“I’m not usually that into superhero films, but WOW did Infinity War win me over. The film was impressive on every technical level. It had an amazing cast that never felt bloated in spite of the film’s scope. The villain was great, unlike most Marvel films. Most of all though, I had the opportunity to shamelessly wallow in the filth of my own misguided nostalgia for nearly three hours. I have around 20-30 small complaints about the film, but I’m going to ignore or downplay those because my inner man-child makes idle threats whenever I attempt to openly criticize an aspect of the film that underwhelmed me. Unfortunately, I missed out on at least ten minutes of the film, because there’s no quick and easy way to get semen out of denim. That’s right, I came at least ten times. 10/10.”
– Every Positive User Review on IMDB (Spelling and grammar only slightly altered)
Avengers: Infinity War is the culmination of nearly ten years of unnecessary cameos and *wink wink* moments in Marvel films. Sometimes these cameos came in the form of post-credits sequences that nobody really wanted to sit through, sometimes they came from awkward character one-liners, and sometimes they came as MacGuffins that only in-the-know Marvel fans understood were important. Most notably, the Infinity War hints have produced more nerd cum than any drawn-out marketing campaign in the history of mankind.
I believe I’ve begun nearly every Marvel film labeled as a precursor to Infinity War. I say “begun” because I have a history of quickly growing bored with the latest Marvel editing nightmare, and falling asleep before actually finishing the films. I’d say I’m at least somewhat “in-the-know” regarding Marvel only because of its inescapable popularity, but willingly or not, I had a fair idea of what to expect.
In my almost-humble opinion, Marvel offerings typically lie on a rather narrow spectrum, with the high point of my reactions being, “That was okay,” and the low point being, “That was slightly above awful, but it was definitely expensive.” The major exception here is actually the first Captain America, a film so uninspired that its few hold-out defenders are individuals with whom I am unwilling to discuss film. Marvel also has the advantage of being the better half of a major franchise feud with DC, an argument that creates a rather alarming amount of internet vitriol.
Out of curiosity, I picked out 15 Marvel films that involve characters or plot points associated with Infinity War, and then used my IMDB ratings history to get a general idea of what I thought of each film at the time of my first viewing:
The Avengers – 6/10
The Avengers: Age of Ultron – 5/10
Guardians of the Galaxy – 7/10
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 – 6/10
Doctor Strange – 7/10
Captain America: The First Avenger – 4/10
Captain America: The Winter Soldier – 7/10
Captain America: Civil War – 6/10
Thor – 5/10
Thor: The Dark World – (Haven’t finished)
Thor: Ragnarok – 7/10
Black Panther – 7/10
Iron Man – 5/10
Iron Man 2 – 5/10
Iron Man 3 – 6/10
If we ignore Thor: The Dark World, my average rating for Marvel films is 5.93. If just about anyone were to take this list and fill it out according to their own preferences, my guess is that the average would likely land within 1 point of where you’d personally place Avengers: Infinity War.
Alas, this is about as far as I can go without delving into spoiler territory, so if you wish to go in cold, here’s where you should stop.
SPOILERSSPOILERSSPOILERSSPOILERSSPOILERSSPOILERSSPOILERSSPOILERSSPOILERSSPOILERSSPOILERSSPOILERSSPOILERSSPOILERSSPOILERS
The Plot
Infinity War’s concept revolves around an orc-ish megalomaniac named Thanos. He has a gauntlet with several slots that fit various “Infinity Stones,” and the more he collects, the more powerful he becomes. The Infinity Stones have been thrown around in Marvel films for years, sometimes being objects vital to the plot. For example, the Tesseract (or Space Stone) is an item of great power coveted by the antagonists of Captain America: The First Avenger and The Avengers.
The film opens with Thanos confronting Thor, Loki, and the Hulk, fresh off their Ragnarok adventures. Thanos wants to obtain the Tesseract, which he suspects is in their possession. After beating the living hell out of Hulk and torturing Thor half to death, Loki reveals that he does indeed have the Tesseract, and hands it over to Thanos in exchange for the life of Thor. Thanos then promptly kills Loki for fun, and explains to the audience his evil master plan. Apparently, the universe has become too populated, so Thanos has decided to use the power of the complete Infinity Gauntlet to mercifully destroy half of that population. This will allow those remaining to thrive. For a master plan, it certainly seems concocted rather hastily.
After this, the involved superheroes break into small groups, because the plot needs them to. We spend most of the film jumping around to different factions as the characters struggle endlessly to become relevant to the plot. A few of them die, and the remaining ones converge to defeat Thanos. They fail in this, and Thanos completes the Infinity Gauntlet and gets his wish. Infinity War ends on a very strange shot of Thanos smiling gently as he relaxes on a log in the middle of a field.
The Characters
Thanos:
Infinity War gives up a rather large portion of its screen time to Thanos, and rightfully so. Josh Brolin does an acceptable job of giving Thanos a caring side without creating a groan-inducing man-child of a villain. I was expecting a personality-free villain who just wanted to watch the world burn, but I was pleasantly surprised. That being said, Thanos’ solution to all of mankind’s problems, eliminating half of all life, felt like a rather half-baked idea both from the perspective of the character and the writers. As the film went on, it became increasingly difficult to take him seriously, especially when his motivations weren’t particularly clear or compelling.
Thor:
Thor ends up on screen quite often, and I think this may be because of Ragnarok’s success. With some Guardians of the Galaxy characters, he goes on a journey to get a new hammer.
Hulk:
Hulk’s presence exists solely to make erectile dysfunction jokes. After being defeated by Thanos at the beginning of the film, Hulk refuses to come out and fight whenever Bruce Banner calls upon him. This makes Bruce sad and frustrated. It’s not a very funny joke, and it occurs on at least three occasions. This is a symptom of something I’ll touch on later.
Captain America:
Everyone’s favorite bland, generic shield-bearer spends most of the movie barking orders at people or just standing around as if he’s ready to fight at any second.
Doctor Strange:
Doctor Strange possesses one of the Infinity Stones Thanos needs for his gauntlet. Because he’s kind of a dick and loves the powers that his stone provides him with, he holds on to his stone knowing that Thanos will inevitably obtain it, rather than destroying it himself to prevent Thanos’ genocide.
Gamora:
Gamora joins the cast because she’s Thanos’ sort-of adopted daughter. In flashback, Thanos destroys her home world, and takes young Gamora prisoner, treating her like his own. Conveniently, if Thanos wishes to obtain the Soul Stone, his has to kill that which he loves most. We get a tragic moment where he reluctantly throws her off a cliff.
Vision:
Vision spends most of the film looking rather sickly. He has an Infinity Stone embedded in his head, and his love interest, Scarlet Witch, does everything in her power to remove the stone throughout the film. She fails, and Vision is killed by Thanos.
Iron Man:
RDJ is here almost exclusively to call Spiderman a little bitch, then promptly give him a shiny suit.
Spiderman:
Spiderman is used for comic relief, at least I think. His “arc” is almost identical to that of his arc in Spiderman: Homecoming. Peter Parker gets overzealous, Tony Stark gets pissed, repeat.
Peter Quill:
The Guardians’ biggest dunce shows up to ruin everyone’s fun by fucking up the final mission to defeat Thanos. He’s told of Gamora’s death right before the team almost has Thanos’ gauntlet completely removed. In his grief, Peter hits Thanos, ruining the team’s efforts to distract him, I guess.
Eitri:
I have no idea who Eitri is, where he comes from, and why he needed to be included in the film. All I care about is the fact that he’s a giant played by notorious little person Peter Dinklage. This fact amused me so much that I couldn’t really pay attention to what was going on while he was on-screen.
Black Widow, War Machine, Rocket, Black Panther, Nebula, Falcon, Winter Soldier, Heimdall, Okoye, Wong, Mantis, Drax, Groot, Pepper Potts, Shuri, M’Baku, Red Skull, etc:
These characters show up to do fight scene things.
My Conclusions
Not even Magnolia had this many characters to keep track of, so it’s a good thing we had 15+ other films to introduce and develop this cast, right?
Well, sort of.
Most of the characters from other films show up two or three times to either make an appearance or participate in battle, and that’s about it. If Infinity War hadn’t been shamelessly advertised in other Marvel films for so long, and if I was at any time reminded of Batman Vs. Superman, this would have been an out-right deal-breaker for me. Under the circumstances, I thought they handled the need for so many characters well, but it’s the need itself that I take issue with. If I had seen none of the characters I described as “just doing fight scene things,” this would have had a decent shot at being a far better film. Constant cameos are usually distracting, and Infinity War does not break this pattern.
Another aspect of Infinity War that feels cynical and studio executive-y is the film’s sense of humor. It’s as if the Russo brothers submitted one draft of the film to their test audiences, only to have those audience members complain about the lack of humor, forcing the Russos to rewrite some of the dialog. There are many instances of humor that completely fall flat, specifically the Hulk erection metaphor. Not a single person in my theater laughed at that one, but they were in stitches when Drax made a weirdly simple grammar-related joke. Go figure.
The worst part about the humor is the film’s potential to take on a darker tone. This is a movie where nearly every character dies. The opportunity for a truly mature Marvel film was there, but the hit-and-miss humor serves to sabotage any chance of maturity.
Speaking of rampant character death, that’s another aspect of the film that I don’t buy into. There are too many character deaths in Infinity War that simply don’t make sense. Heroes like Black Panther that already have a sequel in the works are killed off. This leads me to believe that Infinity War Pt. 2 will see all of its major heroes resurrected. Every actor who isn’t looking to terminate their contract with Marvel ASAP will likely return in the sequel, and this becomes apparent the moment Loki, one of Marvel’s most bankable characters, is murdered in the first ten minutes. In this film, death has no meaning, and there are no real consequences. At first, guessing who would live and who would die was compelling, but if everyone’s coming back for the sequel, there are absolutely no stakes in this movie, further decreasing how much I care about the project overall.
I was mostly neutral on the film, but there’s one scene in particular that I theoretically enjoyed immensely. When Thanos has his Infinity Gauntlet and nearly all of our heroes are dead, we get one final shot of Thanos, sitting peacefully in a field. He smiles. It is not the smile of a hulking madman who just murdered an uncountable number of life-forms, but the smile of a gentle, naïve soul who’s just finished his daily chores. If I could put aside the fact that Infinity War will be a two part saga, this would be a wonderful, chilling conclusion. I get the impression that the sequel will likely make this film far less watchable. I hope I’m wrong, but don’t count on it.
As for my final score, 6/10.
Marvel, you exceeded my expectations by 0.07.
Congratulations.