“Avengers: Infinity War” Delivers on Lofty Promises

In Avengers: Infinity War, the viewer is asked to simultaneously follow the individual and shared paths of over a dozen superheroes who have become integral to the pop culture scene of this generation.

These characters have backstories and arcs that go several movies deep they mean something to people.

It was a hell of a thing to ask a film to do them all justice.

Of course, that could have been said about the first Avengers film or even the second, but now, nearly every character that had been introduced to us over the course of the past decade was thrown together in dubious battle.

And the Russo brothers, along with the hundreds of people who helped make the project a reality, nailed it in a way that I just didn’t expect.

There was the usual beautifully choreographed, CGI-fest action scenes (which was done extraordinarily well, by the way), quick one-liners, and twists that put the heroes in peril that we’ve all come to expect.

Morally, however, it evolved from Avengers: Age of Ultron and Captain America: Civil War. It presented ideas that, while logically make sense, suck every bit of humanity out of the decision-making process. The ideas are that of a mad man, but there’s an uneasiness with the logic behind it all.

Death was brought to the Marvel heroes on a very real level. Unlike the mass deaths of a building exploding, where nameless, faceless people perished, this death was brought into their hallowed halls.

It wasn’t this all-encompassing idea of death hanging over their heads; there was individual death that affected them personally, tapping into real anguish, hurt, and hate.

And the reason for the death solved one of the biggest flaws in the series to this point.

The true fault in the Marvel cinematic universe, other than one or two outliers (Loki and Killmonger, for example), has been its inability to create a compelling villain capable of holding its own on the screen with the charismatic heroes.

That was solved with the grand arrival of Thanos (Josh Brolin), an insanely powerful mad man from the planet Titan hellbent on fulfilling his crusade.

What is that crusade, you may ask?

He’s a terrorist, one who believes he has been chosen (partly because he has the gumption to take action) to balance the weight of the universe by destroying half of the life in the universe.

To complete his objective, he needs the six Infinity Stones. With two already in his possession when the film starts, he searches out the rest, fighting the universe’s guardians at every stop along the way.

Thanos and his Black Order began their assault by taking Thor and the Asgardians by surprise, and from that point forward, they were always one step ahead, as villains tend to be in these types of movies.

I mean if the heroes were always one step ahead, that would be pretty damn boring. We do need our fair share of chaos in these flicks, right?

Still, it’s a race for the stones, and for every barrier the Marvel heroes create, Thanos knocks it down with ease, leading to a final battle in Wakanda for  the Mind Stone, which was held in Vision’s head.

Just when it seemed we had the ending in sight, knowing full well how that song and dance went, they swerved, taking away half of everyone and everything we’ve grown to love in an instant.

And we’re left with Thanos, sitting outside his house, watching the sun rise on a grateful, albeit stunned, universe, a scene that was cinematic and almost too good for a “superhero movie.”

It also signified what we all knew: Another film is coming.

Robert Downey, Jr., Chris Hemsworth, Chris Pratt, Scarlett Johansson, Tom Holland, Benedict Cumberbatch, and the rest of the heroes are all really good, funny, and show depth of character when necessary, but they’re also known commodities. That’s not to say they’re bad by any means, but they didn’t shatter the mold of what they had previously done. Simply put, they hit the levels we’ve grown accustomed to seeing from them, which is all we could ask.

Thanos, on the other hand, was an entirely different beast and stole scene after scene.

Brolin is so understated in his performance, yet his presence still towers over all. He allows the heroes their quick quips and humor, choosing instead to take a serious and moralistic route, spouting poetic on the importance of his cause.

With a heavily CGI-influenced appearance, it would’ve been easy for him to create some deep, booming, cartoony voice to go with the character. He didn’t do that. If anything, it felt more human than the voice he uses in many of his other roles. It was just another not-so-subtle choice he made in creating a villain that will be remembered for the next few decades.

There seems to be three camps in regards to criticisms of the move: those who loved it, those who struggled with their feelings on it, and those who didn’t understand it at all.

There are some fair criticisms to be directed at this movie.

Perhaps it tried to take on too much at once. The film was long. Certain characters may not have gotten adequate screen time. The relationship between Scarlett Witch and Vision felt rushed, forced and shoehorned in to try to tap into another emotion, which didn’t work for me at all.

But what doesn’t feel fair is what Anthony Lane of the New Yorker wrote about it:

At stake, as ever, is the fate of the universe. Why must it always be the universe? What’s wrong with the fate of Hackensack? Doesn’t anyone care what happens to South Dakota, or Denmark, or Peru?

That would have been a fair criticism if it had been a random one-off about a singular hero.

Spider-Man Homecoming was just that, after all.

Hell, it’s a criticism I’ve for the MCU at times.

But Lane is either willfully ignorant as to what has been building for a decade plus or just hasn’t been paying attention.

This isn’t a standalone story; it’s the culmination of 10 years’ worth of storytelling.

Of course the fate of the universe was going to be at stake. If he had done any proper research going into it, that would’ve fairly obvious. To not have the fate of the universe at stake when so many parts were moving in that direction would’ve been a letdown of monumental proportions.

But I guess we do need contrarians in the world, even if their opinions seem to make no sense given any sort of context.

On the other end of mixed reviews/negative spectrum, there’s a piece like this from someone like Matt Zoller Seitz, who has a nuanced take, flush with understanding and :

If only the film were better modulated, or perhaps longer, or more elegantly shaped, or … well, it’s hard to say exactly what’s wrong here. But something’s not up to snuff. This is, as many have pointed out, one half of a story broken in two, but it feels like less than half somehow. Until pretty recently, MCU films have suffered from collective curve-grading—each film seemed content to settle for ‘better than expected,’ as opposed to being really, truly good—and that feeling returns here, unfortunately. ‘Infinity War’ faced so many challenges, many of them unique to this particular project, that it’s a small miracle that it works at all. On some level, it feels ungrateful to ask a movie that already does the impossible to do it with more panache. But what are superhero movies without panache really good for? If there was ever a moment to swing for the fences, it was this one.

Even if I don’t necessarily agree with everything he says, especially the part about it swinging for the fences, I appreciate the thoughtful nature of it all.

He’s grappling with it from every conceivable side, understanding that there is a history and lore that must be considered.

And then there’s me, the third category: Those who love.

I must admit there is some bias in me.

These are the stories I grew up on and longed to see on the silver screen.

I grew up watching the cartoons (though more DC, to be fair) with my dad. There’s a sentimentality there.

Aside from all that, I just thought it was such a well done movie. It was over two-and-a-half hours, but it felt like it flew by for me. Pacing something that gargantuan in such a way that it felt like half that amount go time was a feat in and of itself. Even pointing out the flaws here feels a little like nitpicking.

It feels like an Empire Strikes Back for a new generation, as taboo as that may sound to some people. It didn’t take the cheap route of creating a faux-happy ending. Feelings be damned, they told the story they wanted to tell, and I applaud that.

For me, it was a 4.5/5, and that may be as high as a film in this category can get for me.