Avengers: Endgame—the 22nd movie to emerge from the Marvel Cinematic Universe birth canal and the capper to the two-part saga that began with last year’s Avengers: Infinity War—makes more sense as an event than as a movie. The film has been meticulously crafted for people who care deeply about these characters, and it’s likely most of those viewers will leave the theater satisfied. Directors Anthony and Joe Russo (also the directors of Avengers: Infinity War, as well as two of the Captain America films) and their team of writers have ensured, with machinelike precision, that each Avenger gets his or her proper allotment of sensitive moments, as well as heroic ones. Once in a while, Endgame is enjoyable on its own terms, though mostly, you’ll be better off if you have at least a rough working knowledge of the MCU movies that have preceded it. It’s an entertainment designed to please many, many people and disappoint as few as possible, extravagant without necessarily having a vision beyond its desire not to put a foot wrong. It’s bold in the safest possible way.

In other words, as movies that are part of multi-billion-dollar franchises go, Avengers: Endgame is good enough. I must note here that I have little invested in the Marvel movies as the result of any attachment to Marvel comics. But I do care about the work of the actors who appear in them, performers like Chris Evans and Scarlet Johansson, Chadwick Boseman and Robert Downey Jr., Zoe Saldana and Jeremy Renner. All of these people have been terrific in MCU movies, even when they could easily get by with being less than terrific. Watching Endgame, I realized that I do care about Marvel characters because these actors have made me care.