nfinity War is supposed to mark the start of the summer movie releases, but I’m still a little confused seeing as how we’re only a third of the way through spring. Semantics aside, IW is the first Marvel film to follow Black Panther in the box office, and the film the studio is calling epic, amazing, smash hit, etc. looks like it is on track to blow the lid off the records set by BP.
Thanos (Josh Brolin) has arrived. He is on a mission to collect all six infinity stones. As you may remember in the mid-credit scenes for Thor: Ragnarok, Thanos’ ship has happened upon the Asgardian refugee ship which we last saw escaping a dying Asgard. This is where we open the film, as Thanos and his children are wreaking havoc on the ship and its passengers. After the encounter, Thanos’ children follows Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) to Earth as he sets off that way to warn Earth’s mightiest heroes. However, he is too late, and the Avengers don’t have a chance to group together as they get split into smaller groups, each with their own task toward a larger goal that they don’t even realize all comes together yet. For the first time on screen, all of the franchises in the MCU that have had films released are together in one place. But do they have what it takes to stop Thanos?
My initial concern for this movie was that it would be overwhelming. So many big names on the screen from the MCU, many as leads in their own ends of the franchise, all vying for screen time. Rest assured, Marvel handled this really well. What we actually get in IW is what starts as five separate stories, all headed toward the same destination. As they meet each other along the way, the story count starts to dwindle as each story converges with another until we are left with one. The ending. The editing and story worked well as you didn’t forget (m)any of the details as you are bouncing between stories. Overall, it was a very well written, if not cheesy at points, story. This is good. So many of the films in the MCU have relied more on visuals, sex appeal, and one-liners to push the movie along. With IW, the story is the shining jewel, and is never really overpowered by the visuals (as fantastic as they were), the score (really complementary to the tone and pacing), or star power (by far my favorite relationship of the movie that demonstrates this is between Tony Stark [Robert Downey, Jr.] and Peter “Star Lord” Quill [Chris Pratt]).
It also seems that the studio actually took into consideration when receiving the feedback of previous films, especially the criticism of Avengers: Age of Ultron. You could tell that this film was made for the fans and there is (almost) everything you could hope for out of the film. In fact, talking with a colleague at our sister publication KISW at the end of the film, he said exactly that: this film was everything he wanted it to be.
Josh Brolin is the first person to play Thanos for more than just an end-credit scene, and he is the newcomer to this universe, and boy what a welcome addition. Just like Killmonger from BP, he is a villain that, while you may not agree with his methods, you can almost relate to and understand the drive behind his plan and actions. He really has more of a compassionate side than I had expected, and Brolin played the part perfectly.
If you didn’t know, Avengers: Infinity War is the first part of a 2-film series. This leads to my biggest, and probably only, disappointment with the film is that we have to wait another year until we can see the conclusion to this story. But I am not sure I would have wanted it any other way. There is so much to tell with Thanos and the wrap of 10 years of Marvel movies, that it needed to be in 2 films. And the tone of this movie hit the head on the nail. When I walked out, I felt like the movie had the vibe of Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back, and it appears I am not alone as the folks over at IGN have stated the same sentiment. This is perfect, and makes for a different story than we have seen thus far in the MCU. Sure, Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) and friends were ostracized at the end of Civil War, but that seems like a tiny scratch compared to the feels you will have at the conclusion of IW.
I don’t really need to tell you, but I will anyway. Go see the film. In theaters. On the biggest, loudest screen you can. You will not regret it.
5 stars out of 5
