Alrighty then.
I've recently returned home from the movie theater and I saw Avengers: Infinity War. If you've been following my previous movie reviews, I will say that I won't go into my normal format when I review a movie. It's in theaters currently. Duh. I don't get out to the movies much anymore since becoming a dad, but I managed to go see this one. I can't really analyze it to it's fullest extent without repeat viewings and that's would be a little pricey. So, yeah. I'm just going to talk about the movie from memory and how much I may (or may not) have enjoyed it.
...And who am I kidding? Of course, I enjoyed the movie. It's the culmination of the whole MCU in one movie. This is what the last ten years have been building toward. The biggest big bad has finally arrived and all hands are (mostly) on deck to stop this destructive force. Thanos has his infinity gauntlet on and he's coming for those infinity stones.
It's great. There really isn't too much for me to complain about here. The action set pieces are the best they've ever been. That signature Marvel humor is present. We get to bounce around on a little road trip to some of the locations we've seen in past films. My personal favorite line is the exchange between Spider-Man and Doctor Strange when they introduce themselves. You might have seen it in the last trailers that were released for this movie. I laughed when I saw it in the trailer and I laughed again when I saw the scene in the movie. Most of the main characters get their time to shine. There are some really fun team ups with characters meeting for the first time. It's just an all around fun film.
Let's talk Thanos for a moment. You know what? Thanos is great. Josh Brolin does a pretty good job portraying The Mad Titan. Infinity War manages to buck the trend of disappointing Marvel villains. I'm glad too. How terrible would it be to get to this point and we get another forgettable Marvel movie villain? Thankfully, it's not the case here. They actually give Thanos a good amount of screen time and we learn a little more about him. We finally get to here his plan. Funny enough, they try to make you sympathize with him. That's the best kind of villains. I like it when they try to make you understand where the villain is coming from and try to get you to sympathize with them. Thanos is one of those kinds of villains who thinks what he's doing is for the greater good. There's no villain more fearsome than one who is motivated by thinking what he is doing is right.
Things get pretty wild here. That's to be expected. We're getting an all out war this time. It's not that little dispute we had in Captain America: Civil War. No. We got armies here. We got most of the heroes banding together. This is an actual war. I'm excited to see where things go from here. I know we've got some more Marvel movies already announced on the horizon. I'm kind of wondering how they will factor into all of this.
(Some) Spoilers Ahead. There is something about the end of the film that I kind of want to talk about. It's really my only gripe with this movie.
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I'm not going to spoil much of Avengers: Infinity War, but I do want to talk about the ending specifically. If you don't care about spoilers or have seen the movie, keep on reading here. If you don't want to read any spoilers, I kind of warned you already to avoid this part of my post. Anyways, here I go.
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The ending is kind of underwhelming to me. I don't mean this as a bad thing for the movie. It ended how I expected the film to end. I haven't read the source material this story-line is based off of. I went into this movie with a base knowledge of who Thanos is and what the Infinity Stones were. I knew a little bit about what the plot might entail. We already know this movie is part one of a two part story. So, it's no surprise to say that Thanos wins and the Avengers lose. We know there's another movie on the horizon to complete the story. However, it's that specific fact that makes the ending of this film a little underwhelming for me. The stakes are high in this film and some characters don't make it. Like I said, Thanos wins and it's not without casualties. The problem with that is we know what the future holds and it kind of ruins the ending a little bit.
Thanos has a plan to wipe out half of all life in the entire universe. He manages to acquire all of the Infinity Stones by the end of the film and fulfills that plan. With all the Infinity Stones in his possession, a snap of his finger and people start turning to dust. This includes members of the Avengers. It's supposed to be a big, sad moment seeing all of these heroes die before our eyes. Not everyone dies. Obviously. There's got to be someone to fight Thanos in the next movie. However, there is a good chunk of the Avengers included in that whole "half of all life in the universe" that dies. This is where things bug me. I know that movie studios need to announce their future films in order to get people excited for them. That's just a fact of the movie business. I wish that Marvel had taken that into consideration when they wrote the ending for this movie.
The ending is sad on a visual level because of what I saw on the screen. The music is sad. Beloved characters are perishing. All hope is lost. I'm going to spoil some of the deaths here because it's kind of obvious these characters won't actually stay dead when you think about it. Again, I haven't read the comics involving this story-line. I don't know how it's supposed to end. I'm going off of the movie and what I know from real life. Spider-Man isn't going anywhere because we know that Spider-Man: Homecoming 2 (I hope that's not going to be what they call it) is in development. Members of the Guardians of the Galaxy (probably) won't stay dead because Guardians Vol. 3 has been announced to be in development. Doctor Strange's movie hinted at what the future villain would be in a sequel.Considering he's only got one movie in the franchise, it's safe to say he won't stay dead. Black Panther had his first outing in the movie before this and it was wildly successful. I'm going to be honest and say I missed that one before I saw Infinity War, but I'm assuming it won't be the last. I might be missing some stuff, but these characters shouldn't have been included in the mass genocide because I know they aren't going to stay dead. Ant-Man has a sequel in development and he's not here in Infinity War. He won't die if he makes it into the next movie.
I kind of wish Marvel had kept Phase 4 of their cinematic universe under wraps until Infinity War had finished. It takes all the steam out of the ending of this movie.
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That's all, folks. If you haven't seen Avengers: Infinity War, go see it. Soon. Before the internet spoils it for you. You won't regret it.
As for me, I kind of have to fill in some blanks now. I haven't seen Thor: Ragnarok or Black Panther yet. I know I missed some important stuff with Thor, but trailers for Infinity War kind of spoiled some of that already for me.