Avengers: Infinity War

[riddler]

With all the super hero team ups going on, I for one relish seeing the lone wolf hero ride solo. It does alleviate the danger and make situations less thrilling when you know that heroes have teams of friends to save them. That's why I think Flash and Arrow would be better without the heroes having entire teams behind them communicating via Bluetooth and instead fighting their battles alone. These characters struggle to stand out in their own shows.

I wouldn't be opposed to the cinematic side acknowledging the TV side, which hasn't yet happened but I could see why Marvel isn't doing it. The MCU has been going for 10 years now and as it is, it is hard for movie goers to keep up. Consider THOR ragnarok which featured two main heroes and essentially has five prequel films (thor 1 and 2, the incredible hulk, avengers 1 and 2). Marvel is asking a lot of their fans being this deep into the MCU and don't forget a big chunk of their target market are kids. It's hard to keep up even for people like us who live and breathe these movies. It would be too much to ask the fans to keep up on the movies AND TV shows especially since not everybody has access to Netflix.

I'm fine with some references back and forth but I think it could be a mistake having any major characters cross over for more than a cameo.

[The Laughing Fish]

Trailer 2 is now online.

[The Laughing Fish]

Official theatrical poster is released. Not a fan to be honest, reminds me of the garish Thor Ragnarok poster. The running time is 156 minutes.

[Azrael]

It's fitting that of all the heroes, Tony Stark is dominant in the composition. Favreau's Iron Man was the beginning and Tony Stark as played by Robert Downey is arguably MCU's MVP. This summer marks the 10th year anniversary of Iron Man. Of all Marvel posters, this one looks like it could be art for a Marvel Vs. Capcom type of game.

[The Laughing Fish]

I watched Infinity War tonight. Since I don't want to spoil anything, you can safely read what I have to say below.

Thanos stole the show, and certainly lived up to the hype. Much better than I had expected. He's not only the best character in the entire movie, he's perhaps the best villain in the MCU to date.

But I have a lot of problems with the rest of the movie. In terms of tone, it's a mess. After Black Panther steered back towards treating the material with dramatic weight not really seen since Captain America: The Winter Soldier, the latest MCU film returns to the habit of having as much jokes as possible. Because of this, some of the Avengers, and especially the Guardians of the Galaxy, are a parody of themselves. It's idiotic. Worse, the film suddenly shifts back to a more sombre and serious tone, making the mood really inconsistent. This was a criticism some people had for Captain America: Civil War, but it's much worse here.

That's all I want to say for now. Lower your expectations, and you'll likely enjoy it more than I did.

[Travesty]

That sucks to hear. I personally loved the movie.

[Silver Nemesis]

I find it difficult to judge Infinity War as a self-contained narrative since it's clearly only fifty percent of the total story. It could retroactively benefit or suffer depending on the quality of the next Avengers film, and until I've seen that I won't know for sure how successful the first movie is in laying the foundations for its successor. That said, my initial reaction to the latest Avengers film is positive. It's a good movie and I enjoyed it. But as with every popcorn flick, it has its problems.

The most difficult hurdle to surmount with this kind of ensemble story is ensuring every character has something to do and that no one is just there for the sake of being there. I'm not a fan of Joss Whedon, but I do give the guy credit for successfully balancing the roster in The Avengers (2012) and giving each hero his or her own individual subplot. Infinity War has an even more difficult obstacle to overcome thanks to the inflated number of players involved. Rather than try to give each of these protagonists their own arc – which would be impossible to do in the film's two and a half hour runtime – the screenwriters made the wise decision to divide them up into small groups, thereby reducing the overall number of plot threads and effectively streamlining the narrative. Structurally it works. And it's probably the only way they could have balanced having so many characters in a single film.

This does not however mitigate the fact that the film is bloated. There are too many characters, there's too much location jumping, and by the film's final act I was struggling to keep track of all the different planets and supporting characters. I had particular difficulty distinguishing Thanos' henchmen from one another as they were all similar in appearance and more or less interchangeable in function. The movie is definitely not what I would call 'a character piece', but fortunately this is where the groundwork Marvel established in their earlier films starts to pay dividends. Most of these characters have already been given proper introductions in their own solo movies, and because of this the plot is able to hit the ground running without ever losing momentum. The downside is that if you've never seen an MCU film until now, your chances of keeping pace with the story are remote at best. Making this your entry point into the MCU would be like leaping into a serialised TV show with the series finale. And that's another reason why it's hard to judge Infinity War as a standalone film.

The quality of action is exactly what you'd expect from a modern CBM. The CGI in these movies always leaves me cold and I found my attention wondering a little during some of the prolonged battle sequences. I was also a bit irked by the inconsistency in strength levels displayed during the fights. Certain villains are strong enough to manhandle superpowered opponents like Vision, but struggle against human adversaries such as Black Widow. In the original comic it was explained that Thanos intentionally held back against the good guys in order to impress Death, and that a subconscious part of him wanted to be defeated and thus created windows in his defences for his enemies to exploit. In the film no such explanation is given. So why do characters like Star-Lord and Captain America survive going up against a villain strong enough to ragdoll the Incredible Hulk? Are certain Avengers protected by plot armour? Or is Thanos just pulling his punches? I'm inclined to think it's a bit of both.

Thanos does kill (SPOILERS) Loki, perhaps in retribution for his failure during the first Avengers film (end SPOILERS). But in general, the MCU Thanos is portrayed as surprisingly merciful. He asserts his power to an extent necessary to incapacitate his foes, but avoids killing needlessly. The big exception is the scene where he (SPOILERS) kills half of all life in the universe, (end SPOILERS) though his motives for doing this are derived from a psychotic sense of righteousness rather than crude malice. He expresses the belief that death will select victims at random, echoing the nihilistic outlook of Jim Starlin's Thanos in the comics. He's essentially a cosmic-level analogue to Wilson Fisk; a powerful and ruthless ideologue who is willing to do the most awful things in the pursuit of what he perceives to be a greater good. He's a three-dimensional bad guy, has an interesting ideological motive and poses a serious threat to the heroes. He surpassed my expectations and deserves a place near the top of the MCU villain leader boards (Kingpin still holds the top spot for me, but I might rank Thanos in second place).

I never felt bored watching Infinity War, though some elements were repetitious. There's an interesting scenario in the first half of the film where (SPOILERS) Gamora makes Star-Lord promise to kill her if she's taken prisoner by Thanos. (end SPOILERS) Later in the film there's an almost identical scenario involving Vision and Scarlet Witch. Both scenes have dramatically impactful payoffs, and the symmetry between them may have been intentional. But even so, scenes like those highlight the fact that many of the plot threads in Infinity War amount to the same thing – the heroes must stop Thanos acquiring the Infinity Gems. It's a very simple story told in a circuitous, overstuffed manner. But then so was the comic on which the film is based, and the movie does a decent job of capturing the cosmic scope and atmosphere of that story. James Gunn wrote the dialogue for the Guardians of the Galaxy characters, and his contribution helps maintains a sense of tonal consistency with their earlier appearances. Every player feels true to their established characterisation and the Russo brothers do a good job of balancing the different tones associated with them. The soundtrack also makes prominent use of leitmotifs to reference the earlier MCU films, and there are some sequences where you can clearly hear Silvestri alluding to his own score for Predator (1987).

One minor quibble is that Captain America doesn't have an awful lot to do in the storyline except fight and suggest the Avengers seek help from the Wakandans. This didn't bother me too much, as it was clearly the filmmakers' intent to let other characters take centre stage for now so the Phase 1 heroes can step up in the next film. As far as foreshadowing the next movie goes, I was surprised that (SPOILERS) Adam Warlock didn't make an appearance. But in light of Doctor Strange's line about Tony's salvation being the only way to defeat Thanos – which clearly has something to do with his vision of the future – I'm now wondering if Warlock will even show up at all. Will Iron Man be the one to defeat Thanos in the MCU? Speaking of Doctor Strange's vision, if he saw millions of different scenarios play out, why didn't he foresee Star-Lord screwing up their plan to wrest the Infinity Gauntlet from Thanos? (end SPOILERS)

That's all I've got to say about Infinity War for the time being. I might come back to this thread when I've had more time to think about it, but for now I give it the thumbs up. Watching this movie is like eating an entire bag of sweets. You look at the packet and think there's no way you can fit all that sugar into your body, but then you prove yourself wrong to the detriment of your metabolism. It's hardly fine cuisine, but it gives you exactly what the packaging promises – a pleasantly diverting rollercoaster that demands nothing of your intellect and appeals to your appetite for the spectacular. Infinity War is not the best MCU film by any means, but I'd rank it amongst the better entries in the franchise. If nothing else, the epic scale of the film is worth experiencing on the big screen.

[Silver Nemesis]

Infinity War has now grossed over $800 million in its first week, and it hasn't even opened in China yet! If this keeps up, it's on course to become the highest grossing superhero film of all time.

Returning to the film itself, I was surprised to learn it wasn't (SPOILERS) Hugo Weaving playing the Red Skull. I knew Weaving had expressed a disinterest in reprising the role, but the chap who replaced him did such a convincing job that I didn't realise they'd recast the part until the end credits. (End SPOILERS) I don't know if they're planning to have him return in the next film, but if he does I hope he'll get at least one scene with Cap.

A lot of people have been pointing out an interesting flaw in the logic of this film's plot. In the original comic, Thanos wanted to exterminate half of all life in the universe as a way of impressing Death. In the movie, he wants to kill half of all life as a way of reducing the universal demand on limited resources. But if the Infinity Gauntlet grants him unlimited godlike power, then instead of reducing the rate of consumption to match the available resources, why not simply increase the resources to meet the consumer demand? He could have just clicked his fingers and doubled the amount of food and housing available in the universe.

I suppose you could argue that, from Thanos' insane perspective at least, such a solution might appear a temporary fix. If he doubled the universe's wealth, then in time the population would eventually increase to consume it. And if the Pareto principle holds true, then the distribution of newly created resources would be monopolised by the most powerful 20% of the population anyway, meaning the inequalities he's trying to remedy would still exist (though randomly killing 50% of the population would not eliminate such inequalities either). Perhaps Thanos saw his own strategy as a more permanent solution to the problem as it had apparently worked on Zen-Whoberi. Then again, maybe we shouldn't try to apply logic to the motives of a nihilistic lunatic. He is the Mad Titan, after all.

[thecolorsblend]

I was surprised that (SPOILERS) Adam Warlock didn't make an appearance. But in light of Doctor Strange's line about Tony's salvation being the only way to defeat Thanos – which clearly has something to do with his vision of the future – I'm now wondering if Warlock will even show up at all. Will Iron Man be the one to defeat Thanos in the MCU? Speaking of Doctor Strange's vision, if he saw millions of different scenarios play out, why didn't he foresee Star-Lord screwing up their plan to wrest the Infinity Gauntlet from Thanos? (end SPOILERS)

My view of that was that how the film played out was the "victory" that was foreseen. By that, I mean that there was a scenario where the least amount of harm was played out... which is how the movie itself plays out. The other outcomes resulted in far greater levels of death and devastation than what ultimately happened. The way the movie played out was literally the best case scenario.

[The Joker]

Just got back from watching Avengers: Infinity War.

Well, it's essentially what one would now come to expect from the Action/Comedy genre that is Disney's MCU. Lots of action. Lots of one-liners, wisecracks, and snark. Tonially shifting, literally, at a whim, and a abundance of conveniences that are there to allow character's to "have their moment" within a bloated narrative. In short, there's alot that I agree with when it comes to The Laughing Fish, and Silver Nemesis' criticisms of "Infinity War".

You can't knock success, and it's quite clear that people are eating this up quicker than a fat turkey on Thanksigiving, but outside of Thanos being a rather "interesting" MCU villain, which is rather surprising at this stage, the film itself left me feeling "meh".

The funny thing is I remember something about the Nova Corps (along with Glenn Close) and one of the infinity stones being kept on whatever planet they were on. Now to me, that would suggest a pretty good setup for Thanos' big introduction in the film, and an early demonstration of Thanos' power. Rather than lamely introducing Thanos in the film having already kicked the remaining Asgardians when they're already down is hardly the same.

Speaking of the use of Thanos in "Infinity War", there's no way you can tell me that his motivation doesn't fly in the face of the "Courting Death" line at the end of Avengers 1, which I believe was from the comic book storyline where he literally wanted to court a female Death (hence killing billions being on the agenda in order to get her attention). Oh well, it was only a after-credits scene, I shouldn't be too hung up on it. Even though it was the audience's introduction to the character to begin with ....

Speaking of lead in's ... I also find it ironic that one of the heroes with the least screen time is Bucky, who was such a big deal in the last Cap movie and got the teaser lead-into this film at the end of Black Panther. All that build-up, and... he barely showed up and then died.

Oh, and -- Tom Holland did a decent enough impression of David Tennant's "I don't want to go" line from Doctor Who.

Oh, I am a cruel one.

Also, I felt that the whole Scarlett Witch/Vision relationship was rushed WAY TOO FAST for this. I vaguely remember that in "Civil War", they were on the cusp something romantic, but nothing considered a solid foundation for a relationship. I get that time has passed, but the lack of on-screen exposition for this relationship left me feeling indifferent. Despite the pairing actually being one of my personal favorites in comic books.

All in all, it is what it is. Another MCU film that continues along with it's successful formula. Nothing groundbreaking.