***WARNING – MAJOR SPOILERS WITHIN***
At one point I had planned to write my review of Avengers: Infinity War without including any spoilers. That point was decidedly before I saw the absurd and unbelievable ending, in which Marvel does the unthinkable and shatters the expectations many – myself included – had both before and throughout the film’s events about who would survive and who wouldn’t.
Ironically, the Hulk is never spotted on Earth, so this image (taken from the trailer) is pretty disingenuous.
But outside of the gonzo ending, Avengers: Infinity War is in most respects exactly what you’d expect, and if you’re showing up at the theater to watch it, it’s exactly what you want: non-stop breathless action scenes punctuated by bananas CGI-fueled setpieces, featuring about a billion characters who only have enough dialogue to toss in a couple of zippy one-liners dripping with wit here and there. While I’m not out to disparage the cast, who have all clearly done what’s been asked of them (and in some cases, done more), it’s a pretty easy gig for them. They’ve all (far too many to waste time naming) played these characters, and now the goal is to just mush them all together, and their biggest job is simply to show up. They all certainly do, some more briefly than others, but at the end of the day, it’s undeniably satisfying to see the Avengers working together with the Guardians of the Galaxy, regardless of any sort of acting prowess or lack thereof.
Another image from the trailer. Not gonna lie, I’m still a little mad at Star-Lord, as this is mostly his fault.
The story of Infinity War is exactly fine in my book. It doesn’t make a whole lot of groundbreaking choices, but it plods at a reasonable pace, with the plot being moved along primarily by the critical mistakes of a choice few protagonists (looking at you, Star Lord, you colossal buffoon). We maintain the split-crew configuration featured in Captain America: Civil War, with Iron Man, Dr. Strange, Spider-Man, Drax, Star-Lord, and Mantis protecting the Time Stone and fighting Thanos on Titan, while Steve Rogers (formerly Captain America, now possible Nomad), Bucky Barnes (formerly the Winter Soldier, now possibly White Wolf), Black Panther, Black Widow, War Machine, Falcon, Scarlet Witch, and the Hulk fight Thanos’ minions and protect Vision and the Mind Stone in Wakanda. There are also a number of floaters amongst multiple crews, namely Thor, Rocket Raccoon, Groot, Gamora, and Nebula. Omnipresent and in the midst of all the hubbub, though, is Thanos, the supposedly mega-powerful supervillain we’ve been teased with for literal years in post-credits scenes galore. As a Marvel antagonist, he certainly doesn’t disappoint, keeping the MCU’s bad-guy hot streak going with a decently convincing motivation and a frightening amount of sheer power, displayed especially at the end of the film. The good guys may have finally met their match with this one.
Thanos – basically a purple Josh Brolin with gigantic arms/hands and a really weird chin. Menacing.
In any case, what results from all the noise is a film that’s doubtlessly worthy of the ten-year buildup and the estimated $320 million price tag, even without considering the jaw-dropping ending. It embodies a culmination of a generational phenomenon that’s similar to the final Harry Potter movie, and its scope is (dare I say) similar to Justice League, given that at one point you have Spider-Man (a relatively grounded MCU member) fighting alien creatures in deep space and on Titan, and that’s just one example. The difference, though, is that Marvel has taken the time and done the due diligence to build each character up before mashing them together and dropping them into such an earth-shattering scenario, and by virtue of both that and its much lighter tone, it clearly succeeds in places Justice League didn’t. What I will say, though, is that Infinity War did leave me slightly longing for a more grounded and traditional Marvel adventure without so many faces to keep track of. Maybe it’s silly to give the MCU credit for making me want to see even more of their future comparatively more subdued movies, so I won’t. With that said, if that was indeed their backwards plan…it worked.
Spider-Man (Iron Spider) in space!
The good news – we won’t have long to wait to figure out what happened to all the folks lost in The Snappening, as the yet-untitled Avengers 4 is set to drop on May 3rd, 2019. In the meantime, we have Ant-Man and The Wasp coming later this summer (perhaps Marvel’s cruelest joke of all is using Infinity War to dramatically increase my minuscule interest in seeing that seemingly already-played-out hero story; now I need to see where he lands in all the chaos), and then in March of 2019 we have Captain Marvel, which is apparently poised to take place in the 90’s and assumedly set the stage properly for a character who is evidently – according to Nick Fury and Maria Hill’s brief post-credits stinger – supposed to swoop in and save everyone. While there are a number of rumors swirling about Avengers 4 (including but not limited to talk of time travel, Soulworld, and the Quantum Realm), we’ll just have to wait and see how the surviving heroes can manage to undo what’s been done.
Oh you know, just a talking raccoon, a sentient tree, and a one-eyed demi-god on their way to attempt to reignite a neutron star to forge an all-powerful axe. Welcome to the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Because let’s face it – those who are “dead” aren’t truly gone. More specifically, while Gamora and Loki are likely out of the picture for good, all who kicked the bucket by quietly turning to dust in Infinity War‘s last five minutes I’d say are all extremely likely to return, especially Marvel’s new poster boys King T’Challa and Spiderman (who, among others, already have future solo installments confirmed). This theory is heavily bolstered by Dr. Strange’s telling Tony Stark that “there was no other way” before fading into whatever shadow realm all of those characters entered. Having used the Eye of Agamotto (read: the Time Stone) to view just over 14 million conflict scenarios with Thanos, and having only found one possible future to be victorious for the good guys, the assumption is that Dr. Strange knew what he was doing when he gave up the Time Stone to Thanos to spare Iron Man’s life – something he had expressly proclaimed earlier in film that he would never do. All of this boils down to a few strong suggestions:
1.) Tony Stark needed to survive for the Avengers and Co. to succeed in defeating Thanos, and therefore he’ll play an instrumental (and perhaps final) role in Avengers 4.
2.) As a corollary to Suggestion 1, Dr. Strange’s vision of the future must have shown that our heroes must first lose a battle before they can win the war.
3.) Thanos is super screwed, though it’s unclear how. Captain Marvel must be pretty dang powerful.
Lots of combined brainpower here. And Wong.
If I were to lay money down on who I thought would survive Avengers 4 (and/or return from the shadow realm, as I’ve been calling it), I’d bet on pretty much everyone who departed at the end of Infinity War, along with a chosen few of the people left behind (namely Black Widow, who is slated for her own film). I still see Iron Man, Captain America, and Thor as most likely to shuffle off their mortal coils – due to both contracts and character arcs – but Marvel has taken my presuppositions regarding the Infinity War and subverted them beautifully (they really toyed with me with Iron Man in particular, basically killing him in the manner we all expected and then saving him at the last second), so at this point I’d say anything is still on the table. We’ll see soon enough.
Check out Avengers: Infinity War (currently in theaters literally everywhere) if you haven’t already, though if you’ve read to this point and haven’t yet seen it, you’ve been hella spoiled. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
Tuesdays with Cory 