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Perhaps you,Romance Movies | Adult Movies Online like me, fit this profile: You kind of like Marvel, but you've seen only a handful of its movies, and read even fewer comics. Superheroes don't always thrill you like they used to. There are gaps in your knowledge. (Me, I still haven't found time for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2or Thor: Ragnarok.)

The movies you have seen, you've frequently been dragged to by your friends or your partner, who make you sit through the credits because they're really excited about the big reveal in the post-credits sequence, which they then have to explain to you.

In which case, you may actually be the perfect audience for Avengers: Infinity War, which blasts into theaters Friday. Having seen the thing (no spoilers here!) I believe you are likely to have a better time watching than the hardcore, decade-long Marvel Cinematic Universe fans who have over-prepared and inflated their expectations.

SEE ALSO: 'Avengers: Infinity War' is less than the sum of its parts

I know this is hard to believe. The MCU seems like a twisty-turny kind of meta-yarn with so many interlocking characters and plotlines that to truly grasp it all requires knowledge that is literally encyclopedic. Those superheroes are just being so damned epic all the time.

But Marvel's best movies -- such as the original Avengers-- are accessible to the non-obsessives. The story and the characters are compelling enough to transcend all questions about who and what. You're actually better off being thrust into the middle of the story unprepared -- just as we were thrust into the middle of the Star Wars saga, at Episode IV.

I am happy to report that this Star Wars fan thought Avengers: Infinity Warjust such a movie. (And I certainly didn't say that about the overly-busy, incoherent-to-me sequel Avengers: Age of Ultron.)

Here is pretty much the same plot that made Star Warszip along like an X-Wing on an attack run, and it is done respectfully right. In place of the evil Empire, we have Thanos -- basically, Darth Vader and the Emperor rolled into one, only he's getting more powerful than you can possibly imagine.

In place of the stolen data tapes, we have the Infinity Stones. In place of droids to carry the tapes we have an android, the Vision, who carries one of the stones. In place of Obi-Wan Kenobi, we have a not-so-old wizard named Doctor Strange, who also carries a stone.

You don't have to have watched the trailer or caught any of the umpteen Marvel movies to have featured the stones so far (although the quick video at the bottom of this post is a nice refresher). The stones are important because Thanos is hunting them and his powers grow with each one. Got it.

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The skillful dialogue is peppered with reminders of everything we, the average audience, need to know to get us up to speed and keep us up to speed. To my mind, this was so skillfully done, covered with genuinely funny jokes, that it didn't feel like exposition.

But the mileage of the Marvel fan already appears to vary. As my colleague Angie Han notes in our full review, there is such a large cast that there is such a small amount of time for them to interact with each other to the extent fans have been craving. I can see how that might make it frustrating that any of that time is taken up by recapping.

Me, I was just admiring the writers' and directors' juggling skills. Rare are the filmmakers who can keep this many balls in the air at once and have the average audience care about all of them.

If only you knew the power of the Dark Side

It's no spoiler to say that things get grim in this film. Thanos is, at least to my inexperienced eye, the best Marvel villain of them all, although apparently some think his on-screen version lame. To me he's like the Dark Side incarnate -- and like the best fallen practitioners of the Force, Thanos also has a very human story. He became too attached to an ideology.

It would be a spoiler to tell you what that ideology is in the movie, for apparently it is not the same as it is in the comics, and my understanding is that our brethren on the Marvel side of the aisle are already up in arms about whether this is a good adaptation or a betrayal of the canon Thanos story. Begun, the fan wars have.

It would definitely be a spoiler to talk about what happens at the end, except to say I have never seen a mass-audience movie do what Infinity Wardoes. There have been comparisons to The Empire Strikes Back. They are not entirely unwarranted. Hold your outrage: we shall speak more of this when you've all seen it.

But I think a better point of comparison is The Last Jedi.The ending of that film sent shockwaves through Star Wars fandom. Many who felt themselves most invested in the bigger Star Wars story howled that they couldn't accept it. The same hot debates may be approaching Marvel fandom at light speed.

Meanwhile, Star Wars fans can just sit back and enjoy what is, in large part, space fantasy scenery. It's a very Guardians of the Galaxy-heavy ensemble tale, which only increases the Star Wars feel. Likewise, the characters' sense of humor.

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By the end I had seen so many beautiful planetary environments in such a compelling story that I started to wonder if Marvel hadn't ironically used Lucasfilm subsidiary Industrial Light and Magic to create a movie that kind of beats Lucasfilm at its own game.

Not that there aren't flaws. There were one or two overstuffed Thor scenes where the plot momentarily lost me, and Peter Dinklage seems almost tragically (albeit briefly) misused. But the former, at least, simply made me want to watch again to catch it all. A very Star Wars-ian effect.

For the most part, though, this is a confidently and carefully told story (or more properly, interlocking stories). There are many scenes that take the time to slow things down and talk, an increasing rarity in this genre. There's also a lot of action, but it is well used and easy to follow even when the screen is filled with CGI.

For non-Marvel fans, the Force is very much with it.

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Featured Video For You

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Everything you need recapped about the Marvel Cinematic Universe before 'Avengers: Infinity War'

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Topics Marvel Star Wars