A compilation of film critics’ impressions concerning Avengers: Infinity War, answers key, essentially non-spoilerish questions about what the Hollywood Reporter calls a “densely packed superhero orgy.”

1 Is the film worth seeing?

Early tallies gave Infinity War an 88-per-cent “fresh” score on Rotten Tomatoes and an average pro-reviewer score of 68 on Metacritic. Basically, Infinity War is no Black Panther (the highest-scoring Marvel Cinematic Universe film on Rotten Tomatoes). It’s not even a Thor: Ragnarok. But a huge cliffhanger hits its marks and sets things up solidly for next year’s followup moneyed monstrosity: Infinity War, Chapter 2.

2 Look at all those superheroes! Is this movie too darned bloated? “Infinity War does suffer at times from a certain bloat,” writes IGN. “There’s no getting around the abundance of characters and subplots that are feeding into (villain) Thanos’ bigger story.” Variety writes with praise: “Avengers: Infinity War can, at times, make it feel like you’re at a birthday party where you got so many presents that you start to grow tired of opening them. But taken on its own piñata-of-fun terms, it’s sharp, fast-moving and elegantly staged.”

3 But isn’t it confusing trying to follow a half-dozen narrative threads across the universe? Gratefully, the veteran filmmakers here are expert traffic cops of such major franchise intersections. “Directors Joe and Anthony Russo and screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely … find clever groupings of characters and an equitable rhythm as the film shifts between narratives,” Vanity Fair writes.

4 But doesn’t it result in too many of heroes getting short shrift?

“No one is relegated to stock player, no matter how small their role,” writes IGN. “Yes, War Machine fans, there’s even something here for you.” But The Associated Press counters: “There may be some hint of overpopulation anxiety in Thanos’s ambition and in the Russos’ frighteningly overcrowded film.” And Entertainment Weekly slams: “Marvel is sitting on such an embarrassment of riches with its deep bench of characters that some don’t have much more to do than act as glorified extras.”

5 OK, but what about tone?

I hear this film goes dark. “Infinity War is big, blustery and brave, taking viewers to places that they may not be used to going,” writes Washington Post critic Michael O’Sullivan, pointing to narrative shadows uncommon for the MCU.

6 So does Marvel’s signature humour help leaven the proceedings?

The screenwriters “have a deft, jokey, sometimes glib touch that spreads the humour around and prevents this long film from ever getting stodgy,” says The Hollywood Reporter. The actors “snap off one-liners and sharp remarks with an extra edge of sarcastic disdain.” But New York magazine’s Vulture is no fan, writing: “The relentlessly lame one-liners of those poor galaxy guardians are the movie’s low points.”

7 So how does Thanos stack up against the best MCU villains? “(Josh) Brolin makes Thanos a suitably authoritative, melancholy villain — someone who really does seem deluded enough to fancy himself a merciful deity rather than a mass murderer for the ages,” writes the Los Angeles Times.

8 Infinity War pits goateed egotists against each other, as well as several actors named Chris. How does it all shake out?

“Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) and Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) stage a Sherlock Holmes meta-duel and compare goatees,” writes The New York Times. “The hunky-Chris showdown — Hemsworth vs. Pratt (Peter Quill) vs. Evans (Captain America) — ends in a three-way tie.”

9 So how do you classify this cog within the efficient and massive Marvel Studios machine?

“As an exercise of studio might … it has no peer. Flagrantly, bombastically extravagant, it plays its audience like a hundred-million fiddles,” writes Vulture. “Infinity War isn’t really anything you could call a movie — it’s more of a fulfilment centre,” scalds Time magazine.

10 One last question: Just how many films are there so far in the Marvel Cinematic Universe?

It is sometimes reported that there are 18 movies in the MCU, but don’t be fooled — and don’t forget Universal’s The Incredible Hulk (2008). The correct tally is 19 films, say such outlets as Time, as well as Box Office Mojo.

AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR

★★★ ½ out of 5

Cast: Everyone (Chris Hemsworth, Josh Brolin, Robert Downey Jr., etc.) Director: Anthony Russo, Joe Russo Duration: 2h29m

Count on Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark to sum up this two-and-a-half-hour monster Marvel movie in just 13 words: “He’s from space. He came here to steal a necklace from a wizard.”

“He” is an all-powerful bad guy with Josh Brolin’s voice and Washington’s Mount Rushmore chin who gets an even briefer introduction at the end of the opening scene, when news arrives on Earth in the form of what I’m going to call a Hulk-ogram. “Thanos is coming!”

Thanos wants the Infinity Stones, a sextet of MacGuffins that have been noisily coming together for the past 10 years and 18 films. The Time Stone is in a necklace and gives the wizard Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) his powers. The Mind Stone sits plainly in the forehead of Vision (Paul Bettany). The Soul Stone is presumably somewhere in Motown. I’ll leave you to discover the others — unless Thanos gets to them first.

Rather than list the rest of the performers, it might be easier to say who’s not in the movie: Paul Rudd’s Ant-Man and Jeremy Renner as Hawkeye sit this one out. The cast is so sprawling that we’re an hour in before we’ve caught up with them all.

One of the very few newcomers is Peter Dinklage in what might be his biggest screen role yet. He plays a giant dwarf who has to help Thor forge a new weapon, after his last one got shattered in Ragnarok. (Hammer time!) His scene is one of a number of (thankfully) lighter moments spread through the picture. Another reminds us of Rocket’s fetish for prosthetic devices.

Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely are the scribes behind the Captain America movies and return for this one, as do directors Anthony and Joe Russo. They do a remarkably good job of juggling actors and locations that span the Earth, the galaxy … and even Scotland.

And for once a villain’s quest is easy to understand, if not to root for. Thanos has clearly read Malthus’s 1798 Essay on the Principle of Population and decided that the only way to save the universe from ruin is to cut the number of residents in half. “They called me a madman,” he crows at one point, forgetting that “they” are usually right about such things.

So on the one hand we have a being willing to trade trillions of lives for greater prosperity for the survivors, and on the other a group ready to sacrifice their own lives to stop him. And there are sacrifices aplenty along the way — although it must be said that Loki’s back-from-the-dead performance in the last Thor movie makes me wonder if anyone in this universe ever truly perishes.

It’s also worth noting that with so many good guys spread out across so many fronts, there are endless opportunities for herecomes-the-cavalry moments, to the point where one ticked-off character asks why her rescuer was just off-screen for so long before swooping in to help at the last second.

And where previous Marvel outings have delighted in hero-on-hero matchups (Hulk v. Iron Man, Spider-Man v. Captain America, and the amusingly brief Black Widow v. Ant-Man), Infinity War puts all the good guys on the same side — well, except for a short misunderstanding when two teams show up to fight Thanos at the same time. In fact, one of the movie’s most touching moments is a pre-battle chat between, of all beings, Thor and Rocket Raccoon.

The ending is easily Marvel’s most shocking yet, so the less said the better. It doesn’t so much hang viewers from a cliff as drop them off and leave them in the dust below.

It’s a powerful final note, undercut by the understanding that the team is already deep into production on Untitled Avengers Sequel, due out next May.

If Infinity War was the Second World War, I’d go all Churchill and declare that this is not even the beginning of the end. But it is definitely the end of the beginning.