Review: Avengers - Infinity War (SPOILERS)

I'm not a fan of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but this week I decided to give "Infinity War" a go. I have seen a handful of MCU movies before, so I was not lost in terms of the overall plot at any point I knew who most of the characters were.

For reference, the Marvel Films I've seen prior to this are: "Thor", "Antman", "Dr. Strange", both of the "Guardians of the Galaxy" movies and "Civil War."  Of those I loved Antman and enjoyed the Guardians (which are more Space Western Adventures than Superhero movies, which is why I liked them) and thought Thor was fine aside from the shallow nature of Jane's attraction to Thor.

My review then is from the perspective of someone who is familiar with the franchise but not a fan. I say this because otherwise I'm worried perceived opinions on IW will come down to "well, fans loved it but non-fans were confused and didn't like it." I'm not a fan, but I was not confused either.

So, here are my thoughts, looking at 1) the villain/threat, 2) the story and 3) the execution of the action as these are three areas that jumped at me either positively or negatively.

Thanos is a good villain conceptually and motivationally. He was compelling and enjoyable as an antagonist, and a character. Visually he left much to be desired, with his overly thick legs and awkward steps inspiring amusement rather than awe. Thanos is literally, a big bad. Which means that while he is a compelling villain he was not a fear-inspiring villain. Nor was the threat he posed ever made to feel real. The most interesting aspect of his threat is the motivation, namely his belief that he is doing the right thing. But the actual carrying out of said threat is medicore and lacks any punch. At the end, there is no real feeling of panic when everyone starts dying because we already have things like reversing time from Dr. Strange.  You can't fake kill characters throughout the film (like the Guardians at one point, Thor, and Stark), and then suddenly expect me to take the ending seriously.

The story itself is fine, if pretty simple. It uses the classic Mcguffin story device but it's not a bad use of said device, just not a great one either. I enjoyed the parts with Thor, and most of the Guardians. The Wakanda scenes felt very shoehorned in with lots of emotion being implicated that probably only packs a punch if you've seen Black Panther. That whole side of the story was just boring to me.
I wish the timeline was longer. The events of the movie seemed to transpire over the course of a few days at best. Which made the collecting of the stones feel like a video game quest instead of a hunt for power. I would have found it more interesting if Thanos already had all but two stones at the beginning (those being Visions and Dr. Strange's), acquires Vision's right of the bat (#RIPVision) and then we spend the rest of the movie with him fighting for the one stone. It raises the stakes and gives focus to the action.

Looking at the action, it was pretty typical Superhero action sequences. Which is to say, uninspired and video-gamey. The formula is obvious, and it's basically just people throwing other people against walls but nobody is ever really hurt and you can always count on Superhero B to jump in when Villian X is about to kill Superhero A, with a flare of epic music.  The one action moment of actual tension is when Scarlet Witch has to hold back Thanos while destroying the Infinity Stone in Vision's forehead. Yet this was only full of tension until I remembered that Thanos had the Time stone so that whole sacrifice meant literally nothing.


If you like Marvel you will undoubtedly enjoy this simply because you love these characters and presumably by this point don't care or notice the lack of weight and creativity in the action scenes. So have fun with it, but if I were to pick a Superhero movie to watch twice it would be Logan, not Infinity War. Anyways, my two cents. I plan to review "Solo" in a couple of weeks when that comes out, so stay tuned.