To Infinity and Beyond?

Massive spoiler warning for those who plan to watch Avengers: Infinity War–skip this review.  If you don’t have any intentions of watching this film, then you’re a horrible human being.  (As you can tell, I’m going 100% fanboy in this review. You have been warned.)

It’s finally here. Avengers: Infinity War, directed by Joe and Anthony Russo, stars a very long list of stars including Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth and Josh Brolin, and is the 19th entry into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The anticipation for this film was astronomical, as this was the culmination of 10 years’ and 18 films’ worth of buildup. Going into this movie, my expectations could not have been higher. And I am glad to say that this film definitely lives up to the hype.

First things first: I have to address the elephant in the room. Many people, including myself, were expecting major consequences to happen in this movie. After all, the marketing for this movie promised that “the end” was near, implying that significant things were going to happen.

Infinity War definitely delivered on this, as after I watched the film I left the theater in absolute shock.  Right from the beginning of the film, it became clear that Marvel was not holding anything back with this movie. Five minutes into the film, they killed off Heimdall and fan favorite villain/anti-hero Loki. Then, in the end, I could not believe that Thanos actually snapped his fingers and killed half the universe.

They hinted that Thanos might do something like that in the trailer through a line from Gamora, but this is Marvel we’re talking about, and it’s notorious for having nobody major die in any of its movies. Speaking of Gamora, Thanos killed both her and Vision, the former of which I was super surprised by and the latter of which I saw coming. Also, the final minutes of this movie delivered some of the most surprising twists I have ever seen in a movie. When the people began turning into dust, the entire theater was completely silent, not comprehending what was going on at first. When Spider-Man bit the dust, one person actually screamed out “No!”

However, the thing with all of the deaths caused by Thanos’s snap is that none of them are actually perma-deaths. There is no way that Marvel would kill two of their newly minted cash cows, Spider-Man and Black Panther. After all, domestically speaking, Black Panther is the highest grossing superhero movie of all time! Regardless, it was still really shocking to see it unfold for the first time in the theater and made me question what is and isn’t possible in the MCU.

So what does all this mean for the future of the MCU? Well, it is pretty safe to assume that all the people that died before the snap (i.e. Loki, Gamora and Vision) are not coming back. It is also safe to assume, as said earlier, that everyone that did die in the snap is definitely returning. As for Hawkeye, Ant-man and the Wasp, it is possible that they will play a major role in Avengers 4, but we can’t be certain about anything regarding those three until Ant Man and the Wasp comes out this July.

I am excited about Captain Marvel and her upcoming solo flick, though, as I think she will play a crucial part in Avengers 4. Kevin Feige (president of Marvel Studios) himself has said that she is by far and away the most powerful Avenger yet, so it is likely that she will be the extra firepower that will tip the scales against Thanos in the next movie.

One thing that Infinity War did was make me less excited about Ant Man and the Wasp, because I just want to see how the story set up in Infinity War ends. One other thing that was quite conspicuous about the ending of the film is how all of the OG Avengers survived Thanos’s snap. This could indicate that the fourth Avengers movie might center more around the OG squad, giving them one last chance to shine before their contracts expire. I would love for this to be the case, and it would definitely be a satisfying end for characters fans have cared about for 10+ years.

Now that is out of the way, let’s get back to Infinity War and talk about the action sequences. Infinity War definitely delivers on this front, with stellar action scenes that take place in many corners of the universe. The Russo brothers’ take what would in any other movie be standard actions scenes and make them special by having many of the characters “level up.” What I mean by this is that many characters exhibit new abilities or stronger versions of existing powers. One example of this Iron Man, who is sporting his new “bleeding edge” armor in the film. It comes upgraded with nanotechnology that allows the suit to heal itself and also to transform itself to the needs of the wearer. I loved all of the new weapons that his suit provided, including the sonic cannons and those glowing blue blades. Seeing the characters do this on screen for the first time was an awesome experience and really contributed to my enjoyment of the film.

Another thing that I loved about this film’s action sequences was the way that the characters played off each other. This movie is a superhero team up flick, so naturally there are some awesome superhero team up moments. The best example of this would be the big battle on Titan, where Tony Stark and friends are fighting Thanos. In this scene, the way Doctor Strange uses his powers to help the other characters is so cool and is one of the reasons that the parts of the film on Titan were the best in the movie. I especially loved the use of his portals to help Star-Lord, Mantis, Iron Man, Drax and Spider-Man get around the battlefield.

Another instance of great character match-ups is when Thor is forging his new weapon, Stormbreaker. After the two axe blades come out of the mold, Groot takes a piece off one of his arms and uses that to make the handle of the axe. Lastly, there is the Wakanda action scene in the end of the film, which showcases and epic battle with Cap, Black Panther, Black Widow, Bruce Banner in the Hulkbuster armor, and Okoye holding the front line, along with the soldiers from Wakanda, Scarlett Witch and all of Team Thor providing backup, and Falcon and War Machine providing air support. I absolutely loved all of the characters’ interactions in this sequence, with standouts being Cap fighting back to back with Black Panther, Thor saying that Cap copied his beard, and most of all Rocket telling Bucky that he was going to get his arm some day.

Another thing that I was quite skeptical about going into this movie was Thanos himself. Considering Marvel’s extremely shaky track record when it comes to villains, as out of around 20 or so villains, only 4 of them (Loki, Killmonger, Hela and Vulture) are somewhat memorable, I was hoping that Thanos would be more than just a cookie-cutter MCU villain.

Thankfully, Thanos has now proven himself to be not just a good villain, but perhaps the best villain in the entire MCU. I would even go so far as to say that Infinity War is Thanos’s movie, as his character is the one that receives the most development. But probably the thing that I liked about Thanos the most is that he is the hero of his own story. In his eyes, he is the righteous one, trying to bring balance to the universe, and the Avengers are all just pests getting in his way. Looking at the movie as his story really made me enjoy the movie even more than I already did.

What makes Thanos such a good villain is the fact that in the movie, he isn’t pulling any punches. Literally in the first five minutes of the film, he kills Loki and half the Asgardian population and then proceeds to beat the crap out of the Hulk. This really showed just how strong Thanos was, and that he was a force to be reckoned with. Later on in the film, Thanos demonstrates that he is literally willing to sacrifice his own daughter to fulfill his goal to balance the universe. This further builds on the fact that Thanos thinks he is right, as there is no way anyone would sacrifice his or her own daughter to a cause that is wrong.

Another instance which really made me feel the power of Thanos is when he stabbed Tony Stark with one of the blades from his “bleeding edge” suit. When Thanos did this, my initial thought was “NO WAY HOLY CRAP MARVEL IS ACTUALLY GONNA KILL IRON MAN,” and someone in my showing of the movie even cried out in horror when this happened. Even though Iron Man did end up surviving, his intentions and actions still really made me feel Thanos’s presence.

In addition, he is easily the most powerful villain in the MCU, as he is wielding the power of the infinity stones. This is made very clear in his many fights with the Avengers, as each infinity stone is well realized and used by Thanos. I loved when the Guardians of the Galaxy went to Knowhere to stop Thanos from getting the reality stone (the red one), and then when they got there Thanos revealed that he had already got the reality stone and laid waste to the place. It was such an awesome moment to see in the theater, and it even elicited an audible gasp from the crowd I watched the movie with.

Another instance of this is when Thanos finally got the mind stone (the yellow one in Vision’s head). When Thanos first entered the scene, he literally walked right through all of the Avengers and even a couple members of the Guardians of the Galaxy. And even though Scarlet Witch destroyed the stone, Thanos just used the time stone (the green one Doctor Strange had) to just reverse time and rip the stone right out of Vision’s forehead. And of course, who could forget that fateful snap at the end of the movie. Fans will all be depressed for a year because Thor simply did not go for the head.

The final thing I want to say about Thanos is that Josh Brolin’s motion capture performance as Thanos is incredible. It adds layers of emotional and physical depth.

The same cannot be said, however, for the Children of Thanos, otherwise known as the Black Order. Basically Thanos’s group of henchmen, it has four members: Ebony Maw, Proxima Midnight, Corvus Glaive, and Cull Obsidian. The most compelling of the bunch was far and away Ebony Maw, who has powers that are a mix of telekinesis and magic. He is the only member of the Order that has more than one line, and his powers seem to be the best realized out of all of them. To make matters worse, he is killed halfway into the film, forcing us to spend the rest of the movie with the other members of the Black Order.

This is not very good, as all of the other Children of Thanos are flat henchmen who literally spend the entire movie running errands for Thanos. Proxima Midnight (the blue-horned lady) has one or two lines, Corvus Glaive (the dude with the spear that pokes Vision’s face) has maybe one line, which I think is “I can’t,” and Cull Obsidian (the big one) is basically a less angry, less green rip-off of the Hulk. I am also willing to bet that many people would not know that Proxima Midnight and Corvus Glaive are actually married in the film, as they do not develop their characters at all (the only way I know that is because I read about the Black Order when they were first announced at D-23 last year).
Another problem with this movie is the sheer number of characters sharing the screen at once. Although the Russo brothers did their best to even out the screen time between the characters, there were simply too many characters in the movie to guarantee that all of them got satisfying arcs.

The movie splits the characters into three teams: Team Iron Man, Team Thor, and Team Captain America. Easily the most compelling storyline was Team Iron Man, which is comprised of Iron Man, Star Lord, Drax, Mantis, Spider-Man and Doctor Strange. These characters received the most screen time, so their part of the story was explored the most. In addition, the entire extended action sequence on Titan was the best in the film, so that really helps their case. The scene where they fight Thanos and eventually incapacitate him for a short while using Mantis’s powers is absolutely brilliant stuff, and some of the best MCU action ever put to film.

Just beneath them would be Team Thor, which is composed of Thor, Rocket and Groot. I really enjoyed this storyline about Thor going to Nidavellir (the place where his hammer was created) to forge himself his new axe. Peter Dinklage did have a fun cameo as a giant dwarf, and the banter between Rocket, Groot and Thor was very entertaining to watch. I also really enjoyed the final action scene in Wakanda where Team Thor joins up with Team Cap for a final stand against Thanos to stop him from getting the mind stone.

Team Cap is made up of Captain America, Scarlet Witch, Black Widow, Vision, Bucky/White Wolf, Black Panther, Okoye, Falcon, Bruce Banner and War Machine. The main reason that this team is last is simply the fact that there were too many characters on the team, resulting in no one getting much to do. While Scarlet Witch did have quite a bit of screen time because of her relationship with Vision, most of the other characters lacked any standout moments in the film.

Cap did hold off Thanos’s infinity gauntlet for a couple seconds as shown in the trailer, and War Machine did have that awesome scene where he dropped a napalm-esque explosion on the aliens in Wakanda, but aside from that most of these characters had very little to do. This is very surprising, given the amount of Captain America fans who exist. Bruce Banner also never turned into the Hulk aside from that first scene, which really sucked. They even showed him as the Hulk in Wakanda in the money shot at the end of the first trailer.

However, I feel that the characters most affected by this lack of screen time were the Black Panther characters, including T’Challa himself, Okoye, and Shuri. There is no way Marvel could have known what they had on their hands with Black Panther, but in trying to put more scenes with the Black Panther characters in the marketing, Marvel gave away basically all of their scenes. Some of these include T’Challa’s “Get this man a shield” line and Okoye’s “Starbucks” line. That Wakanda action scene in the end was awesome though, so props to the Russos for getting that right.

And that is just scratching the surface. There is so much more to talk about Infinity War, but it is just too hard to explain to people who might now have seen the film. Being a Marvelite through and through, there is no way I cannot recommend this movie. It is an amazing experience to watch on a big screen with a large crowd, and I would say that it is the best experience I have ever had watching a movie. It had great action sequences, an amazing villain, some major consequences, and was overall an epic ride.

That is not to say that this movie is perfect, because it’s not. But if you are even a casual movie fan and you haven’t already seen this movie, GO BUY YOUR TICKETS NOW! There is one thing you should know before going into this movie. To fully appreciate Avengers: Infinity War, you do have to watch a couple of other MCU movies first. That list includes Iron Man (2008), Captain America: The First Avenger (2011), Marvel’s The Avengers (2012), Thor: The Dark World (2013), Guardians of the Galaxy (2014), Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), Captain America: Civil War (2016), Doctor Strange (2016), Thor: Ragnarok (2017), and Black Panther (2018). If you haven’t seen a single one of these movies, you have been living under a rock your entire life and you have a lot of homework to do.