Tuesday, May 8, 2018

Avengers Infinity War


Avengers Infinity War is a blast of a movie. Literally. Tons of repulsor blasts, magical projectiles, explosions, hand to hand combat, and more. Here I'd like to go over the good, the bad, and what I think could have been better. If you haven't seen the movie and care about spoilers then you should stop now.

First, the good. This movie has the Avengers, Black Panther, the Guardians of the Galaxy, and Thanos' crew of minions and they all get good spotlight. Iron man, Doctor Strange, Spiderman, and the Guardians (Quill, Mantis, Bautista's character) take the fight directly to Thanos on his home planet while the others are busy doing other things like protecting the infinity stone carried by the Vision, on Wakanda. 

Black Panther, Captain America, Bucky Barnes, Black Widow, Bruce Banner (not in Hulk form), and Scarlett Witch are all protecting Vision (and the stone) while simultaneously stopping a Thanos army invasion on Wakanada. 

"Evacuate the city. Engage all defenses. And bring this man a shield." -Black Panther

In addition, Thor gets a lot of good screen time. Fitting because after all, he is a god from Asgaard. Thor, Teenage Groot, and Rocket Racoon (or Rabbit as Thor calls him) all go to this planet to craft this legendary hammer from this Asgaardian dwarf, played by Peter Dinklage, called Stormbreaker. Once Thor gets the god-hammer he meets up on Earth in Wakanda to whoop ass. 

"Thank you sweet rabbit," Thor exclaimed happily. 

Everyone got good screen time although some of the minor characters just had short small moments. These characters include Black Widow, War Machine, Thano's minons, Captain America's robotic Hawk flying friend, and the Collector, who had one of the infinity stones. In terms of giving all the fan favorite characters good screen time the director did a fantastic job. I personally really enjoyed Doctor Strange as he is probably the mvp of the entire movie. 

In terms of pure action I loved the fight in the beginning between the wizards (Strange, Wong) with Iron Man against Thano's hulk monster and his skinny alien wizard. The magical projectiles flying around the screen (in Imax) looked particularly impressive. I always like to see more fantasy based magic projectiles as opposed to the standard hand to hand fighting combat or the typical projectile blasts. It looks sweet. 

Also, I'll have to say that when Thor arrived in Wakanda with the god-hammer Stormbreaker, ("That's a bit much," Rocket said) he drew lightning from it across the entire war landscape and decimated Thano's creature army to pieces. Pretty cool, it reminded me of the latest Thor movie where he murdered his sister when she broke out of hell. Good times.

Before we move on from all the great stuff about the film I must mention that although this is a dark villain movie the jokes were quality. From talking about ice cream, to "stop massaging the god man's muscles", to "have you seen that old movie aliens", and lastly "how long have you been there?" "An hour". The flow of the film would have been too ghastly if it were not for all of these quirky jokes from the cast of heroes. Its a nice, little touch. 

There are also emotional connections between the characters in this movie. More so than in the other Avengers films. When Thanos kills Gamora in order to retrieve the soul stone (Red Skull guides them to it, says they need a soul for a soul) that was a particularly sad moment. Also when Teenage Groot is about to die we've been told by directors that he saying "Dad" to Rocket Raccoon. The ending in general was quite catastrophic for the characters as well as the viewers. Its the end of the Universe man! 

Now for the bad. This movie only exudes one bad quality trait to me. The fact that the movie flows in a clunky way. The way everything moves around all the time as Thanos tries to retrieve all the infinity stones, its sort of all over the place. However, I don't think they could've done a better job because the point of this story is that everything is happening all over the place. They could've cut down on some of the fight scenes to make more meaningful dialogue and made the film shorter. If the film was shorter it wouldn't feel as clunky. 

Lastly, I must say that the movie is mostly good although I will debate any Marvel fan and say that its still super clunky and doesn't flow well. The first time you see it you will miss certain things not because you're not paying attention but because it doesn't flow well and your thoughts and eyes are focused on other parts. The seconding viewing I saw it, it was still clunky and didn't flow well. However, I still enjoyed it. Maybe even more the second time around (in Imax!). 

The thing is with these films is that yeah its cool they're going to destroy the Universe. That's exciting to all the fans and viewers. However, once you realize that it doesn't matter and that all of this crap is going to get relaunched eventually anyways, that's when the dream dies and you realize its just a movie for kids. 

However, its fun to be a kid sometimes and that's where Infinity War shines. Have fun with this film! 

Kid Gamora: Did you do it?
Thanos: Yes.
Kid Gamora: What did it cost?
Thanos: Everything. 

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