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SPOILER-FREE REVIEW
After 18 movies, Marvel
Studios presents Avengers: Infinity War,
the film billed as the culmination of 10 years of overarching, interconnecting
storylines. Bringing any successful franchise to a meaningful close is
difficult, but Marvel’s ambitions are unprecedented; Infinity War unites heroes and villains from across all corners of
the Marvel Cinematic Universe, juggles distinct franchise tones, and attempts
to do justice by every preceding Marvel film all the way back to 2008’s Iron Man.
The movie stars Josh
Brolin as Thanos, an alien adversary bent on achieving his notion of universal
balance: death to half of all living beings. To accomplish this, Thanos and his
minions set out to collect the six Infinity Stones, artifacts of monumental power
which, when united, contain the power to shape the very fabric of existence. Two
of the Stones hide on Earth… putting Thanos on a collision course with Earth’s
mightiest heroes. This time, the Avengers are the last line of defense not just
for Earth… but for the entire universe. The team includes *deep breath* Iron
Man (Robert Downey Jr.), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Captain America (Chris Evans),
Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), Spider-Man (Tom Holland),
Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch), War Machine (Don Cheadle), Falcon
(Anthony Mackie), Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan), Vision (Paul Bettany),
Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen), Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman), Star-Lord
(Chris Pratt), Gamora (Zoe Saldana), Rocket (Bradley Cooper), Groot (Vin
Diesel), Drax (Dave Bautista), Mantis (Pom Klementieff), Nebula (Karen
Gillian), and many of their super-allies. *gasps*
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| photo courtesy of forbes.com |
Up until this point,
Marvel Studios has proven to be fairly deft at balancing the many characters
who populate their shared universe. Sure, movies like Avengers: Age of Ultron or Captain
America: Civil War were a little overstuffed, but they managed to shift the
background/supporting characters around, giving them mini-subplots where
possible and generally keeping the focus on the most important things (usually,
Tony Stark or Steve Rogers take precedence). With Infinity War, the bubble finally bursts. Put simply, there are too
many heroes in this movie to do justice by half of them—even with a 2-and-a-half-hour
runtime.
It’s understandable,
perhaps, that the filmmakers wouldn’t try to do too much heavy lifting in the
character department; these are well-established characters with
well-established emotional arcs, and in a finale, characterization often gives
way to more plot, more action, more spectacle. But the fact remains: only a
handful of characters in Infinity War
receive much attention, and from that handful only a few have an emotional arc
of any real substance. In a particularly odd, uncharacteristic twist, it’s sometimes
the major, fan-favorite characters who get relegated to background roles or are
barely in the film at all.
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That’s not to say that Infinity War doesn’t have any character development. For those
characters who receive the bulk of the movie’s focus, Infinity War crafts several genuinely impactful scenes. Chief among
those characters is Thanos, the overarching nemesis Marvel has been teasing
since the post-credits sequence after The
Avengers. More than any other character, Thanos carries the weight of this movie,
driving the action on a practical level but also supplying its most interesting
performance. In Brolin’s hands, Thanos makes a dramatic, imposing figure, even
if his motivations are too flimsy make him sympathetic in the way that Marvel’s
best villains have been.
Infinity War
throws a lot—A LOT—at the screen, and it’s easy to see how another studio or
another filmmaker would produce a jumbled mess out of all the pieces in play. Joe
and Anthony Russo, however, make it not only comprehensible but also
compelling, thanks in large part to a businesslike pace. Where Age of Ultron was bloated and unwieldy, Infinity War is streamlined and to the
point. The movie begins in media res
(always a good sign) and it continues with the same confidence, never pumping
the brakes until (after) the credits roll. More importantly, the movie finally
sees Marvel put all the cards on the table, holding nothing back for a potential
future franchise. This marks an appreciably bolder approach than many Marvel
films, which, you know, it’s about time.
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| photo courtesy of trailers.apple.com |
There’s also a
different tone than we’ve ever seen from Marvel Studios before. Infinity War has plenty of Marvel’s
trademark brand of humor, to be sure, but this is something new. Whereas in
previous Marvel movies, sad moments are buoyed by the inevitable confidence
that the heroes/good will win the day, Infinity
War finds its heroes on their heels from the get-go, allowing only the
slimmest hope that they have anything ahead of them but failure and death. Marvel
movies have been criticized of late for being “fun” over and against anything else,
but it’s hard to apply that particular descriptor by the time Infinity War is done.
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| photo courtesy of boundingintocomics.com |
But even if Infinity War isn’t fun, per se, there’s
no denying that it’s an incredibly captivating experience, particularly for
long-time fans of the series. The novelty of seeing characters from different
franchises come together hasn’t entirely worn off; there’s a simple pleasure
that comes from seeing our Avengers all-star cast interact with the Guardians
or the Wakandans. That, in itself, is a feat worth recognition. Apart from
character mash-ups, the Russo brothers include a number of solid surprises and
a heavy dose of top-dollar CGI spectacle (especially in the third act). Not
every surprise is expertly crafted and not every CGI alien looks photorealistic,
but in the overall picture, it doesn’t really matter; it’s hard not to be
impressed by the sheer scope of Infinity
War’s sprawling story.
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| photo courtesy of metro.us |
FINAL VERDICT: Avengers: Infinity War does thrills,
drama, and larger-than-life action on a scale Marvel has never seen before, but
fitting so much into one movie comes at a conspicuous cost.
BEWARE: HERE THERE BE SPOILERS
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| photo courtesy of businessinsider.com |
Avengers: Infinity War has a lot of things going for it. The Russo
brothers deliver humor aplenty (“I am Groot! I am Steve Rogers!”), bold narrative
choices (killing off fan-favorite Loki within the first few minutes, handing
the Avengers defeat after defeat), and an abundance of spectacle (the Avengers
vs. an entire army of aliens, Dr. Strange vs. Thanos on Titan, Iron Man vs. the
Children of Thanos in New York, etc, etc). And of course, the movie packs in
plenty of fun tidbits for the fans who’ve been waiting for this moment since
day one, such as Red Skull finally making his MCU re-debut.
But as the battle
against Thanos ramps up, there are only a few heroes who get to share the
spotlight. Vision and Scarlet Witch find themselves at the forefront by
necessity, and Star-Lord and Gamora go on a similar “doomed lovers” journey. Apart
from them, the key players are Thor and Dr. Strange, who each head up the offense
in their own ways. Meanwhile, heavyweight characters like Captain America,
Black Widow, Winter Soldier, or Black Panther are barely featured in the movie;
they do a good deal of background fighting and get a few lines of dialogue, but
that’s about it. Iron Man, the MCU’s original hero, operates somewhere in
between those two extremes: he plays a significant role, but he’s far from front and center.
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| photo courtesy of indiewire.com |
Nothing displays Infinity War’s limited characterization
as much as its mic-drop, paradigm-shifting ending, which sees Thanos gain the
final Stone and wipe out half of all life (including half of the Avengers).
That scene makes for one of Marvel’s most impactful moments: audiences watch as
many of their favorite characters evaporate before their eyes. But the filmmakers don't allow the scene to be nearly as stirring as it might have been. They hardly give a beat to each character, only pausing to watch Spider-Man slip away.
For the record, the scene is already limited in one sense, because Infinity War clearly doesn’t intend these deaths to be long-term; it’s less a final defeat than a devastating, seemingly insurmountable obstacle thrown in the Avengers’ path. But the Avengers don’t know that; as far as they know, they've just lost some of their dearest friends and allies. It would seem common sense, then, for the filmmakers to spend time underscoring the emotional toll of such a pivotal moment from their perspective. By failing to do so, the Russo brothers miss an opportunity to make Infinity War's final minutes more emotionally resonant.
For the record, the scene is already limited in one sense, because Infinity War clearly doesn’t intend these deaths to be long-term; it’s less a final defeat than a devastating, seemingly insurmountable obstacle thrown in the Avengers’ path. But the Avengers don’t know that; as far as they know, they've just lost some of their dearest friends and allies. It would seem common sense, then, for the filmmakers to spend time underscoring the emotional toll of such a pivotal moment from their perspective. By failing to do so, the Russo brothers miss an opportunity to make Infinity War's final minutes more emotionally resonant.
LOOKING TO THE FUTURE (ALSO SPOILERS)
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| photo courtesy of elitedaily.com |
Ant-Man and the Wasp and Captain
Marvel both take place before Infinity
War, but what can we expect to find in Avengers
4? Infinity War largely leaves
the playing field wide open, but it plants a few substantial clues. Infinity War revealed the Soul Stone’s
location and hinted at its significance, but it was otherwise ignored during each
of the film’s conflicts, suggesting that it will have a key role in the ongoing
fight against Thanos. Just how it might factor in remains a mystery, but one
possibility is that all the souls of Thanos’s victims—including the lost
Avengers—are contained within the Stone.
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| photo courtesy of sports.yahoo.com |
Another loose end centers around Doctor Strange's secret strategy. Strange's sudden change of
heart probably has less to do with an emotional connection to Tony Stark and more to do with
bringing about a favorable outcome in the “end game.” We don’t know what
Strange saw, but it’s not too hard to guess that it involves some combination of the Soul Stone, Tony Stark, or Captain Marvel (the hero Nick Fury was messaging in the post-credits scene) as an integral piece of the puzzle. In the comic books, Thanos often
sets his own downfall into motion, so it may also be that Strange knew that Thanos
would have to obtain all the Stones and let down his guard before he could be
defeated.
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