10 Years in the Making
Thanos is on a mission to reshape the universe in his image. To do this, he’s hunting for the 6 infinity stones and Earth’s mightiest heroes must stop him at all costs. Will Thanos finish this task? Let’s find out in my review of Avengers: Infinity War.
The idea of setting up an event that takes 10 years in the form of 18 movies, is sure a crazy one. It all started with Iron Man and now we’re here. Multiple characters and stories all collide into one, an impressive feat for filmmaking. Without knowing anything about what’s contained in this movie, the ability to do something of this magnitude, is a first.
***Warning: Spoilers***
If you didn’t watch most of the preceding movies, you’re more than likely gonna be extremely confused. This is not at all an entry point into the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). The film starts right out of the gates on the heels of the previous film, Thor: Ragnarok. Thanos intercepts Thor and friends, in search of the Space Gem. In this cold open, we witness the first casualties of Thanos, Heimdall and the trickster himself, Loki. I was surprised with how the shot Loki’s death, because I thought it was a bit much for a PG-13. With this first encounter, Infinity War goes full speed ahead.
As we go through each sequence, we bring our heroes from multiple films ever so close together. Some worked, and others not so well. One that didn’t work too well, was the story between Scarlet Witch and Vision. To shave off some time off of the record setting runtime within the MCU, this developed completely off screen. Because of this, we as an audience would most likely not feel an attachment to what happens to the 2 as opposed to some of the more central characters.
The same could be said about Gamora and Thanos. We get a short backstory of their relationship back in Guardians of the Galaxy, but those films were mostly about Peter Quill. To make up for this, we cram a whole arc in this already packed movie, telling their story. When it leads up to the big moment regarding the Soul Stone, I wasn’t as affected because the two weren’t as well as established in this universe yet. Instead of feeling some feelings in these situations, we get thrown into some action pretty fast.
Aside from some of these compressed storylines, the movie was just a fun ride. It’s a bit hard to be on the “edge of my seat” in these flashy new electric recliners, but whenever fights or big story moments happened, my head was off of the headrest in shock. Seeing new team-ups create new dynamics in storytelling and action scenes. The beard brothers (a comics joke) finally meet, in the form of Tony Stark and Stephen Strange, two big shot hot heads in their perspective professions. In battle, they combine powers for unique strategies. Sprinkle in some Spider-Man and the Guardians and you have a pretty formidable team.
Speaking of the Guardians, they run into another cosmic character, Thor. With the Thor’s newly found comedic presence, pairing him with Starlord and the gang was a natural combo. This team-up provided some of the best jokes in the film. Whether it’s staring in awe at a god, or snooping on your comrades, their scenes provided some light-hearted humor in a pretty dismal film.
When we arrive at the end, knowledge of film news is probably not the best. Going full spoilers, Thanos achieves his goal in the end of acquiring all of the stones to wipe out half of the galaxy, an interesting villain plot. With that out of the way, when we start to see our heroes vanish to dust and nothingness, one would notice that a lot of these are generally new heroes. Most of the Guardians, Doctor Strange, Black Panther, and Spider-Man are of the dusted. If you follow the news, you probably know that the last two are set for sequels. Given this, it’s hard to believe that they will be permanently dead, because we all know that death isn’t always set in stone in comic books.
This may be the biggest and most shocking cliffhanger in the history of ever. With most comic book movies, the good guys win in the end. Here, half of them die and the big bad gets away, period. Once again, if you follow film news, Infinity War was originally labeled part 1 and part 2. Forgetting this, I was genuinely shocked that the movie ended like it did. But when that point came up, this does feel like half of a full story. In the 2 screenings I attended, the audience was dead silent. Usually everyone is ecstatic, sometimes even cheering. If the goal of this movie was to bum everyone out, I’m sure it succeeded.
I am still amazed at what it took to get this movie together. It does suffer from having to cram so many things into a single seating, but in the end it is very fun. Although the killing of a lot of key characters in the current phase may not be as effective with our knowledge of what happens in the news, it was still pretty shocking. If you follow the MCU movies, then you already saw this. If you haven’t watched a lot of the films, you might want to stay away, unless you’re in for a bleak ending after almost 3 hours of movie.