Disney is second to none when it comes to the revenue realized from their ingenious intellectual properties. It’s no coincidence that two highest grossing movie franchises belong to Disney. Star Wars currently sits at #2 with another chapter unfolding in less than a month. Above that franchise, and with quite a comfortable margin, is none other than the Marvel Cinematic Universe franchise. The crazy thing is that as strong as it was prior to this year, 2018 may end up going down in history as the most successful, in terms of revenue, to date.

Thanks to Black Panther (2018) absolutely throttling the competition during its run that started mid-February, the studio is off to a blazingly fast start. Less than three months later, a potential juggernaut for the ages is upon us and I don’t know if the world is prepared for the impact that Avengers: Infinity War will have on the industry. Time to get to the review that everyone has been waiting for…with NO SPOILERS!

Events have been slowly building towards an inevitable all-out war between those that want to protect the universe and those, namely one, that want to rip it apart. On one side, there are the Avengers, with a few new additions to the team. On the other side is the one single biggest threat that any of them have faced, Thanos (Josh Brolin). In order to be at his strongest, and deadliest, Thanos is on a mission to retrieve and reunite all six Infinity Stones by using them in the Infinity Gauntlet to unleash unimaginable destruction and chaos on his enemies. Thanos is a huge believer in balance and will go to murderous lengths to keep it. Iron Man, Captain America and the rest of the team will be tested and forced to make unexpected sacrifices if they are to have any chance in defeating this Mad Titan, thus saving the universe for yet another day.

Infinity War starts off very soon after the final post-credits scene featured in Thor: Ragnarok (2017) that foreshadowed something massive was coming. The opening scene begins with a thunderous bang and does not let its foot off of the throttle for the next 149 minutes. Character after character, battle after battle, there very few wasted moments in the massive comic collection. Kevin Feige has done a brilliant job thus far in constructing a movie machine that continues to feed and gets stronger as it grows. After ten years of a carefully calculated unveiling, fans will be thrilled to know that the wait was worth it!

Anthony and Joe Russo do a masterful job bringing all of these characters together and allowing them each to have their moments that have made them what they are. No sacrifices are made and no single character is glossed over. All of the special, quirky things things that made each one special is present and accounted for. The collaborative efforts deserve major kudos from a production standpoint. A lot of egos have to be kept in check in order to make something like this work.

Many lingering questions are answered in Infinity War, but new ones will arise. If there were any worries of this franchise becoming stagnant, fear not, as this may be the most unpredictable and stressful MCU movie to date. All I can say is that viewers should plan on staying put and prepared to be entertained. Marvel Studios has raised the bar once again, proving beyond a shadow of doubt, that they are in the driver’s seat when it comes to money making franchises. Seeing this latest explosive movie more than once might be preferred if you want to take everything in.

Also, in the not to distant future (July 6 to be exact), Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018) comes to theaters to lay out even more Marvel groundwork. And one more nugget to keep in the back of your minds, the NEXT Avengers movie comes to theaters a year from now, on May 3, 2019. Believe me, that’ll be a very important date that you’ll want to remember after experiencing this movie. For now, you can see Infinity War as early as Thursday evening, opening officially on Friday, April 27 worldwide.