Review: ‘Avengers: Infinity War’ Is Everything Fans Wanted It To Be
When I think of a writing nightmare, I think of this movie. I don’t mean to say that the movie is badly written, no, I mean that having to merge 10 years of movies that led to this one would be a task that would seem impossible. Thanos, the antagonist in this film, was merely an end credits scene after the first Avengers. A lot of people pretended to know who he was after the fact, but I bluntly said in the theater, “Who is that guy?”
Related: Review: Black Panther Is Barely A Marvel Film, And That’s A Good Thing
That of course led to a morbidly obese teenager looking at me like I was a total piece of crap. Since then, I have watched all the movies where he is mentioned, looked him up, and I think I got him down. What was even more surprising was that he was a complicated villain. If you’ve ever watched a Marvel film, and the billions of dollars they’ve made says you have, you can probably admit that the Marvel Cinematic Universe has had a problem with villains. Aside from Loki, no antagonist has really been that big of a threat. Maybe Kilgrave from Jessica Jones? Yeah, that’s about it.
Going into this, I was expecting it to be a CGI avalanche the entire time. It was, but it was so much fun. Before doing this review, I waited a night to write it. I had to make sure the theater experience had worn off before I started. The brain needs to digest the experience. I’ve learned this by thinking Transformers 3 was good when I walked out to my car. Don’t judge me too much on that, I realized I was a fool the moment I woke up the next day.
Avengers: Infinity War is the culmination of 10 years of work to get to this point. Was it good? It was more than good. I’m definitely not a fanboy, but that was unlike any of the movies before it. Everyone in the film brought their A-game, but more importantly, everyone in the film had a part to play. Going back to my opening paragraph, I can’t believe they pulled it off with so many characters.
A movie succeeds when it has a villain you momentarily have sympathy for. When you go into a film thinking the bad guy is just some mindless villain who just wants to destroy stuff for no reason other than he or she is a bad guy, the plot unravels into a boring mess of cliches. Oh, they want to kill everyone on the planet so they can be in charge of the planet? What’s the point? You’re ruling over a graveyard. That’s not the case with this film. Thanos wants to wipe out half the population of Earth, and there’s a reason for it that I won’t go into.
With most Marvel films, you don’t really expect anyone to die in a film because those characters need sequels to make more money. This film threw that idea out the window. There were scenes in the film where I just remembered my reaction to watching the Red Wedding on Game of Thrones. It was so surprising that I thought I walked into a theater where someone was going to jump out and say we were being filmed as a joke.
“They can’t be doing all of this in a Marvel film, could they?” I thought.
They did, and it was a relief. It showed that there are actual stakes in the “war.” If the movie was going to end with all the heroes high-fiving on a hill, I’ll just go and watch the disaster that is Justice League. I think I’d rather not do that ever again.
As with most Marvel movies, there are parts that make you laugh, parts that make you watch in awe, but I never really expected the film to get so dark. The emotional reactions by the characters in the film to what is happening hasn’t really been seen like this on the big screen. Like I said before, I thought I was being screwed with by fake bits in the movie. Since it looks like it costs millions of dollars for those scenes, I quickly realized that Marvel is pointing to left field and calling its home run. It certainly hit one out of the stadium.
I couldn’t recommend this movie enough. There was this weird sense of being happy and proud for all the people involved in the making of this film. All of these talents came together to make this epic movie even if some of the characters may only get a tiny bit of screen time compared to previous movies. Just to be involved would be an honor.
If there is a movie to see this summer, it’s this one to start off the season.
Avengers: Infinity War is directed by Anthony and Joe Russo, written by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, and features a cast including Robert Downey Jr., Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, Benedict Cumberbatch, Don Cheadle, Tom Holland, Chadwick Boseman, Paul Bettany, Elizabeth Olsen, Anthony Mackie, Sebastian Stan, Danai Gurira, Letitia Wright, Dave Bautista, Zoe Saldana, Josh Brolin, and Chris Pratt.
Rating: 9/10
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Jeff Sorensen is an author, writer and occasional comedian living in Detroit, Michigan. You can look for more of his work on The Huffington Post, UPROXX, BGR and by just looking up his name.
Contact: jeff@socialunderground.com