WARNING: GIANT-SIZED MARVEL SPOILERS
Follow
Viewer Discretion is Advised
Avengers:
Infinity War is a movie ten
years in the making. It’s not just a sequel to the last Avengers movie, but a
sequel to the rest of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It’s the culmination of the
18 different movies that came before.
With such an ambitious premise and a decade of
hype built around it, does Marvel deliver once again?
Oh my, yes.
To briefly summarize the plot: The alien warlord
Thanos (Josh Brolin) – whom you might remember from the post-credit scene from The Avengers and his “pivotal” role in Guardians of the Galaxy – is on the hunt
for the Infinity Stones so that he can bring balance to the universe by wiping
out half of all life. The Avengers join forces with Spider-Man, Doctor Strange,
Black Panther, and the Guardians of the Galaxy in a battle that takes them to the
ends of the earth and beyond the cosmos as they fight to stop the Mad Titan
from rewriting reality.
So both surprisingly and not, this is a brutal
movie. People die. A lot of people. The film starts out on a heart wrenching note
with the deaths of Loki and Heimdall, and from there other prominent characters
like Gamora and Vision meet their tragic demises. Eventually, this culminates in
Thanos’s iconic finger snap erasing half of the cast from existence, meaning we
have to watch fan-favorite characters like Spider-Man, Star-Lord, and Bucky
Barnes tearfully fade into cosmic dust. Every action scene had me actually
nervous for once as to if these characters were going to survive. Had the scene
where Gamora tells Star-Lord to kill her played in any other Marvel movie, I
wouldn’t have worried. But since this movie had shown that it’s pulling no
punches by killing off Loki, it’s most recurring bad guy/anti-hero, I was nervous
that whole scene.
Of course, the comic this movie is primarily based
on (The Infinity Gauntlet) is equally
as brutal. That one begins with Thanos wiping out half of the Marvel Universe with
a thought, and then proceeding to murder the remaining heroes that stand up to
him. Marvel surprised me by how faithfully they translated this brutality to the
screen because, well, it’s Disney. Killing off these many marketable characters
seemed like something they wouldn’t really be into, especially given how Marvel
tends to try to be more “family friendly” in their movies than DC. But then
again, I’m forgetting Rogue One, another
Disney properly that basically obliterates the entire main cast by the end.
 |
| They call it "Infinity War" because it goes on forever. They keep introducing new characters every two hours. |
Personally, I hope they don’t reverse all the
deaths. Just the ones caused by Thanos’s finger snap. Leave Loki, Heimdall, and
Vision dead. Gamora can come back because she’ll probably be in Guardians of the Galaxy 3. Besides,
given the events of the movie, her soul is probably just trapped in the Soul
Stone, so that’s a semi-plausible excuse to bring her back (by comic book logic
standards).
So let’s talk about the cause of all this brutality
and death, and the star of this show: Thanos. This is a villain who has done
basically nothing but sit around for 6 years and lose the Infinity Stones he’s
been trying to collect, yet Marvel has been hyping him up as the biggest big
bad in the universe. My biggest fear, which I’m sure was shared by others, is
that he would be a disappointment after all that build-up, but Marvel actually
knocked it out of the park. They establish off the bat that Thanos is the colossal
threat he should be, effortlessly kicking the crap out of the Hulk and Thor and
killing Loki after sensing his betrayal. And that’s all before he gets most of
the Infinity Stones.
Aside from how much of a threat he is, they also
make Thanos a compelling character. He’s not just the pure evil genocidal
dictator that we were promised in Guardians
of the Galaxy. He sees the universe is dwindling in resources and
overabundant in people, so he genuinely believes that wiping out half of all
life will fix that. He has actual emotions other than “evil”, love being the
strongest one. His scenes with his adopted daughter Gamora are some of his best
in the movie, all coming to a head when he sheds actual tears at the thought of
sacrificing his favorite daughter to obtain the Soul Stone. Much like characters
like Killmonger and the Vulture before him, Marvel has really been putting in
all the effort when it comes to their villains in Phase 3. Also, that is some GREAT CGI on him.
 |
| Who would win: The entire Marvel Universe, or one pissed-off California Raisin? |
I mentioned before that despite being the antagonist,
I consider Thanos the main character of this movie. He has the most complete
and compelling arc in the movie, and the whole movie is basically about Thanos
collecting the Infinity Stones. On the hero side of things, the other
candidates for main characters could be Iron Man, Thor, the Guardians (particularly
Gamora),a and maybe Doctor Strange, only because these characters also have
bigger and more complete arcs like Thanos.
Speaking of the heroes, another highlight of
the film is getting to see all of these different characters interact with one
another, in combinations we haven’t seen before. Tony Stark’s ego clashes with
that of Doctor Strange. Star-Lord competes for masculinity with Thor, who strikes
up an unlikely friendship with Rocket Raccoon. Captain America responds to
Groot’s “I am Groot” with “I am Steve Rogers.” It’s a lot of fun.
The problems that I have with this movie are mainly
nitpicks, some more major than others. One of my biggest is that the beginning
overrides the hopeful ending of Thor:
Ragnarok, with Thanos’s massacre of the Asgardian refuge ship basically
making the final events of Ragnarok
pointless. However, if half of the ship’s population survived like Thor says,
it’s likely that characters like Valkyrie, Korg, and Miek (who are sadly
missing from this movie) could have survived. While all of the characters and
plot threads have their time to shine, I feel like Captain America is the one
that gets the shaft in some way. This is mostly due to the placement of his
storyline in relation to the rest of the movie. It doesn’t cut back to the
stuff on Earth with him and his Avengers nearly as much as the stuff with Iron
Man or the Guardians, meaning that there’s like an hour wait from when Cap says
they need to go to Wakanda and when they actually arrive there, and by that
point it’s time for the final battle.
Also, not really a criticism, but I feel that
Rocket should have been the one to disappear at the end instead of Groot. We’ve
already seen Groot die before in these movies, and if Rocket dies, that allows
Groot to interact more with the remaining heroes in Avengers 4 and allows him
to grow up into the hero that he’s meant to be. And I kind of wish Cap got wiped
out instead of Bucky for similar reasons.
 |
| Spoilers: This scene isn't even in the movie. |
I don’t know if people who aren’t caught up
with MCU movies will be lost during this one, considering there’s not a whole
lot of introductions for previously-established characters or plot points. But
considering how integrated into pop culture these superhero movies are, I feel
like everyone will get some enjoyment out of this. I still worry about some parts
of the movie, like Red Skull’s reappearance after 7 years, effectively confirming
a fan theory about his fake death (which to me, was the biggest surprise of the
movie). If you’re not familiar with the MCU, go in with the buddy system and
bring a nerd friend to explain things.
Infinity War has a ton of characters and plot
points, but it never feels overcrowded. Everyone gets their time to shine. It
is an emotionally exhausting movie, though. There’s a lot of emotions, a lot of
deaths, and it has a dark, depressing tone through most of the movie, with a
few jokes peppered here and there for levity’s sake. Unlike DC, Marvel has
earned this tone because of how the rest of their movies have been. This movie
feels rightfully big, important, and devastating, with a ton of characters we’ve
grown to know and love. It’s 20 minutes short of being a three-hour movie, but
it doesn’t really feel like it. There’s constantly action and stuff happening
to keep you entertained.
It ends on such a dour note that while you’re sitting
there in shock over what just happened, you’re also anticipating how the heroes
are going to get out of this one.
Or, you know, what cop-out the writers are
gonna pull to fix this.
Final verdict: 5 out of 6 Infinity Stones
So is there a reason Peter Dinklage’s dwarf
character was like 20 feet tall? Is that like a Norse thing that dwarves are
actually huge?
Also is there a reason his British accent is
still terrible after 7 seasons of Game of
Thrones?
