Infinity War reviews SPOILERS

Not all of the film’s heroes are underutilized, though. Tony Stark’s (Robert Downey Jr.) fear of a galactic threat, established over the past few films featuring him, is fully realized in Thanos, and Downey sinks his teeth into Stark’s vulnerability and apprehension. Stark has to not only defeat this villain but also reconcile that mission with the fact that Thanos’s plan is horrifyingly adjacent to Stark’s dream of a universe so safe that Avengers are rendered obsolete.

Benedict Cumberbatch’s Doctor Strange and Chris Hemsworth’s Thor are apt counters to Stark. Cumberbatch’s Strange is coolly stubborn, calculating in ways that Stark isn’t. And Hemsworth, after flexing his knack for comedy in 2017’s Ragnarok, taps into that same humor but laces it with jagged grief and anger informed by having seen Thanos’s wrath firsthand.

Inifinty War doubles down on this character interaction by carefully pairing off its huge cast of characters. When two familiar characters with a well-established dynamic share the screen (Tom Holland's Peter Parker and Robert Downey Jr.'s Tony Stark, most winningly) the film hums along. We get treated to several new duos whose chemistry we perhaps didn't see coming but really should have (Downey and Benedict Cumberbatch's Doctor Strange get their respective goatees in a twist, while Chris Hemsworth's Thor and Chris Pratt's Peter Quill — size each other up in exactly the way you'd expect two such pretty-boy doofuses to do).