Review of Avengers: Infinity War (2018) by Shayan S — 31 May 2018

Quick Review: So it finally happened, the culmination of Marvel Studios 30+ films of superhero films (most of which while has gelled well with both the mainstream and fans of the source material has also equally and fairly shed fatigue and a lot of very mediocre or passible blockbusters) has finally lead to Avengers: Infinity War, not only putting almost every main and secondary hero from every Marvel film in the same film to interact as most fans of the source material have waited years of, but finally cover one of the more intense parts of the Infinity Gauntlet comic arcs and battle the heavily built up and foreshadowed villain Thanos.

And truth be told, after a bit worried this film would be overkill after not liking Raganrock and Black Panther as much as everyone else (but then soon after the genuinely interesting approach to marketing and surprisingly very different dialogue and just scene approach that I was even remotely expecting the film to show off getting me pretty truthfully excited to hopefully see something new and different) I was still hoping regardless to at least come out of Infinity War liking it somewhat; and by the end of it I found myself having more than a great time but really kind of floored that the film really wasn't afraid to push out of its comfort zone to effectively tell its story.

Now that isn't to say there where problems (which much like the positives later on I wont be going into medium or major spoilers), some of which I felt unfortunately that kind of pushed the film from being more balanced with: A lot of the film feeling to compressed into CGI (especially into backgrounds and sets) which only bothered me often with just the look of the film sometimes,, some of the editing and cuts (mainly coming from the first half) feeling poorly done or rush the pace of some transitional scenes, not including the opening scene the first half feeling too disjointed and even often times just a bit too quick to get to the later parts of the film (its understood why this is being done but its just unfortunately not done super effectively and makes it a bit messy), and finally the humour that this time around was close to being overkill and felt really forced instead of in-character (the Guardians, mainly Quill, shockingly made up most of it) and took away from using the time to try and develop some of the heroes even if it was a little bit.

Now I know all of that sounds very harsh and even downright painfully negative, almost as if I didn't like the film despite saying earlier differently. But rest assured, I was only pointing out healthy criticism as nothing is perfect or flawless and thankfully won't stop me from praising a lot of what the film REALLY does right thanks to a pretty solidly and committed performances by the heroes of the story, pretty engaging action sequences that never really felt either overstretched or overbearing as most critics seem to take issue with and where actually pretty decently creative and helped to move the plot, a surprising really effective opening that I point out as a highlight on its own mainly because of how well its visually shot, framed, makes good use of tone and the theme of death that WILL happen in the film, introducing our main villain rather well, and quickly setting up the story to unfold; all of which was done so well it was reminiscent of Iron Man's brilliant opening, really creative usage of world building and especially with its more space oriented planets, and the two major things that help elevate this film which being Thanos, as he thankfully lived up to the genuine intrigue the trailers made him out to be as the utterly creative and surreal CGI capture performance adds so much ironically character to him even when he's given no dialogue, Josh Brolin bringing in an UTTERLY gripping character driven performance, and his entire arc and genuinely while cold still soft almost heartfelt personality really adding so much to him and his journey (and rivals with me personally being almost better than Vulture from Homecoming), and finally the final third act that feels genuinely earned and not as cheap cope out to really bring into full circle ultimately Thanos's whole arc.

So overall as this overlong and very unorganized review goes to show, there is a lot both in the bad and good that this film has (and some of which I decided not to discuss and is best for the internet to better digest) but mainly that I had a good time with Infinity War.

It felt like the Russo Brothers and their accompanying screenwriters really took the thematic elements and character building they've bene doing since Winter Solider and Civil War and while tackling now some of the more bigger hurdles show they can still show Marvel Studios dedication to really trying to do both better in quality and at least do whats best for the story.

Congrats to everyone, both Feige and the Russo's and everyone for making this work pretty well! Here's just hoping though that the stakes and consequences set up here don't take a complete 180 and genuinely affect the universe at large moving into Avengers 4 and beyond.