Wednesday, May 2, 2018

Avengers: Infinity War (2018, PG-13)


No plot spoilers beyond the general premise today – I’ll save my more detailed thoughts for next Marvelous Wednesday.

This is it, the big one of big ones (at least, until the fourth Avengers comes out next year.)  Virtually all the heroes from all the movies in one giant extravaganza ultra-crossover event.  As such, it shares a lot of the hallmarks of a big crossover, for both better and worse.  Ultimately, it’s a crazy ride, by turns entertaining and intense, and I really appreciate the time Marvel took to build up to this.  The previous movies from all the various franchises laid the groundwork to help the spectacle here 1) feel earned and 2) matter.

He’s existed on the edges of the films for a while now, largely in the post-credit scenes (although he has a slightly bigger foray in the first Guardians of the Galaxy,) but now, Thanos is ready to kick things up a notch.  He’s collecting the six Infinity Stones to gain ultimate power and, in his mind, save the universe in the most genocidal-maniac of ways.  It’s serious all hands on deck, and the threat calls for Earth’s mightiest heroes – along with a handful of our favorite MCU aliens – to band together and fight on multiple fronts.

Like Civil War before it, I was a little nervous going in about how well the film was going to balance its ludicrously-enormous cast (seriously, it makes The Hobbit trilogy look intimate,) but I continue to be impressed with the Russo brothers and their team in juggling the many heroes onscreen here.  The characters are mostly divided into several main groups that shift a bit over the course of the film, rather than cramming everyone together in a giant scrum of superpowers (narratively, probably a good move.)  It means certain fan-dream meet-ups don’t happen in this film, but each grouping does include meetings between chararacters who’ve never encountered each other before, mainly by bringing the Guardians, Doctor Strange, and the Wakanda crew into various folds.  And hey, the fourth Avengers is still coming, so we’ve got time on those meet-ups that didn’t happen here!

For the most part, I think the film does a good job with this.  Some characters inevitably have more screentime than others, as they’d have to, and there are some that I wish had gotten to do more (i.e. Cap and Natasha,) but the give-and-take largely feels appropriate for what’s going on.  All of the massive cast turns in fine work, but I’m voting for Chris Hemsworth’s Thor and Tom Holland’s Spidey as the movie’s MVPs, the Guardians make a strong showing in their introduction to the larger central franchise, and not for nothing, this is the first time that I’ve genuinely enjoyed Doctor Strange as a character.

Naturally, the cross-franchise meetings provide many of the film’s highlights.  It reminds me of other crossover events I’ve seen, like the DC-show crossovers on the CW and multi-Doctor stories on Who, because at least 80% of the point of this thing is seeing the different characters interact.  Obviously, it’s very cool to watch all these heroes with their assorted powers and/or gadgets fight alongside each other, and there are plenty of BAMF moments to be had.  And even better than that are simply the meetings:  all the new character combinations, the more grounded characters encountering the more out-there ones, the priceless reactions from characters who, up till now, have been in separate franchises.  The movie absolutely delivers on that front, and it brings the same sort of fandom warm fuzzies as watching Kara and Barry pal around on Supergirl/Flash crossovers or Two and Three snark on each other in “The Three Doctors.”

With so many characters to fit in and so much (justified) emphasis on fanservice-y meet-up elements, story can be an afterthought in crossovers like this.  Overall, I think Infinity War does a better job with that than most – Thanos is an interesting villain, and there are some strong emotional stakes.  That said, while I enjoyed the movie hugely, it doesn’t rank near the best MCU films in terms of story (a la The Winter Soldier, Black Panther, etc.)  There’s some sloppiness, especially in the early part of the film, the plot sometimes relies a bit too much on heroes doing dumb things to keep the plot moving, and to some extent, no final judgment can be made on the film until we see the next one and are able to put it in its full context.

Warnings

Comic book violence, swearing, a little gross-out humor, and strong thematic elements.

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