Avengers: Infinity War

Alright everyone, I got to see “Avengers: Infinity War,” which came out three days ago, at work last night, so now I will let everyone know what I thought about it. My goodness, has it been a decade already? Time does pass by quickly. Christopher Orr said in his review, “It seems like only a couple of Marvel movies ago that the original Avengers—Cap, Iron Man, Thor, Black Widow, Hulk, Hawkeye—were duking it out with Tony Stark’s high-end, ill-advised kitchenware Ultron and his shiny utensil-minions. But actually—trust me, and take a deep breath—that was eight Marvel movies ago. Feeling old yet?”

When Bruce Banner aka the Hulk, reprised by Mark Ruffalo, appears early in the movie, he has some catching up to do. (If you remember he spent many years as a gladiator fighter which he showed off in “Thor: Ragnarok.”) At one part, once he has been told of the events from “Captain America: Civil War,” Banner asks, “The Avengers broke up? Like a band? Like the Beatles?” Later, he’s still more doubtful at the recruitment of not one, but two new Marvel heroes: “There’s an Ant-Man and a Spider-Man?” You can’t blame the guy for not knowing all of this.

Never has the Marvel Cinematic Universe looked more like a universe, both good and bad. Orr said, “Infinity War—the title is almost too apt—is a narrative juggling act the likes of which I’m not sure I’ve ever seen before.” It is not really a perfect movie, but it might be close to the best movie it could have been. Orr mentioned, “There are a few unforced errors—a late defeat-snatched-from-the-jaws-of-victory moment, the ongoing Iron Man–ification of Spidey’s “suit”—but the film’s number of actual missteps is a tiny fraction of the potential missteps inherent in an undertaking this vast.”

Orr continues, “I could try to name all the MCU characters who make appearances in the film, but I’d just wind up leaving a few out, and then we’d all feel bad.” Let’s not start with that, but instead go for the easier one: Hawkeye, Ant-Man, Valkyrie, Nakia and Agent Everett Ross are not in the movie. Orr said, “My guess is that most of the random bystanders from the various Avengers dustups in New York, Sokovia, and Lagos don’t make appearances either. And … well, after that, I’m stumped. Now I’ll just feel doubly bad for leaving out someone whom the movie already left out.”

The story, which Marvel has been building up too for the past decade, is about six “infinity stones” created during the Big Bang and sent all around the universe. (This is told to us by Wong, reprised by Benedict Wong, the magical partner of Dr. Strange. Please try to comprehend everything.)

By far the reigning of the villains we have yet met, Thanos, played by Josh Brolin, believes that if he can get all six stones and put them in his “infinity gauntlet,” he will be able to destroy half of the human population with a snap of his fingers. Why does he want to do that? Orr said, “Well, consider Thanos the most enthusiastic—and unfortunately, also the most super-powered—disciple of Thomas Robert Malthus, who argued that appetites would always outstrip resources, leaving humankind perpetually poor and famished. Malthus, as a cleric, offered this thesis as an argument for less “vice,” later marriages, and greater celibacy.” Thanos, as an all-powerful giant purple extraterrestrial villain, arrives at an alternative argument for more intergalactic murder. (It is, in its way, a simple supply/demand negotiation.)

Orr said, “I should note here that if the central flaw of many Marvel movies to date has been the relative lameness of their villains—Ronan the Accuser? Malekith the Dark Elf?—Thanos is very much in the studio’s top tier. He’s no Erik “Killmonger” Stevens, with his problematic but hard-earned racial politics, or Loki, with his wicked yet adorable mischief, but he’s only a notch below them.”

Despite still being nascent, and often misused, motion-capture is coming to a point where it can be up to movie potential. Gollum from “Lord of the Rings,” Caesar of the “Planet of the Apes” reboot: For a time, it looked like Andy Serkis, the archetypal motion capture person, had any sense of how to bring that to the screen. However, Brolin as Thanos is a surprisingly significant villain, who has sadness and even a touch of honor. Orr said, “Deranged though it may be, his population-control rationale for mass murder is actually an upgrade from the comics, in which he mostly wanted to kill trillions in order to earn a date with the female embodiment of Death.”

I know I’m this far into the review and I have only mentioned Hulk of the Marvel heroes that are a part of the largest superhero movies. That is the trouble with Marvel now. Let’s try to separate it by groups: We first have Thor (Chris Hemsworth), God of Thunder, and the other Asgardians, including his adopted brother, Loki (Tom Hiddleston), and Heimdall (Idris Elba). Then are the Guardians of the Galaxy: Peter Quill aka Star-Lord (Chris Pratt), Gamora (Zoe Saldana), Drax (Dave Bautista), Rocket (Bradley Cooper), Groot (Vin Diesel), Nebula (Karen Gillan) and Mantis (Pom Klementieff).

On Earth – don’t worry, the movie jumps around from the groups – the original Avengers: Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), Captain America (Chris Evans), Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) and Banner, along with the more-recent members Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen), Vision (Paul Bettany), War Machine (Don Cheadle) and Falcon (Anthony Mackie), and the new members Spider-Man (Tom Holland), Dr. Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) and the recuperated Bucky Barns aka Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan). Let’s not forget Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman) and most of his Wakandan tribe (Danai Gurira and Letitia Wright).

The new people are Thanos’s henchmen, the Black Order, whose names will want you to go see the movie: Ebony Maw (Tom Vaughan-Lawlor), Proxima Midnight (Carrie Coon), Corvus Glaive (Michael James Shaw) and Cull Obsidian (Terry Notary). Finally, for those who are still reading, Peter Dinklage as Eitri, the last of the race of “dwarves” who made Thor’s mighty hammer Mjolnir – the joke, obviously, being that Eitri is 20 feet tall. What's surprising is that Hugo Weaving has a short part in here as Red Skull.

Orr said, “The writers, Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, and the co-directors, Anthony and Joe Russo (all four of whom also worked on the last two Captain America movies), take this gargantuan cast and bang them off one another like super-powered billiard balls, arranging and disassembling duos, trios, and quartets at will.” Is it a coincidence that they enjoy inserting them against each other to funny effect? Of course not! Quill is jealous of Thor, especially when he sees Drax having a man-crush on him. (“It’s like a pirate had a baby with an angel,” Drax says.) Then we have Stark who is obviously going to be aggravated by his almost-doppelganger in Dr. Strange, even if Strange says probably the best comic book insult of all time when he asks, of Stark’s protégé, Peter Parker: “What is he, your ward?”

Orr said, “Hemsworth gets to prove the comic chops he suggested in Thor: Ragnarok by teaming up largely with the space-raccoon Rocket (whom he consistently mistakes for a rabbit), though thank goodness the latter is prevented from finishing the Pulp Fiction–inflected story of how he smuggled out a new eye for Thor. There are jokes about Aliens and Footloose, and even an Easter egg from the great Arrested Development, of which the Russos directed many episodes.”

Orr continued, “But lest anyone get the impression that Infinity War is just another example of the increasingly comic tenor evident in comic-book fare, I should warn that it is also Marvel’s most somber movie.” There has been a lot of talk that major characters might die, and that talk is not unused.

If Marvel learned anything from Joss Whedon, who directed the first two Avengers films, it was that you kill off characters at the right moment of their most likable – and often, romantic – weakness. Again, no coincidence that the movie is at its peak to remind us in the beginning on its many couples: Tony Stark and Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow), Natasha Romanoff and Bruce Banner, Star-Lord and Gamora, Scarlet Witch and Vision, and, let’s face it, though theirs is a sibling love rather than a couple one and definitely labels as “love-hate,” Thor and Loki. (Sorry, Jane Foster: You were always second place.) Orr said, “To be very, very, very clear: I am not saying that any of these characters die in the movie; rather that the brothers Russo are quite consciously setting things up such that, if any of them do, we will feel it.”

There’s also been a lot of talk about which actors might be ready to hang their Marvel hats up, largely on the franchise athletics Downey (in his eighth Marvel movie) and Evans (in his sixth). Orr said, “I suspect only their accountants know the precise contours of their contracts with the studio.” However, both actors have talked a lot about moving on that they make for the “lovable veteran cop who’s two days away from retirement” exception to the fact of killing major characters.

Orr said, “Again, without giving away details, I can say that Avengers: Infinity War ends on by far the bleakest note of any Marvel movie to date. Or perhaps I should put “ends” in quotation marks, because it is clear that—in notable contrast to Marvel’s previous offerings—this storyline is very much incomplete, in a way that will surely frustrate some viewers.” Many heroes may or may not be “dead,” because it doesn’t look like it will stay that way. Early in the film, Thanos said, “No resurrections this time.” Then again, Thanos is a lair, and infinity might be forever.

For a movie that was built up for in the past decade, this movie did deliver what it promised. I’m not going to say what happens, but this is a fun, enjoyable, great film. Obviously, this makes another one of my favorite comic book movies. However, I can’t say if this is the best Marvel or MCU movie. That is up for debate because I walked out of the theater in shock and awe about what’s going to happen next. I don't even know where to rank this film in the comic book movie list. All will be revealed in the second part next year. In the meantime, go to the theater and watch this because it will not be a disappointment.

Spoiler alert: There is a post-credit scene where Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) sends a distress signal, which has a star insignia on a red and blue background, which might be hinting at next year’s “Captain Marvel.” Well anyway, stay tuned next month to see what I have in store.