After ten years and 18 prior films in the the Marvel Cinematic Universe, we’ve finally arrived at the climax of what everything has been leading to ever since Thanos was revealed to be the main antagonist in a post-credits scene at the end of The Avengers in 2012. Avengers Infinity War is the culmination of everything this world has been building to and is a staggering cinematic accomplishment. Juggling so many characters, places and storylines is a massive undertaking and for the most part, they did a phenomenal job.
The basic story of Avengers Infinity War is that of Thanos’ quest to find all six of the Infinity Stones that will make him more or less unstoppable. In efforts to make this as spoiler-free as possible, rather than go over the events of the film, I’ll break it down into what I liked about it and what I felt was weak points of the movie.
Positives
Image source:Collider
Doctor Strange
Every scene featuring Doctor Strange in this film had me smiling ear to ear. From the first moments, it was clear that he was not taking orders from anyone and has become completely confident in his abilities. He plays a very vital role in the film and owns that character in every scene he appears in, wether its standing toe-to-toe with powerful foes, using his abilities to aid other Avengers or just delivering great dialogue.
The teamups
The movie smartly breaks this sprawling adventure into smaller pieces to break down our heroes into manageable groups. Seeing characters who’ve never met until this movie interact was a blast, from Thor and Rocket’s banter to Tony Stark and Doctor Strange’s battle of egos, these teamups were a great way to handle such a massive cast of characters.
A sense of danger
Something that’s lacking in most Marvel films is the feeling that our hero(es) might fail. The forces they fight seem formidable at best and an inconvenience at worst. There rarely was any feeling that our heroes were in danger. Avengers Infinity War has the most palpable sense of danger and consequence of any film in the MCU, which leads into my next positive…
Fantastic villain
One constant criticism across the MCU is the villains are boring and one-dimensional. They’ve gotten better, but its still a nagging issue that could be resolved with 10 extra minutes of character development aimed at the bad guys. Avengers Infinity War’s Thanos is one of the best villains in the MCU, on par with my favorite baddies Loki and Vulture from Spider-man Homecoming. He seems like another generic “conquer the universe” at first, but he’s developed into a genuinely interesting and surprisingly humanized character by the film’s conclusion.
Negatives
Image source:Wired
Overlooked characters
With such a massive roster, its inevitable that a lot of our favorite characters are going to be underutilized and receive little screen time. Some characters aren’t even in this film at all. While the characters who do get the lion’s share of stuff to do are a joy to watch, a lot of them are little more than soldiers in the background.
Weak story
While the action, effects and dialogue are fantastic, there’s really not much story to be told here. Bad guy wants Infinity Stones for X reasons pretty much sums it all up. Much like the first Avengers film, the plot here is paper thin and just enough to tie together the action and witty banter between these charismatic characters.
Poor decisions
Throughout the movie, many characters make poor decisions that help Thanos achieve his goals. I think this was done to show that these confident heroes have become rattled and aren’t thinking clearly or who have let their emotions cloud their judgement.
Unfulfilling ending
The movie ends in such a way that I heard people in the lobby talking about how they hated the film as a whole. While I don’t feel that way in any way, I do think the ending was not at all what people expected, which can be a negative for anyone going in who want to see it play out the way they expect. The way its handled, at least to me, greatly reduced the sense of the events of this movie having real consequence, but we’ll see how the events of this movie effect future MCU movies.
Overall
Image source:Variety
If you’re a fan of the MCU films, this is a must-see. It sounds like I had a lot of complaints, but they were pretty minor and didn't really take away from my enjoyment of the movie. Infinity War takes a massive number of films and characters and does its best to bring them all together in a meaningful and effective way. While there’s not much of a story to be told, Avengers Infinity War is more like a carnival ride than a meaningful film. You go for the fun, the laughs and the action. For the most part, I think that they’ve done about as good of a job as is humanly possible to bring 10 years and 18 films of content into a coherent conclusion.
At least until the next phase of the MCU kicks off next year.
Thanks for reading. As always, upvotes, resteems and comments are appreciated!
Cover Image Source: What's on Netflix