I love Avengers: Infinity War…
Even though I consider Black Panther to be the best of this year’s Marvel Cinematic Universe crop, I’ve really taken a liking to Avengers: Infinity War. It’s just such a big, jam-packed, layered entry in the MCU that effortlessly manages to explore over twenty characters, many of which previously established through other films, and be this experimental blockbuster with a classic Hero’s Journey narrative… But a villain’s Hero Journey.
This is a $300 million+ blockbuster event movie that tells a story from the bad guy’s perspective, this is a blockbuster that ends on a complete downer, this is a blockbuster with a third act that literally screws with you, building you up and then aggressively pushing you to the floor. Relentlessly, for a good half-hour or so.
If you haven’t seen the movie yet, even though the thing has grossed over $2 billion worldwide, read no further… This is a very spoiler-heavy article…
Marvel Studios, to me, continues to show you how it’s done when it comes to blockbusters. I know I should be fawning over “far superior” films like Mission: Impossible – Fallout (an excellent exercise in pure action cinema in its own right), but I’m going to talk about Infinity War. This, along with Black Panther and a few other recent biggies, is peak live-action/VFX blockbuster. Every couple of months, we have to hear from some actor or director on why these movies are smut, why they’re killing cinema, why they’re never ever – at their greatest – going to be worthy of “true” cinema. I’m more concerned about how people have been viewing and discussing films as of late, or certain ones for that matter. I think Marvel films tend to expose this problem, and Avengers: Infinity War is perhaps a shining example.
Will this movie, and all its storytelling, be all for naught by May 3, 2019? That’s when the next Avengers movie comes out. Make no mistake, Avengers: Infinity War was *always* going to be the Part I of a two-part epic. When Marvel Studios first announced this movie during a special movie reveal event the studio got to book at the El Capitan Theatre some four years ago to a dedicated audience, it was titled Avengers: Infinity War Part I. The movie scheduled for May 3, 2019 was called, obviously, Avengers: Infinity War Part II. A couple years later, Marvel dropped the Part I and Part II subtitles. It was now Avengers: Infinity War and Untitled Avengers Movie. This fourth Avengers in question is still untitled, and we may not learn what it’s called for a little while, even if May 3rd isn’t too far away.
Those who are in the know about the comics and the classic stories figured the first chapter of this two-parter would end on such a shocking cliffhanger. I get the sense that Marvel Studios’ heads either agreed on a better title, or backed off of the whole “Part I/Part II” labelling because of how other studios imitated Warner Bros., for they split the final Harry Potter film – The Deathly Hallows – into two movies labels “Part 1” and “Part 2”. This strategy worked for Twilight and The Hunger Games, but it backfired epically on Divergent. That movie series still isn’t finished, and I don’t think the proposed TV movie version of the “second part” has gotten any traction. Maybe because Divergent‘s third and final book didn’t need to be split into two movies. Lionsgate and everyone involved could’ve saved themselves a lot of trouble by just adapting the third book into one movie.
Marvel obviously needed two movies to tell a story this big, but I think them re-titling the two chapters was very smart. Somewhere along the way, a lot of people forgot that Avengers: Infinity War was still essentially “Part 1.” With the recent reconfirmation that Spider-Man: Far From Home is arriving in July of next year, the same crowd came back. We have to keep hearing how Avengers: Infinity War‘s end ultimately means nothing, for they’ll reverse Thanos’ genocidal snap and bring everybody back!
Whoever is getting a sequel in 2019-2020, yes, obviously they’re coming back. I’m sure Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige is aware that the public knows that Spider-Man really didn’t die. The same goes for Black Panther, Doctor Strange, et al. I bet he’s laughing. You know why that may be so? Who’s to say that Avengers 4 won’t have serious consequences? What if we lose older Avengers? Will reversing Thanos’ snap bring some true repercussions? Will they be unable to go back before the Wakanda battle and resurrect Gamora, Loki, and Heimdall? We don’t know yet, the movie isn’t even out!
My question is… Does it even matter how many Avengers survive Untitled Avengers Film?
You may argue that the deaths and the ending of Avengers: Infinity War won’t hold any meaning. I’m going to stop you right there.
You’re not five steps ahead of Marvel Studios. You’re essentially not “watching” their movies.
What’s the fun in going to see a movie, and only waiting for everything to unroll because you thought it was so predictable? I think some folks are a little too obsessed on what’s happening in these movies, and less on the “why” and “how” parts. I’m on a journey with characters when I watch a movie, I’m not at the very end of the story waiting for them to get there. I didn’t open the book only to go to the very last page. I may very well know how the story ends, but I don’t care about that. I care about how it happens. You remember that old Roger Ebert quote?
“It’s not what a movie is about, it’s how it is about it.”
Who owns Marvel Studios? Disney. You know what Disney often makes? Animated movies where characters seemingly “die” and then get revived in some way or another. In some movies, it feels like an obligatory beat, in better films, it feels like a piece of the story. Think of the last five-or-so minutes of Walt Disney’s first animated feature, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. The Evil Queen, in her haggard form, successfully gets Snow White to eat the poisoned apple. The poison is a spell, one that will put her in eternal slumber – “sleeping death.” The dwarfs don’t know anything about this, so when they find Snow White unconscious, they rightfully assume that she’s dead. They hold her funeral. They all sob. We the audience know that Snow White really isn’t dead and that love’s first kiss can break the curse, but the dwarfs don’t! When they bawl their eyes out, we get misty-eyed because we feel bad for them! We don’t wait on the last page saying “Oh the prince will kiss her awake, this is nothing.”
Disney used a similar ending for Pinocchio, the studio’s second feature. Pinocchio is killed during the climactic escape from Monstro the whale, not put in a “sleeping death,” but actually killed. He’s dead onscreen. Geppetto bawls with the deceased Pinocchio on the bed, but because Pinocchio proved himself, the Blue Fairy turns him into a living, breathing human boy. Again, we feel bad for Geppetto, Jiminy Cricket, and animal companions Figaro and Cleo in the moment. We’re not on the final page saying “Oh the Blue Fairy will turn him into a boy, this is nothing.”
A fake-out death doesn’t necessarily have to be a bad thing. The execution is ultimately what matters. In Avengers: Infinity War, we see the toll the deaths take on the surviving heroes. Tony Stark saw his worst nightmare come true, but in a way that’s far worse than what he envisioned in Avengers: Age of Ultron. He doesn’t come upon dead Avengers, he watches other heroes die while not knowing if anyone else he knows and loves made it. He watches a 16-year-old boy whom he mentored, someone who arguably sees Stark as a father figure, die. Nebula, after dealing with the fact that her sister was killed by her father, saw all the Guardians sans, Rocket and Groot, die. Rocket sees his son-figure Groot die, after losing papa Groot in the first Guardians of the Galaxy movie. Okoye loudly suffers because she watched two of her kings die, one of which right in front of her. Steve Rogers watched Bucky Barnes, whom he strove to protect in the modern age, die for the second time.
Worst of all… Earth’s Mightiest Heroes lost. They failed. They absolutely failed to stop a genocidal maniac from wiping out half of the universe. I’m here for that, I could currently care less right now how Avengers 4 ends. The movie is not out yet, I don’t know if that movie is going to actually kill off some characters while keeping others. What matters to me right now is the moment. Like, is the first half of Avengers 4 going to be set in a half-dead universe? What will the survivors deal with in that movie? What will we see of the folks we didn’t see in Infinity War? How will the likes of Hawkeye, Ant-Man, and their families deal with this event? Avengers: Infinity War wasn’t just about the Avengers stopping Thanos. There were so many other story threads going on in that movie, I highly doubt Marvel Studios will just make Avengers 4 a two-hour breeze about them reversing everything. What else is going to be happening in that movie? Why will it be happening?
In Avengers 4, I want the journey to be rewarding, not just the destination, whatever it may be. I’ll take it all back if Avengers 4 has an unreasonable ending, where the entirety of Infinity War is erased a la Sonic 06, rendering everything in the 2 1/2-hour film pointless. Do you really think Marvel Studios, Kevin Feige, the Russo brothers, and writers Christopher Markus and Steve McFeely would do that? It would be incredibly stupid on their part, if they were to do it… I’m not underestimating them, I’m not going to assume that whole team is that dense. You know why? Because I, the movie viewer, am not five steps ahead of them. What’s with the current climate and people thinking they’re so ahead of these movies and their creators?
I also want to defend the much-criticized sequence where Peter Quill, upon finding out about Gamora’s death, attacks Thanos while the other heroes nearly get the Infinity Gauntlet off of his hand. Think about it. Peter Quill, at a young age, watched his mother die. That same night, he got taken away from his world. He experienced various traumas. He met his real father, only to find out that his real father killed his mother and is a maniac. He had to kill his real father. Quill’s surrogate father sacrificed himself to save Quill, all in front of Quill. Now Quill loses Gamora. Of course he’d react. Did you see how he reacted to Ego revealing to him what happened in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2? Or were you too busy not enjoying that movie because of some other issue you had with it? At the end of the day, these characters are humans. Living beings. With emotions. Sometimes emotions can lead to irrational decisions. Remember how Tony Stark tried so hard, in a blind rage, to kill Bucky and assault Rogers in Captain America: Civil War? Peter Quill is not the villain of Infinity War. He acted out of remorse and anger, and frustratingly, allowed Thanos to ultimately get away.
Or hey… Do you remember that scene where Doctor Strange goes to the future to see 14,000,605 outcomes? You remember how the Avengers win in only *one* of those outcomes? Perhaps it’s all part of the plan. What does Doctor Strange know about Ant-Man’s whereabouts? What does Doctor Strange know about Captain Marvel’s possible return? We certainly don’t know! “It was the only way.”
Now I will address another big complaint… The “SPACE” title card that appears a 1/4 into the film, and the Russo brothers’ obsession with giant-ass title cards. Actually, plot twist, no I won’t. If we’re seriously putting down whole movies over title cards, then we’re too far down this rabbit hole.
I want to talk about the other things that make this movie so good. The film may be Thanos’ movie, but it’s also very much Thor’s movie. Thor’s been through a lot. He’s dealt with a half-brother who gravitates towards evil, he lost his mother to the Dark Elves, his father out-and-out died, his evil sister that he didn’t know about came back from banishment and slaughtered several Asgardians including his friends, same sister also took his eye out, and lead to Thor and his comrades summoning a hellish monster to destroy the elaborate city of Asgard in order to save all the people. At the end of Thor: Ragnarok, there was hope. The surviving Asgardians and a reformed Loki were on a big ship, heading for a new home, what could possibly go wrong???
Following the slaughter of many more Asgardians in Infinity War‘s opening sequence, and the brutal deaths of Heimdall and Loki, Thor now is without anything, lost with a crew he doesn’t even know. Thor hatches a revenge plan that could very well stop Thanos, and even when it seems he has succeeded, he makes one small misstep that… If corrected, could’ve saved the entire universe. Thor apparently aimed specifically for Thanos’ chest because he wanted to stick it to the Mad Titan before offing him, not knowing he had all six stones and could snap at any minute. “You should’ve gone for the head” indeed. Why didn’t Thor get demonized for his revenge-driven muck-up, and not Peter Quill? Even then, Thor is still human for making mistakes.
The movie updates us, without fuss, on what’s going on with everyone else. Tony Stark and Steve Rogers still aren’t on speaking terms, and throughout the whole movie, Tony never interacts with any of the classic Avengers team except Bruce Banner, and even that is only in the opening sequence. Tony only works with Team Iron Man, Doctor Strange, and some of the Guardians in the movie. Never does he reunite with Steve Rogers, never does he see the rest of the group. A lot of us wondering what that reunion will be like in Avengers 4. I know I sure am looking forward to that component of the story.
What else are we up to speed on? Bruce Banner can’t unleash the Hulk anymore, Wanda Maximoff’s relationship with Vision continues, Black Widow and Falcon operate under Captain America, Bucky Barnes is cleared up in Wakanda, Spider-Man ditches his field trip (“you can’t be a friendly neighborhood Spider-Man if there’s no neighborhood”), Hawkeye and Ant-Man are under house arrest (of course we see more of that in the very fun Ant-Man and The Wasp), Rhodey continues to operate under Stark, the Guardians go about their daily lives. The film heavily explores Gamora’s relationship with Thanos, treading some rough waters that superhero films supposedly can’t approach. Through these scenes, we see what kind of evil Thanos is. He isn’t some cackling menace out to destroy for fun. He’s truly convinced that genocide will make the universe better. He could very well use the Infinity Stones to double resources and help people, but he’d rather waste such awesome power on killing trillions. Even though he captured and abused his daughters, he genuinely loves Gamora. That’s what I found so scary about this character. He has good intentions, but a horrific idea of how to help the universe, and loves those whom he makes suffer. Much different from the comics Thanos, who was doing all of this to impress a woman. Much different from many other superhero movie villains, too. He sacrifices everything on his end to get his way, and ultimately his success is very unfulfilling.
This is a movie where everybody loses. What other big budget blockbuster genre films have that sort of conclusion? I know there’s a few out there that escape me at the moment, but this is a rare breed…
Running at roughly 149 minutes long, Avengers: Infinity War often juggles all of this stuff so wonderfully. In some brief stretches, it’s a little uneven, but what could one expect from a film this gargantuan? The action is never short of thrills. The film is shot beautifully, and it’s very very nice to look at. Marvel’s movies have gotten prettier in the recent years, most likely because Kevin Feige broke the studio off from Marvel Entertainment proper and its penny-pinching CEO, making for movies with lovely colors, nice cinematography, and great scores. Alan Silvestri’s score in particular is among the best of the series’ music. The pacing is, for the most part, just right. The film is also sharp in its balancing of humor and dead-serious weight, with just enough thrills to make it all come together. Marvel Studios really did pull out all of the stops here, they brought their all…
Avengers: Infinity War may not be the greatest Marvel Cinematic Universe film, or among the greatest superhero films, but aside from being one hell of an achievement, it is a such a layered, textured adventure. It doesn’t just fill the role MCU movies are usually expected to fill, it has so much going on and yet never feels too overstuffed. The best of The Avengers movies, a massive galactic adventure about twenty or so characters, and a new favorite of mine…
