AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR IS THE BEST SUPERHERO MOVIE EVER MADE
SPOILER WARNING: I’m spoiling this movie in a way that should offend people.
The reason why Avengers: Infinity War works is because Marvel cares about its fans, but not enough to baby-sit them. We see the massive poster. We see all the characters that are going to be in the film. If we aren’t ready and prepared for dozens of different characters and all the plot-lines and relationships that are entangled with them, then, hey, maybe we shouldn’t go see it. The responsibility to understand the lore of the Marvel Universe falls at the feet of the fans, where it belongs. Would an average movie goer, who has never seen a Marvel movie, like the new Avengers? Probably not. And who cares? If you can’t be bothered to watch all the Marvel movies multiple times then what good are you?
Avengers: Infinity War feels like a new type of summer blockbuster. It’s a movie grand in scale, with jokes and relationships and concepts that are rooted from a dozen (literally a dozen) movies that have come before it. All the previous work of building backstories and motivations and needs of characters is now boiled down to the very essence of an idea. A big purple dude is coming to murder half the universe and the good guys need to stop him. Unlike the previous movies, the good guys fail horribly, resulting in a punch in the gut so hard that I witnessed pre-teens sobbing like they saw their grandparents get hit by a truck. This movie is bold and unapologetic, just like a comic book movie should be.
Avengers: Infinity War begins with Thor and the Asgardian refugees. Thanos has attacked the ship and he and his Black Order have seemingly murdered scores. This will put a very sour taste in the mouth of anyone that liked Thor: Ragnorak. Where once we thought the people of Asgard were safe, we now know that they just whisked towards another doom. We quickly understand that the movie is going to be a different kind of crazy when the Hulk comes rushing onto the screen, bashing and wrecking Thanos into a wall. Hulk has always been the unbeatable brute, the one that we look to when we need raw power. So it’s jarring when Thanos beats the shit out of the Hulk and body-slams him into the metal floor. All our preconceptions are trashed just like the Hulk and we realize, with the murder of Hemdell and Loki, that no one is safe and everyone is at risk.
With a movie this massive, the best way to handle the bloated cast is to try and ignore them. Yeah, the Avengers are around and they are going to be doing all sorts of hero stuff. That’s fine. The central focus of this film, however, is Thanos. We never really understood who he was and this movie does a superb job of making a realistic character out of a ten-foot tall purple CGI creation. Thanos believes that the only way to save life in the universe is to cut the population of it in half. This is way not what the comics made him out to be, some weird guy that is in love with Mistress Death. There is no way that a Marvel movie is going to animate a CGI representation of Death, so giving Thanos a motivation based on theoretical universal-scale culling seems fine. Thanos has obviously become warped from his years of murdering and killing to obtain power. His sole desire to “save” the universe has turned him insane, making his actions in the movie rational but warped. Thanos is a doctor that wants to cure a patient’s cancer by cutting off the infected limbs. There also seems to be a need in Thanos that the struggle itself has become the sole purpose. I know what obsessing over something can feel like. It becomes this need that you know makes no sense, yet you strive for it anyway. Thanos wants to kill trillions of people, yes. He also wants to be the one who actually does it, making him probably one of the only cinematic villains with superpowers based off of obsessive compulsive disorder. The relationship between Gamora and Thanos is easily the most interesting, resulting in the most affecting death. Thanos tosses her into a miles-deep pit so he can obtain the Soul Gem from the Red Skull (Fam, it is a whole thing! I told you this movie is wild!). The movie barely shoe-horns in a situation where Thanos has to sacrifice the one person he loves in order for him to achieve his ultimate goal. The fact that he actually does it reflects how sick he is. What’s the point of saving the universe from itself if we lose the very thing that makes living so important? The movie makes us do that work. There is barely any room for dialogue here, let alone nuance. What little time we do have to contemplate Thanos’s inhumanity is used up far too quickly because we have superheroes that need some time in the sun, too.
And, yes, Avengers: Infinity War gives almost every one of our super-friends a moment to be a badass. Thor’s journey to forge StormBreaker takes far too long. When he does get it, however, he makes the best entrance in the whole movie. Spider-man steals the screen every time he has a scene, flipping and swinging in a way that is far more impressive than in his own film. Dr. Strange, a lackluster character in his own flick, is easily the most interesting to watch as he goes toe-to-toe with Thanos in a fight of the mystic arts. The best scene in the movie, however, is a subtle one, with Steve Rogers and T’Challa running full steam into battle together, leaving the normies far far behind. Seeing the two of them run at a full clip together like that made me so happy that this movie existed. Even in a movie this size, most of the heroes get a few minutes to show how amazing they are. The fight on Titan with Thanos going against Ironman, Dr. Strange, Spider-man and half the Guardians of the Galaxy is particularly good, with Tony Starks showing all of us why Ironman has always been a force in the movies.
Sadly, though, Thanos is the only villain in the movie that feels worth our time and attention. The Black Order is terrible in this film. And when I say, “Terrible,” I mean that there could be way better villains for the Avengers to fight. Why Marvel gave us four characters that no one really knows is a mystery. When the Black Order shows up, I have no interest in seeing how Marvel is translating them from comic to film because they are so generic that I barely care. It doesn’t matter anyway because the Black Order all get killed by the end of the movie, revealing that no one thought they were even worth returning in future films.
Speaking of problems. A movie this titanic tried to give all the heroes some love, but Captain America, Falcon, the Black Widow, and the Winter Soldier really don’t get much screen time. The Hulk never appears again after he got his ass kicked at the beginning of the movie, even when Banner begs him too. This made some people mad, but I think it’s a good way to show the complex Banner/Hulk relationship. Plus, did we even really have room to do the Hulk justice? This movie is large in every way possible and not all the gang is going to get a shout-out. The only thing we can hope is that they get some more attention next year in the finale.
Of course, no review would be complete without talking about the best comic book movie ending that has ever been made. Thanos rips the Mind gem out of Vision’s head, tossing his dead robot body to the side, and plants the Mind gem into the gauntlet. Then Thor’s brand-new StormBreaker rips into Thanos’s chest. Thanos is mortality wounded and Thor stands over him, victory in sight. Then Thanos says, “You should have went for the hand” and snaps his fingers. Thanos opens a portal and disappears. Then, the Winter Soldier stumbles and his body turns to ash. One by one, characters we’ve grown to love and know for almost a decade begin to die in front of us. Black Panther. Starlord. Drax. The Scarlet Witch. Falcon. One after the other, people’s bodies scatter with the wind. Even pour Peter Parker, new to the game, falls to the ground, dying on an alien world. Peter’s last words are an apology to Tony Starks, telling the Iron Avenger that he was sorry that he didn’t do enough.
The ending to Avengers: Infinity War will be talked about for a generation, much like how fans obsessed over the classic reveal in the Matrix. We rarely get a movie that takes everything that we expect and dumps it on the floor and steps on it. We don’t get a nice happy ending here where everything is answered and we go home, satisfied that justice is done. No. We have to wait a full year to find out how, and if, our heroes come back to us. Is this a blatant ploy by Disney to get me to go see another Avengers movie in a year? Yes. Did it work? Yes. Will capitalism kill us all and leave us with a vast wasteland that is uninhabitable? Probably. I agree that this sort of emotional manipulation is unhealthy and can be regarded as a cheap trick. Of course all the heroes that “died” at the end of the movie are going to come back. Of course they are! There is no way they are making another Black Panther without T’Challa. And what? No Spider-man for the next Spider-man that is lined up? No one seriously thinks that the ending is permanent. But. But. What if it is? What if Marvel really is washing the slate clean and we are witnessing a real paradigm shift? Wong as the lead role of the slated Dr. Strange movie? Miles Morales for the next Spider-man, maybe? Shuri as the new Black Panther? Maybe? Probably not. But a guy can dream.
