So... it's all come down to this. Ten years. EIGHTEEN MOVIES. A bunch of TV shows. And Marvel owns the world. Iron Man started it all. A few more solo movies and The Avengers were assembled. Then some more characters were introduced. The Avengers fought again. Even more characters and side worlds (including some Guardians) and then they started a Civil War (which was more like a lovers' spat than a war) until finally the titan Thanos himself, decided to finally get off his giant space chair and cause some serious ruckus. The last ten years have been seriously saturated with Marvel movies and TV. Hell, not even all of them connect with the MCU (I'm looking at you X-Men and Fantastic Four). We've had THREE (count 'em) different iterations of Spider-Man (poor Andrew Garfield). And DC has stuck around in the shadows trying to cling to life attempting to replicate anything close to what Marvel has been doing. I'll give Marvel this-- what they've done with all these movies, all these actors, all these millions of dollars is something never been done before. They've taken the characters and narratives from eighteen movies and put them (almost) all together for the huge climactic battle nearly everyone has been craving since the first Avengers film. I honestly didn't think there was any possible way it could be done right. That many big names. That many important characters. Sharing screen time and giving each character their due-- how could it not be a loud, disappointing mess? And I'll be seriously damned if they didn't almost get it entirely right.
Assuming you've seen all the damn Marvel movies needed in order to understand Avengers: Infinity War, everyone is where they were when we last left them. However, the huge purple thumb Thanos has finally decided after a decade of letting his cronies do the work for him to set out on his own and collect the six Infinity Stones for his big, gold glove (also referred to as an Infinity Gauntlet). The stones all have a piece of the universe and humanity and existence attached to them. Separate, they're pretty dangerous... but combine them all together and one has the power to wipe out half of the galaxy with a snap of his/her fingers. This is what Thanos wants. He believes himself a prophet... the only being in existence to realize that in order for the universe to thrive, half of it must be wiped out. The stones are spread over half the galaxy. As we enter the film, he's already got one (the one from the planet the Guardians of the Galaxy saved in the first movie-- I'll get to my gripe about that in a little bit) and he's already boarded the ship containing all the surviving people of Asgard (again, I'll complain about that below as well). From there, it's Thanos seeking out the remaining stones (one in Vision's head... one guarded by Doctor Strange... and one in the possession of The Collector). While he's doing this, the rest of the Avengers/Guardians/Wakandans/good guys are all putting together their plans to either protect the stones or save humanity or defeat Thanos or some combination of the three.
Here's what I knew going into this film (as I have never read a comic book in my entire life): this was to be part one of a two part Avengers movie featuring Thanos as the main villain. From my understanding, this was to be the Empire Strikes Back movie until next year when we get Return of the Jedi. So, I knew this movie was going to be dark. There are also several contracts of actors ending, with long-standing Marvel actors wanting to move on from the franchise and seek other films. I expected there to be a lot of deaths in this film. And here's why-- Marvel has never been a company to kill off a lead character. And this is their biggest weakness. This is what largely, to me, made Captain America: Civil War such a terrible film-- there were no stakes. They all fought each other, made quips during the fight like "we're still best buds, though, right?" and no one died. Why kill off Captain America in an emotionally resonant way when Chris Evans still has more movies on his contract and they can make more money? Hell, not even most of the villains get killed in Marvel movies and that, to me, is their downfall. Now, they thrive because their movies are very fun. They attract a lot of big-name actors. The special effects are top notch. And there's a great amount of humor peppered into each one. But now... with contracts up... and no more money to be made by some of these actors... Marvel can finally kill them off. Right? That's what I was most interested in and the reason I went to see this movie. If you'd like to know my thoughts on how that all turned out... please jump down to the spoiler section below.
The movie, strangely, was very entertaining and quite good. There is a LOT going on and there's almost too many characters and sequences to follow without getting a little bit overwhelmed, but overall it's not the mess I expected it to be. Captain America: Civil War was a lot messier, in my opinion. It felt like each character got their moments to shine, which was nice. Even smaller characters like Scarlet Witch, Wong, Mantis, Shuri, and Nebula (yes... I had to look all of these names up). The major characters all got a significant amount of time and there's much fun to be had. Somehow, with all these characters with their own story-lines colliding... there was a lot of good chemistry. All of the interactions felt organic and credit the writers here, man-- everyone had something important to contribute to the plot of the film. Unlike The Last Jedi where if you took Finn and Rose's storyline completely out of the movie-- the plot doesn't change at all. It's not easy to find something important for everyone to contribute to, but they did it and it was very impressive. The fight sequences, like most Marvel movies, are very thrilling and superb. The big, climactic battle at the end got a bit jumbled at times, but overall I was able to keep everyone I was looking out for in check. I knew where they were and what they were doing, which in a movie this large is important. It also balances a very serious tone with some really great humor. The great humor of Guardians of the Galaxy and Thor: Ragnarok are used impeccably in this film and elevates it above dumb summer popcorn blockbuster.
Finally, Thanos is a great villain. He may look like a thumb painted purple with a ball sack for a chin, but FINALLY there's a Marvel villain, played by a more-than-capable actor (Josh Brolin), who brings some actual conflict and danger to the table. Credit the writers again here because he's not just this hulking being with no emotion hell-bent on destroying the universe. He's got some actual emotional resonance to his character, some real humanity. He's more than just a one-dimensional bad guy. The scenes in which Thanos shows up, you know some bad shit is actually going to happen. As we know Marvel movies aren't going away any time soon, I hope this trend of creating villains not just with depth, but ones who are actually frightening and not afraid of actually KILLING SOMEONE. It makes the stakes of the movie that much better. I'd have to say the last few Marvel villains-- Hela from Thor: Ragnarok, Kilmonger from Black Panther, and now Thanos are some of the best written villains from the entire MCU.
Oh! Right! I forgot-- I have to complain about one thing that isn't necessarily a bad thing in this movie, but something I just kind of dislike as far as continuity goes. So, the beginning of the movie, as stated earlier, talks about how Thanos got the purple stone from Xandar after "wiping out the planet". Don't worry-- this isn't a spoiler as it's one of the first things said in the film and the "wiping out" is never shown. However, it's just kind of upsetting because it really just negates the entire first Guardians of the Galaxy movie. Everything they go through, all the struggles, saving the planet... seeing the families reunited... it's just gone. And not in an epic way-- but in a side comment. Same with the Asgardian ship. The end of Thor: Ragnarok is all about saving the last remaining people of Asgard by boarding a ship. A lot of people lose their lives, sacrifice themselves to save these survivors. And then Thanos shows up and wipes them all out-- as something smaller than a side plot. It might just be the evolution of comic book writing and a way of showing that this Thanos fella is that much of a bad mf'er... but it's something that was disappointing to me and as a moviegoer, felt cheap.
That's all you're going to get out of me because the rest of my feelings about the film contain some major spoilers (and again, if you're interested... check them out down below). Otherwise, if you're even slightly a fan of Marvel movies. If you've seen most of them casually like I have, you're definitely going to enjoy this film. It's one of the only Marvel movies I've ever wanted to just watch a second time while still in theaters. It's stuck with me all day and there is a lot of good in the movie. The stuff I didn't like-- that I can't discuss with you if you haven't seen the movie-- might not even be that bad. It's all going to depend on how the second Infinity Wars movie goes. But, go watch the movie. Come back. Read my spoiler-y stuff and tell me if you've got any theories of your own.
B-
Okay... there's some SPOILERS down here... only scroll further if you're good with it.
Seriously... stop scrolling if you don't wanna see the SPOILERS that I'm going to discuss.
This is the last time I'm going to warn you of the SPOILERS below.
Ah, screw it. If you didn't read the warnings above, you deserve to have this movie SPOILED for you.
Okay, people who've seen the movie. WTF?! I sat through that entire movie just enjoying this shit out of it, waiting for these moments of main characters killed in glorious ways... like Gamora. Holy hell was that an unexpected and emotionally exhausting death. I thought-- wow. If Marvel can kill her off after only two Guardians movies... I must be in for one hell of a shock by the end of this movie. I mean... I figured Tony Stark would die (contract ending), Cap. America (contract), War Machine (side character who should've been killed in Civil War), Hulk (we're all kinda done with Hulk as a character... as much as we love Mark Ruffalo), Loki (actually dead this time probably), Vision (actually dead-- probably), and a few other minor characters. But what they did with the annihilating half of the universe really pissed me off. Not because a bunch of the characters I really liked got killed-- no. That's not it. If I thought they were all really dead, I would stand up, scream, shout and applaud Marvel for having not just balls, but the biggest balls in cinematic history.
But they're not.
You know they're not.
And that's what pisses me off. Not only did we not really get any of the deaths we were promised, but all the deaths that were supposed to be "shocking" ---weren't ---because you know they're all going to come back! I don't know how... but they are. There's another Spider-Man movie coming out. There's another Black Panther movie coming out. There's another Doctor Strange movie coming out. So, clearly these people aren't dead. And because of that I've come to realize that Marvel didn't finally decide to kill off major characters-- they just temporarily killed them off for a year until the next one arrives. The end of that movie didn't feel like the end of an era of Marvel movies... it felt like the season finale of a TV show and now we have to wait for the next season to see how they're going to "get out of this mess".
What I'm hoping happens is that however they figure out how to bring these people back, it's only people who were killed by Thanos snapping his fingers. If they bring back Vision and Gamora I'm probably never going to watch another MCU movie ever again on principle (except Black Panther... I'll watch all of those). Marvel needs to seriously nut up and allow their movies to have actual stakes. There were no stakes involved. Tony gets stabbed through the gut-- he lives. Cap gets punched by a fucking Titan-- he lives. But because lil' Spider-Man turns to dust crying-- I'm supposed to care?! That's supposed to make me respect and fear Marvel? Nearly the whole movie will come undone in a year and Marvel will continue to treat us like children who can't handle the death of a main character. And THAT-- is what soured the movie for me. Marvel is just like my dog Lenny... they got no balls.
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