Last Friday, Marvel released its third Avengers movie, Infinity War, to astounding success. It had the highest grossing opening weekend of any movie in history and is on track to be the highest grossing movie in general. After 10 years of buildup and 18 movies, Infinity War has been one of the most ambitious projects ever put to screen, but was it good? I’d say so.

From the moment it opens the film maintains a grim tone, with an especially grueling death even before the title card. While there are moments of levity (particularly from Spider-man, the Guardians of the Galaxy, and Thor), they don’t interfere much with this tone and can often enhance it, especially since Marvel is known for its quips and light-hearted feel, which adds to the juxtaposition. The dialogue was top notch (with the exception of Starlord/Chris Pratt, whose performance didn’t really get through to me), as with most other Marvel movies.

The most interesting thing about Infinity War is that its main character isn’t Iron Man or Captain America or even a group like the Avengers or the Guardians of the Galaxy, it was Thanos. While he was clearly the villain, he was never portrayed as a bad guy. He believed what he was doing was right (and some people might even agree with him). He treated most of the heroes with respect and seemed to genuinely love his followers. I may have a soft spot for Zemo, but even I can say that Thanos is definitely Marvel’s best villain to date, in both storytelling and (ironically) humanity.

The search for the Infinity stones was engaging, the fights were interesting and the stakes were always high. As for us fans, a favorite character returned, the post-credit scene was the best one yet (in my humble opinion), and a few future characters and story-lines were teased. One of the main themes running through the story is sacrifice, and what that means. Captain America is (unsurprisingly) against it, but the varying views on sacrifice between the characters make an interesting discussion.

Overall, I’d rate Avengers: Infinity War a 9/10 and definitely recommend seeing it, as I think it’s going to be the “Empire Strikes Back” of our time.