Avengers: Infinity War
Director: Anthony Russo, Joe Russo
Writer: Christopher Markus, Stephen McFeely
Based on: the comics by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby
Sequel to: The Avengers, Avengers: Age of Ultron
Cast: Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Hemsworth, Scarlett Johansson, Elizabeth Olsen, Paul Bettany, Don Cheadle, Benedict Cumberbatch, Tom Holland, Chadwick Boseman, Zoe Saldana, Karen Gillan, Tom Hiddleston, Sebastian Stan, Danai Gurira, Peter Dinklage, Benedict Wong, Pom Klementieff, Dave Bautista, Vin Diesel, Bradley Cooper, Gwyneth Paltrow, Benicio Del Toro, Josh Brolin, Chris Pratt, Sean Gunn, William Hurt, Letitia Wright, Carrie Coon, Winston Duke, Florence Kasumba, Anthony Mackie, Idris Elba, Samuel L. Jackson, Stan Lee
Part of: Marvel movies
Seen on: 2.5.2018

Plot:
Thanos (Josh Brolin) has reached the final stages of his plan: he will collect all of the Infinity Stones and with their power reshape the universe after his own ideas. The hunt for the stones makes him cross paths with the Avengers on Earth, as well as the Guardians and the Asgardian refugees in space, leading to them coming together in a desperate effort to stop him and his plans.

Avengers: Infinity War is the culmination of more than a decade of films. That alone makes it a momentous, if not to say monumental film. And it’s not bad per se, but it does feel like a step down from the recent absolute highlights that were Black Panther and Thor: Ragnarok.

Pulling this film off wasn’t easy. Not just because of the massive scope of it, but just to bring together so many characters the audience will have an interest in and has followed for many years now – that alone is a logistic and writerly nightmare. How can you fit all of those larger than life characters into a film and still have it make sense? Their solution wasn’t bad, especially for somebody like me who has seen all of the Marvel films so far. But it didn’t work entirely.

The problem was that they focused more on the action and not enough on the characters themselves, especially where they stand emotionally. That such a central pairing like Wanda (Elizabeth Olsen) and Vision (Paul Bettany) came practically out of nowhere, for example, was a blunder to say the least.

That they invested so little time in emotional ramifications ultimately led to an ending that also felt pretty flat to me. Only Spider-Man (Tom Holland) got a more emotional reaction from me and his bit was so obviously manipulative that it almost pushed past the emotion to annoyance. Although admittedly, part of the problem was that I don’t believe that the way things ended here will be in any way, shape or form final. They’ll change so much with the next Avengers film, that taking anything to heart in this one is difficult. Another part of the problem is certainly that they focused on the Guardians a lot and they are the characters I personally care least about.

But even though all of this may sound really bad, the film wasn’t. It was epic to see them come together and battle together, tying things together in a way that only crossovers can. I wouldn’t have wanted to miss it for the world. And for the most part, it was really satisfying and thanks to fandom, I got the emotional pay-off that was a little lacking in the film itself.

Summarizing: Flawed, but big.