Review: Avengers Infinity War

“It was sometime after the film that I realised that Hawkeye wasn’t in the film. It was no time at all that I didn’t miss him.”

Infinity War is a film of epic proportions, at least that’s what they tell you. Personally, I didn’t think it was that epic. There’s a lot going on, but it’s not all that epic for the most part. However, there are some good things happening, and believe it or not, Marvel took some risks and made some bold decisions. And naturally, some fans got butt hurt in the process.

Finally, Marvel moved away, at least a little, from making films of the tone they had been recently. The problem is, by making so many films that were treating their characters as jokes, it has somewhat lessened the impact of this film, at least in my opinion.

Firstly, lets talk about what I enjoyed in the film:

Thor! Thor is my favourite Avengers character. Is it the red cape? Maybe… But in this film, Thor was much more the Thor of his original movie, and much less the Thor of Thor Ragnarok, a film I wouldn’t piss on if it was on fire, but rather poor gasoline on it. I hated what Ragnarok stood for. It is a comic book film made by a director who wants to make films in the style of a 6 year old, and I’m sorry if I offend anyone, but fuck that.

There were still moments of Ragnarokness, but it was much less, and I enjoyed his characterisation much more.

Yeah, that Green guy doesn't appear in this scene... False advertisement

The tone of the film (yes internet, I’m going to talk about the tone of a film, and I’m not talking about a DC film) is much darker and more serious, and so it bloody well should be. We’re taking about half the universe getting wiped out. We don’t need to be treating it light heartedly throughout. We don’t want Thanos to stop mid monologue, to crack an unfunny joke just because fun is the order of the day… or at least the order of the studio. In many ways, this film gets back to the tone of the earlier Marvel films, back when Marvel didn’t get an instant pass on anything they put out.

Thanos was quite an interesting character. After so many hints at him in previous films, he finally arrives and lives up to it. His back story is fairly brief, but his journey to this point is more fleshed out and his motivation is clear, and there is enough emotion in him to make him a 3D character, something missing from Marvel characters of late, especially the villains. I only hope that one day, we get Darkseid, whom of course, will be called a Thanos rip off by bloggers and YouTubers when he does appear in a film, even though Thanos was literally a blatant rip off of Darkseid in the comics).

Shhh, don't tell people I liked the movie

I really liked some of the infinity stone magic. Thanos manages to create interesting scenarios using the different stones, and I enjoyed the threat that he posed to the Avengers with the use of each stone.

The ending: A lot of casual fans who have latched on to Marvel and feel like they are suddenly comic book fans, have been left a little shell-shocked by this movie. Personally, I really enjoyed what they did with it, and it’s apparently comic accurate (I haven’t read a Marvel comic before).

What I didn’t like:

First of all, get rid of the Guardians of the Galaxy from the story. Every scene with Star Lord, Drax and Mantis was ruined with humour that simply doesn’t fit within the tone of the movie. Gamora was okay, but every time Chris Pratt opened his mouth, it was a joke, and not a good one. And whilst I’m cutting annoying and useless characters from the plot, let us get rid of Bruce Banner. What a terrible crime the character of the Hulk has been victim too since the end of Age of Ultron. First he had to endure the terrible embarrassment of his Ragnarok storyline, but then in this one, Banner is completely useless and again, like the Guardians, he is just there to piss all over every serious moment he is a part of. If you cut him out, you could give more screen time to Captain America, who got almost no storyline at all.

Mr Norton, would you like this role back?

When Tony Stark is looking annoyed at how obnoxious a character is, you know its bad.

Ultimately, the weaker elements of this film, lie in the wide spread separation of the characters into different factions and parts of the galaxy. By having so many smaller story lines running at once, it detracted from the main plot line and bloated the movie. It’s the equivalent of filling up on appetisers and then not having room for the main course. I understand why it was done, because so many characters make it hard for the film to breathe, but with so many small subplots, it meant the film had to cut back and forth and made scenes such as Thor getting his axe, very unimportant, and could have been cut out.

The film does play at 11 throughout and doesn’t give a lot of breathing space, however, I didn’t find it as intense as expected. The visual effects are good, however despite how much is in this film, including a big portion of the universe, the film is a little lacklustre in the visuals of the universe, with each location feeling very narrow in scope and not giving us much depth to the places we visit. Even the final scene is set in a fairly bland bit of forest, looking almost like a sound stage from an old movie. The Wizard of Oz gave us more scope to the land of Oz than this film gives us to the whole universe.

Overall, I enjoyed the film, despite my issues with it, and I hope this is the beginning of Marvel changing their style to be more diverse. I don’t want Marvel to become DC, (just like I don’t want DC to become Marvel, like Justice League tried too), but bold choices would be nice, and a return to a more serious tone would be welcome.

Whilst it hasn’t sent me running to the shop to buy the whole MCU collection, or to turn me into a Marvel fanboy, it has lead me to be more positive when asked about my thoughts on the latest Marvel film.

The five bearded questions:

1. Was it worth a cinema trip? Yes

2. Would I See It Again at the Cinema? If someone was going.

3. Would I buy it on Blu-ray: (only films I really love get bought these days) No 4. Do I Recommend people see it? Yes

5. Any cheese/ Disney style bullshit?: (such as jokes wedged in at serious moments, because fun!). Well, yes. Of course. But not as much as previous films.