I saw two films at the cinema this week and this illustrate my views on modern mainstream cinema. On Monday, I watched A Quiet Place which is a horror movie. Yesterday, I caught the latest Avengers movie from the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Of the two films, I enjoyed A Quiet Place more. I found it to be a more enjoyable experience. It's a low budget science fiction horror film about a family learning to survive in an extraordinary situation. Yes, the story is fantastical as its about alien monsters hunting humans using sound. However, the story at its heart is about a family, the Abbotts, trying to cope and maintaining their humanity. You care about them as you have some emotional investment in them. It also helps that the film is on a small scale, as the focus is just on this small unit.

By contrast, The Avengers: Infinity War is a huge movie in every sense of the word. All of the Marvel superheroes are featured, and the action takes place on numerous planets. The canvas is very broad. In fact its so broad, that you just marvel at the spectacle. The bigger the picture, the less you focus on the characters.

Yes, its a comic book movie with Iron Man, The Hulk, The Black Panther and Captain America, but do we really care about them? All we want to the amazing battle scenes, created with state of the art visual effects and the witty banter between the characters. You have to applaud the Marvel Studio for producing this giant after all the individual movies. It's like the Woodstock of Superhero movies. Like Woodstock, there are some great bits and some rubbish bits. That does not mean that the overall thing is good or even great.

The problem is that superhero movie is now so formulaic, that you know what to expect. The first Avenger movie in 2012, was great fun and I really enjoyed it. Since then, the franchise and grown so big that it ceased to excite. Are we really watching anything new? Maybe it's me, but I have reached saturation point. Maybe it's another sign that I am getting older. I am checking out of the Marvel Universe. It was once a lot of fun, now it is not.