn’t it?

But where you end up may not be where you thought this was going. The final act, including the post-credits sting (to infinity and beyond, as it were) brings a chill, a darkness and a hush that represent something new in this universe. “Infinity War” is the first half of the final installment in the series, and it concludes with a premonition of finality. Its intimations of grief and terror feel shrewdly attuned to what is happening in the actual, unmarvelous world. But those emotions can also be folded back into the movies themselves. This universe is coming to an end. And then where will we be?