Avengers: Infinity War

Avengers: Infinity War has only been in theaters for 2 weeks now and it has completely shaken what we thought we knew about the Marvel Cinematic Universe. By this point, I hope that most of you have seen it by now. If you have yet to see the movie, leave this tab open and go do that now. For the rest of you, I am really excited to dig into this film and break down the little things that made this movie so great. I’m going to do this review a little different because this is such a special movie. WARNING: Major spoilers ahead!

Plot Discussion

The plot of this movie was a lot deeper and more complex than I was expecting considering the sheer amount of characters that had to split screen time. The movie quickly introduces and start developing a few different storylines. The movie then proceeds to switch back and forth between arcs until they converge to basically two groups.

We start out on the ship that all of Asgard boarded at the end of Thor: Ragnarok. This storyline pretty much follows Thor throughout the movie as he goes with Rocket and Groot to try to find the elves that made his hammer and get them to make him an ax that can defeat Thanos. We see the end of Loki and Heimdall as they are both murdered by Thanos after trying to stop him in the opening scene of the film. Because of this, there is an immediate somber tone that is set that Marvel fans haven’t really experienced before. The flow of this storyline was definitely a bit slower than the rest but it had probably the least screen time and functioned well mostly as a chance for the audience to catch their breath from the constant intense and emotional fight scenes.

Then there is Iron Man’s story arc. Pretty early on he runs into Doctor Strange, Bruce Banner, and Spider-man after he finds out that Thanos is after the infinity stones and that the time stone is around Strange’s neck. This arc is pretty much all action as we get to witness a fight scene in New York, then another cool action scene aboard one of Thanos’ ships, and finally a really intense fight scene on Titan. The Guardians of the Galaxy eventually join the fight on Titan. The Guardians have an intense fight scene with Thanos on planet nowhere. He takes Gamora and forces her to show him where the soul stone is, then he sacrifices her to get it. This was probably the most important plot arc because we learn that Doctor Strange uses the time stone to look into all possible outcomes of the fight with Thanos and determines that they win in only 1 of over 14 million different scenarios. When he hands over the time stone to Thanos, I think he knows exactly what is going to happen and he leaves us with the onimous line ” We’re in the end game now”.

Another arc follows Scarlett Witch and Vision as they have disappeared together for some “alone time”. Captain America, Scarlett Witch, and Falcon all join this story arc when they come to the rescue of the runaway super-couple pretty early on. This group eventually goes to Wakanda to try to have the mind stone removed from Vision’s head without killing him. This stone turns out to be the last stone that Thanos needs to complete the gauntlet and Wakanda is where the largest scale battle unfolds to defend the stone. I may never understand the logistics behind a romance between a human-ish woman and humanoid man made of vibranium that thinks with a Stark-made AI program called JARVIS, but it did make for some added emotion when the time came for Scarlett Witch to destroy the stone right out of Vision’s head.

Overall Opinions

Avengers: Infinity War does an incredible job of sharing screen time between 20+ important characters. At times it was a little chaotic sure but I think that did a million times better of getting all of the story arcs to flow together than I could have ever expected.

This is the darkest film that the MCU has ever seen it still manages to give the audiences funny moments to take a deep breath between all of the intense moments of death and destruction. I want to give director Anthony Russo so much credit for the job he did on this movie. It is very difficult to make a film like this that is so radically different in feeling and intensity than any other film in the universe. Russo blends it all together so seamlessly while also providing some witty comedy that we’ve come to expect.

As you all know, at the end of this movie only a fraction of our favorite characters are left alive. Pretty much all of the Guardians of the Galaxy are gone with the exception of Rocket and Nebula. Black Panther, Scarlett Witch, Falcon, Doctor Strange, and of course Spider-Man, all fade away after Thanos executes his plan. Many casual fans of the MCU are left wondering what is going to happen next. Are they all actually gone? Well, I am sure a few of you will be happy to hear that most of them will be back. Marvel has confirmed that a second Spider-man movie will be coming out sometime in mid-late 2019, as well as another Guardians of the Galaxy for 2020. However, judging by some recent comments made by Zoe Saldana (Gamora), I actually am willing to bet that her tragic death is final. There is no way that we have seen the end of King T’Challa either. With Black Panther recently becoming the highest domestic grossing superhero movie ever made, there is approximate 0 chance in the world that Marvel would kill off the character in the same calendar year. Also, if you need more to be convinced, in March Marvel confirmed the making of a future second Black Panther movie.

The post credit scene is interesting for two reasons: 1) It is the only time we see Nick Fury in the movie, 2) It leads into Captain Marvel. We know that the upcoming Captain Marvel film is going to be an origin story of sorts but now we can expect that the end of that movie should line up pretty well with the end of Avengers: Infinity War.

This film is unlike anything we have seen in the genre and I loved every minute of it. I really want to try to watch it in IMAX and I can’t wait to own it on Blu-Ray. It is a must watch by every sense of the word.