AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR (PART ONE) Review

Avengers: Infinity War (2018)

A Review By Ben Hunter

4 Out Of 5 Stars

GET TO THE POINT BEN!

Great time this go round. But in the spirit of seeing the bigger picture, I see dark horizons.

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“’Commencement’, the end of one thing, the start of something new.” –Norman Osborne

The end draws neigh of the current phase of Marvel’s cinematic universe. The heroes we know and love are slowly passing the torch to the new ones to take us into the new shared universe of heroes and heroines.

With the introduction of The Guardians of the Galaxy, we’ve come to know “Thanos”, a dark lord of villains, stepfather to Gamora of the Guardians (Zoe Saldana). His quest for more power puts the entire universe together, everyone is affected, so every hero we’ve come to know and love has to work together to save the day. Even those still in the atmosphere of the recent civil war.

Thanos (Josh Brolin), the villain of all villains with some of the infinity stones. 

This next installment brings about new concerns for the future of superhero movies. How to keep the torch bright having transferred possession, if a new direction is necessary, and if such direction can help competing universe Warner Bros./DC Comics.

It’s come to mind, and newly revealed to me, that Marvel is creating a hole for themselves by connecting everything together, creating “homework” for people who don’t want to have to go back and revisit things from 2, 3, 5 years ago; when they just want to go see something good this moment and then move onto the next film of whatever genre but then come back to the next superhero installment and scratch their heads on what happened again because they don’t follow this stuff extensively like us geeks. Or that Marvel may have shot themselves in the foot with Ant-Man, Captain Marvel, and anything else that debuts before Infinity War pt. 2 because, “who cares, *insert ending of the film here*!” But the film was good nonetheless. The aforementioned take place before the events of The Infinity War, but my point still stands. So if the character and plot developments are there, then we won't have this problem. The fact that Marvel’s done a great job building these characters up to this point is the reason why this film was great. Not perfect, but by now we all know who these people are and care when they’re in jeopardy.

Gamora (Zoe Saldana), daughter of Thanos, torn between her integrity and her family. 

I do think this is more proof why Guardians isn’t as magnificent as everyone and their mother makes it out to be (same goes for but not as much with the sequel). This confirms all the more for me that this property was a major let down as this could've been the central key component and MOST IMPORTANT PART of this entire 10 year first set of installments in the MCU. Instead, as I will defend to the death now more than ever, that the Guardian films are no more than just regular, run of the mill, action flicks that need more development of these characters to TRULY knock it out of the ballpark. But fun nonetheless. Thoroughly delving into Thanos & Gamora's relationship in a previous Guardians film (not skimming the surface and giving us the bare minimum as in the first film) would’ve driven the point home and had us in tears, completely HEART BROKEN, in this film (Infinity War) when both Thanos & Gamora are in tears in their heartfelt scenes together. You don’t really care all that much about the conflict with Thanos & Gamora, even with her explanation of him being cold hearted when that wasn’t the case. But this is explained in the film but not truly delivered in the film had Marvel done the work to properly unravel all this in a previous Guardians installment.

With that said, all the characters have some kind of back story that we’ve tapped into before, which the average person made an effort to see when it was time. Thus, Marvel not having to bank on building anything up for this one (with the exception of Thanos and The Guardians as this is a Thanos movie as the protagonist). It was still a great film. I think it’ll get complicated in the future and a stand-alone shared universe with separate stories under the same roof is the better route to take (which gives me hope for the restoration of the DCEU!). With a team up film here and there to then for everyone to go back to their own worlds for us to tap into at that point and see what’s happening in X’s world today or Y’s world tomorrow. So, we’ll see what happens. For now, this moment, this film, I had a fun time at the movies, mission accomplished.

Some of the Guardians with Iron Man & Spider-Man, but much more is needed to take on Thanos!

Avengers: Infinity War (2018)

Action/Adventure, 149 Minutes, PG-13

Screenplay By: Christopher Markus & Stephen McFreely

Directed By: Anthony Russo & Joe Russo

Cast: Robert Downey Jr., Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, Don Cheadle, Benedict Cumberbatch, Tom Holland, Chadwick Boseman, Zoe Saldana, Karen Gillan, Tom Hiddleston, Paul Bettany, Elizabeth Olsen, Anthony Mackie, Sebastian Stan, Idris Elba, Danai Gurira, Peter Dinklage, Benedict Wong, Pom Klementieff, Dave Bautista, Vin Diesel, Bradley Cooper, Gwyneth Paltrow, Benecio Del Toro, with Josh Brolin, & Chris Pratt