Avengers: Infinity War (2018)
Rating: 8.5/10
STARRING: Dave Bautista, Paul Bettany, Chadwick Boseman, Don
Cheadle, Benedict Cumberbatch, Benicio Del Toro, Peter Dinklage, Robert Downey
Jr., Winston Duke, Idris Elba, Chris Evans, Karen Gillan, Danai Gurira, Chris
Hemsworth, Tom Hiddleston, Tom Holland, William Hurt, Scarlett Johansson, Pom
Klementieff, Anthony Mackie, Elizabeth Olsen, Gwyneth Paltrow, Chris Pratt,
Mark Ruffalo, Zoe Saldana, Sebastian Stan, Benedict Wong and Letita Wright
Featuring the Voices of Bradley Cooper as Rocket, Vin Diesel
as Groot,
and Josh Brolin as Thanos
RATED PG-13 for intense action and violence, language,
scenes of destruction, scenes of torture, and emotional content
**SPOILER FREE REVIEW**
If Avengers: Infinity
War existed in a vacuum – one where the moviegoing public knew nothing
about such things as actors’ contracts, extended universes, or planned sequels
– it might go down as one of the most astonishing, audacious blockbuster films
ever made. It’d be up there with The Dark
Knight as one of the rare “mainstream entertainment” films in which actions
had real, harrowing consequences, and no one onscreen was safe.
Well, we don’t live in a vacuum, so, as stunning as parts of
Infinity War were, I’ll only truly be
satisfied with the movie's quality after we’ve seen the next one (the still-untitled Avengers 4). While there are sequences
in Infinity War that have the ability
to draw gasps and tears from viewers, and leave whole theaters in silence, I
have a feeling some, if not all, of those sequences will be undone, thereby
relieving audiences of some of their shock, grief, and rage, and this movie of
a great deal of its impact and profundity.
That being said, Infinity
War is still a pretty audacious film. Or, rather, the effort and planning
that went into its conception were pretty audacious.
I remember when I saw the original Iron Man, which was released in theaters on May 2, 2008. I was more
or less dragged to it, thinking it would be some other over-the-top superhero
hype piece (remember, this was less than a year after Sam Raimi’s Spiderman trilogy crashed and burned
with an over-the-top third installment). I left Iron Man pleasantly surprised by the mix of action, wit, and
spectacle, all of which was fronted by a terrific performance from recovering-addict
actor Robert Downey Jr. Having never read comics, I knew little about the extended
universe and the crossover stories that would bring together heroes and even
side characters from two, three, four, five different stories. It was difficult
to imagine then. All that to say, while it’s been a highly-publicized ride, it’s
still pretty impressive to see Infinity
War, the 19th film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), which
features appearances by characters who all appeared in at least one of 18 other
films. And it doesn’t even feel overstuffed. True, not every character gets a meaty
dramatic arc, an epic monologue or a character-building flashback, but here’s a
movie built off a literal decade of other films (since ‘08, only 2009 had no
MCU films) that does some level of justice to each of those other movies, and
yet also moves forward with an intriguing, engaging, powerful story of its own.
DISCLAIMER: I feel like I don’t need to say this, but I
will: Infinity War includes
characters/elements from Iron Man and
every MCU film since, including February’s Black
Panther. I don’t think you have to have seen all of them, but if you have not seen most of them – particularly
recent ones like Panther and November’s
Thor: Ragnarok – you will be lost. In
fact, Infinity War opens immediately
after the climax of Ragnarok, at
least as shown in that film’s post-credit scene.
Early in Infinity War,
we find the Guardians of the Galaxy traveling through space in response to an
interstellar distress call, thinking they might save some people and make some
money in the process. The Guardians, as you likely know, are comprised of half-human
Peter Quill/Star Lord (Pratt), quasi-love interest/lethal assassin Gamora
(Saldana), brooding humanoid Drax (Bautista), wide-eyed Mantis (Klementieff),
scientifically enhanced Rocket Raccoon (Cooper) and tree creature Groot
(Diesel). The Guardians soon stumble across Thor (Hemsworth), a survivor of the
now-wrecked ship that was carrying the survivors of Asgard’s Ragnarok-wrought doom. A distressed Thor
promptly tells the Guardians about Thanos (Brolin), a hulking purple Titan with
monstrous minions, an intergalactic army, and supernatural strength. Gamora,
who was raised and trained by him after being stolen away from her family,
knows there’s more to the story. Thanos wears a high-tech gadget known as the
Infinity Gauntlet, a metal device that was made to combine the powers of the
six all-powerful Infinity Stones. The Stones (five of which have appeared in
other MCU movies) are: the purple Power Stone, the green Time Stone, the blue
Space Stone, the yellow Mind Stone, the red Reality Stone, and the only one
that has yet to be unveiled, the orange Soul Stone. According to Gamora, if
Thanos can get a hold of all six and plug them into the Gauntlet, he can
destroy half of the existing universe with a literal snap of his fingers. As of
the Guardians’ finding Thor, he has nabbed two of them. Worse, two others are
on Earth.
One of the earthbound stones is the Time Stone, which is in
the possession of the metaphysical wizard Doctor Strange (Cumberbatch). Because
one of Strange’s order’s sanctums is in New York City, it’s there that some of
Thanos’ minions first touch down, starting a fracas between them, Strange,
Strange’s assistant Wong (Wong), and bystander Tony Stark/Iron Man (Downey
Jr.). This destruction and fighting also catches the attention of Queens-born
teenager Peter Parker (Holland),
who is better known as Spiderman.
Another stone, the Mind Stone, was embedded into the head of
Vision (Bettany), who is laying low in Europe
with his sweetheart, Wanda Maximoff/Scarlet Witch (Olsen). When Thanos’ minions
come after them seeking the Mind Stone, this attracts the attention of Steve
Rogers/Captain America (Evans), as well as Sam Wilson/Falcon (Mackie), Bucky
Barnes/Winter Soldier (Stan) and Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow (Johansson). These
multiple instances of chaos soon capture the attention of other earthbound
heroes like James Rhodes/War Machine (Cheadle) and Bruce Banner/Hulk (Ruffalo),
and lead to all the heroes hiding out in the secretive African nation of
Wakanda, which is led by T’Challa/Black Panther (Boseman), his younger
sister/tech whiz Shuri (Wright), and his wise, skilled right-hand Gen. Okoye
(Gurira).
All these heroes and their powers make for quite a sight and
quite a team, but when Thanos shows up, he proves more than a match for them,
even without his minions and his army. And the more Stones come into his
possession, the more powerful he gets.
As you can see by the cast size and the sheer number of
power-imbued heroes on the scene, Infinity
War is a massive, sprawling film. And yet, despite its size, its length
(149 minutes), and the amount of computer-generated effects onscreen, it holds
the viewer’s attention effortlessly. This is partly because the film hits the
ground running, opening with an epic mano-a-mano between the big green Hulk and the like-sized Thanos, and rarely slows down after that. But in reality, it’s due to the
characters and, more than that, to the heads at Disney/Marvel who’ve been
planning this massive crossover for years.
In recent years, audiences and critics have (rightfully)
derided Marvel’s main competitor – DC – for rushing into crossover films like Batman v Superman, Suicide Squad, and Justice League in an attempt to catch the
public’s interest (and dollars) in the same way the MCU. The failure, on one
level or another, of each of those overwrought films feels all the more damning
in the face of Infinity War, which is
almost always interesting, and flat-out entertaining, through two-and-a-half jam-packed
hours. Here, you can jump between one pack of heroes harnessing the power of an
exploding star, another group in an epic tag-team fight against Thanos, and
another in an apocalyptic showdown against Thanos’ minions and army, and be
equally-entertained all the way around. As viewers, we’re invested in all of
it, and it’s a treat to be pulled away from one engaging action to another and be
reminded oh yeah, this is in the same movie!
Marvel has put in the time and money, weathered some more modest hits,
occasional middling critics’ reviews and some fan backlash to bring all these
pieces together. Now, they can reap the fruits of that labor by putting
together a film with a main cast of about 25 characters, and do it almost
seamlessly. With a bare minimum of exposition and backstory, audiences are
treated to largely-realized characters in a number of dream scenarios:
serious-minded Thor joining forces with the quippy, irreverent Guardians; alpha
dog Tony Stark having a battle of wits and egos with Doctor Strange; Stark exercising parental instincts in dissuading the ambition of
adventure-hungry Peter Parker; star-crossed lovers Vision and Scarlet Witch
fighting to keep hope alive; the Guardians battling Stark, Strange, and Parker
in a confused, wild scuffle; and our most familiar heroes (Captain America,
Thor, Black Widow, Hulk) coming face-to-face with Thanos, their most dangerous
adversary yet. Along the way, we get touching flashbacks, alternate-reality
shocks, and epic music cues. Infinity War
is a massive entrée, and with all the seasoned ingredients present (finally!),
it goes off like gangbusters.
In such a huge film, the focus isn’t on the actors so much
as the characters, but most of the well-known thesps acquit themselves well. Downey
Jr. is in his eighth go-round as the wisecracking, furiously entertaining Stark, and he
continues to fit the role like a glove, though Stark is a much more haunted,
guilt-ridden, contentious presence than he was when we first met him. Saldana
gets a meaty role – what with Gamora reconnecting with her haunted past as an
orphan of genocide, then an unwitting assassin trainee – and makes the most of
it, up to a devastating moment when she underestimates the depth of Thanos’
cold-hearted ambition. Hemsworth has some nice moments playing off the
Guardians and showing how Thor has grown from a pompous heir into a weary,
humbled warrior more worthy of his tremendous displays of power. Olsen and
Bettany have a sweet, sincere chemistry, though it comes with layers of fear
and deep emotion as Vision more than once wonders whether he ought to simply
destroy himself rather than allow Thanos to obtain the Mind Stone that gives
him his life force.
Thanos himself is a treat, played by a near-perfect mix of
CGI and gravel-voiced Josh Brolin. One of the main weaknesses of the various
MCU films has been the fairly forgettable villains, but with Thanos being the
biggest baddie of them all, the MCU clearly needed to step up their game. They
do, and it works. Towering, muscle-bound and coldly decisive, Thanos lives up
to his reputation as a monster who would order the massacre of a planet’s
population as soon as set foot on its surface. He’s powerful—never out of a
fight and equal to nearly all our heroes. But he’s also revealed to be a
somewhat weary figure. Thanos acts with the resigned conviction of someone who
has had an all-important destiny thrust upon him—one that feels at least
partially unwanted (remember that old cliché about power and responsibility?). And yet he plows forward, killing people, approving genocide,
and destroying worlds, all in the name of improving the quality of life for
select individuals in an overcrowded universe (sound familiar at all? If not,
take look at your history books.). And in a turn that may surprise many, he
turns out to truly care for Gamora, who has always thought of Thanos as one who
stole her away, corrupted her and exploited her.
As mentioned, many of the returning actors in this film give
strong, memorable performances. But it’s Brolin/Thanos – in his first
significant part after a few tease moments in other MCU films – who really
stands out. He’s a worthy entrant in this packed cinematic universe, and one of
the X-factors in this engaging monolith of a film.
Infinity War is
not perfect. As much as this movie has to cram, not all of the characters get
particularly juicy bits to play (the Wakandan entrants, in particular, are
short-changed). There’s the aforementioned question of whether any of the drastic things that occur
within the film’s runtime will end up being permanent, or whether this movie
will end up something of a tease. I know that’s me being cynical, but it is a
real question, one that prevents me (and perhaps others) from fully realizing
the emotion of this story. How will this movie look in hindsight, after we’ve
seen its conclusion? I have another nitpick I will not go into in depth for
fear of spoilers—to put it simply: at one point, a character suffers a wound
that probably should be fatal, but our attention is diverted and it is never mentioned
again.
Plus, there’s my ever-present complaint with the MCU—that they insist on
infusing humor into moments/scenes/settings where humor is not needed. It’s not
that I’m against these movies being funny. Iron Man makes wisecracks—that, I
get. And this movie reminds me what a ball it is to be around the Guardians when
they are having a good time. But when Thor is fresh from seeing his
friends/countrymen killed, and he’s making jokes? When entire scenes are undone
just to do more Drax-is-clueless gags? This reliance on humor shows itself in
more than one way—Chris Pratt, for example, has some of his most emotional
moments yet as Star Lord, and his transitions from comedy to drama aren’t
always convincing. Pratt’s a natural comedian, but a master of
teary-eyed drama he is not.
Still, these are little complaints. I’ve sat through the
movie twice, and would gladly do so again. Infinity
War is immediately among the MCU’s best entries—worth all the time, hype,
and money committed to it.
Bottom Line:
Avengers: Infinity War
is the 19th film in the MCU, and all 18 that came before have been
building toward it (and its forthcoming sequel). I’ll say it’s one of the best
(probably not the best, but in the
conversation), though my overall opinion of its quality and relevance depends
on what happens in the next movie. The writing is strong, pulling together more
than 20 established characters without any real stretches in credulity, and it
gives them a more than worthy foil in the hulking, conflicted Thanos. The
effects are excellent, as usual. This is a hugely impressive achievement, and
I’m very interested to see what history will ultimately say about this
movie—part one of a pet project Marvel/Disney have been working on for 10
years.
Avengers: Infinity War (2018)
Directed by Anthony and Joe Russo
Screenplay by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely
Based on the comics by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby
Rated PG-13
Length: 149 minutes
