Ten years and Eighteen Films later, we now have Infinity War. This is the culmination of everything they've done and what I love about it is it seems like this was the plan all along.
To the surprise of no one, I saw this movie twice over opening weekend. Then I had a great conversation with all my friends about it. Still, I needed a few more days to fully decompress and get my feelings right.
Oh, I've spent two small paragraphs without saying how I felt about the movie. I loved it. This was like a big comic book crossover, brought to life on the big screen.
Gun to my head, in all honesty, it would be forth on my personal favorite Marvel films list. This isn't a bad thing, I just liked my three movies better. For the curious, that ranking is Black Panther, Captain America: Winter Soldier and Guardians of the Galaxy.
What impressed me about this movie is that it accomplished two things that can be difficult. It felt like there were real consequences to what was happening. The other thing is that this movie manages to juggle like thirty characters and does it in a way that the movie flowed very well. I'm surprised that it didn't get crushed under the weight of it.
At this point, I should mention that there might be spoilers. I will do my best to not give away too much, but some things I will have to comment on.
Where to begin without giving away too much? I really liked the pairing of characters that we get. In comic books, it's always great to see characters that have never met get thrown into a situation to fight a big threat. It's throwing your typical team dynamics into a potential pressure cooker. This is comic book 101 and it is done expertly here. What is impressive though, is that they paired up characters that fit together tonally. For instance, you get Tony Stark, Iron Man and Spider-Man in one group. Seeing Tony and Strange play off each other, you realize how similar they are in some ways, yet also different. You get two alpha males and a kid that is still figuring it all out.
Tom Holland is still great as Spider-Man. I hope they keep him around for a long time. Also, it feels like Benedict Cumberbatch has lost that weird American accent he used in his own movie. Thank goodness.
Another pairing we get is Thor with the Guardians of the Galaxy, which was another team up that worked. Their brand of comedy meshed well. Again, this was a great thing to see.
In fact, to tie this up, it was great to see all the actors/characters on screen in all the different permutations.
Before I go any further, for a movie this big, you need a great villain. I am glad to say that now that we finally see Thanos for more than 5 seconds, he is the perfect antagonist at the perfect time. They had to change his origin a bit, but at the end of the day, he was a great and they played him perfectly. I have said this before, but my favorite kind of villain is the one that thinks they are the hero in their own story. In this movie, he had a clear motivation for what he was doing. It's a warped way of thinking, but he had a plan and truly thought he was making the universe better.
Also, they did a great job with the CG on Thanos. Sometimes you truly forget he's not a real person. It's clear where some of the money went.
Another particular thing that speaks to my soul is watching fight scenes where the heroes are fighting together with various team up moves. If there is one thing that gets me in a team movie, it's synchronized moves. With stakes this high, it is good to see the heroes fighting together, not apart. Same goes for the villains.
Speaking of which, we don't get any background on Thanos' Black Order, which is okay. They are mini-bosses for the heroes to fight, so they serve their purpose.
There are specific moments in this movie where I either let out an audible, "YES!" or I was so excited I got goosebumps. One moment is when we first see Captain America. Another is watching Spider-Man swing into battle. I can't say when, because that would be spoiling. There is also a moment where you see Captain America and Black Panther running into battle and as they turn on the jets, it's a cool visual to see them leading the charge into a battle (that I am trying hard to not reveal).
I will say, that if you do not like quips, you would hate this movie. The quips are all over the place. As the movie goes along, you will see this is very necessary as this movie is extraordinarily dark. We need those moments of levity. If you haven't heard anything about this movie, the ending will be a huge gut punch.
Before I end this review, since we had to follow a lot of characters, we get to see a lot of different locales and they were all different while being distinct.
As you can see, I clearly had a lot to say about this movie and yet I feel like I didn't really talk about anything. I did this for YOU, dear reader. I wish I could get into more specifics, but I don't think the statute of limitations has passed yet.
