SPOILER FILLED Avengers: Infinity War review
I don't know how to write a spoiler free review outside of saying this film was great you should go see it right now. So if you have not yet seen Avengers: Infinity War, read further at your own risk as I do include spoilers.
SPOILERS AHEAD
TURN BACK NOW
IF YOU HAVEN'T WATCHED
INFINITY WARS YET!
OK I WARNED YOU!
Growing up with a passion for writing, there are many lessons I remember learning. A key one is "never use five words when four will do." I still believe this is the cornerstone to any author keeping their audience captivated through an entire read rather than trudging through some chapters that feel forced and focused on a quantity rather than quality measure. Ernest Hemingway was once challenged to write a story in six words and he came up with: "For Sale: baby shoes, never worn." The various depths of emotion this elicits is amazing for only six words acting as the vehicle. Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, the writers of Avengers: Infinity War had a similar but much larger challenge when approaching how to fit the ever expanding Marvel Cinematic Universe's penultimate chapter of Avengers into a two hour and forty minute film. 40 plus meaningful characters, 18 previous films, and 1 larger than life itself villain to whom they had to do justice while delivering an all encompassing storyline to advance the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) narrative too. So how did they do it? Some expert enforcement of not using five words when four would do was a good starting point.
The first thing they did right was approach the cast size issue with a simple but smart solution. They engineered multiple team ups/groupings so as to keep us centered on 5-8 people at a time rather than 20-30 people in scene after scene to try and track. These skillful separations and groupings of our heroes was well done, made sense and played to each one's strengths while allowing for some growth or added depth for some main characters, limited mind you but still some. The next best thing they did correctly was originate as much of the storyline flow from Thanos as the central figure. This not only permitted us to gain valuable insight into the California Raisin turned mad titan's backstory but also somewhat challenged viewers to explore their own opinion about his motives. Having Thanos front and center the writing duo created orbiting planets of each of their hero groupings. Then they pivoted between isolating or interweaving those planet's orbits as the story unfolded.
Group 1: The Bad Boys
As the film opens expectantly with Thanos and his Black Order aboard the Asgardian refugee ship, or at least the main piece of it floating in space, we meet back up with the Ragnarok grouping of Thor, Loki, and Hulk. Unfortunately, they don't have long together. After a failed Hulk surprise attack on Thanos, Heimdall summons his final strength to send Hulk back to Earth to warn of Thanos' approach, an action that costs Heimdall his life. Thanos obtains the space stone in exchange for Thor's life from his brother. Next, Loki's stubborn and shortsighted assassination attempt leads to his death and Thor is subsequently hurled into space as the ship explodes. However, the real first group in this scene is Thanos and the Black Order. We immediately ascertain the threat level these minions of the titan pose. We also see a glimmer of Thanos' insane power, even without the full gauntlet he dispatches Hulk in a series of punches and body slams that leaves our green hero too embarrassed to even reappear for the rest of the film. This is also the only time the entire Black Order appear together with Thanos so there is a mirror effect of the hero grouping on the villain side as well.
Group 2: The Three's Company but Four's a Crowd Crew - Doctor Strange, Iron Man, Spider-Man, and Bruce Banner and Wong temporarily
From the first exchange between Stark and Strange you know this is going to provide some of the best back and forth banter of the film. Spider-man even gets in on the act of these two wiseguys with his best line of the film when introducing himself to Dr. Strange. At first I thought it was odd to put the two kings of sarcasm together but they just fed off each other for a consistent battle of one-upmanship.
Group 3: The Nostalgia Squad - Scarlet Witch, Vision, Captain America, Falcon, Black Widow and eventually War Machine
This group makes you just yearn for the good ol' Civil War days where the biggest problems were rogue Hydra goons and the UN's peace accords. Loyalty and friendship of the highest accord unites these heroes and brings them to Wanda and Vision's aid against Corvus Glaive and Proxima Midnight. We shortly afterward find out that Cap, Widow and Falcon have been fighting crime from the shadows and on the run for the better part of two years. After a quick reunion with War Machine at former HQ and dismissing the smug and misguided as ever hologram of General Ross they formulate a plan to get Vision the care needed in none other than the world's foremost technology center, Wakanda. This group is the gathering of the Avengers core conscience.
Group 4: The Cool Kids - Guardians of the Galaxy & Thor
There was no better signature cut in the film than the sudden sound of Rubberband Man leading to the Guardians' introduction to the screen.
The bravado burgeoning between Thor and Star-Lord as they compete for the groups admiration and attention is both hilarious and character revealing. Thor is still the slightly clueless stranger in a strange land missing context clues and Star-Lord is the standard insecure vulnerable human displaced in space we have come to know even in the confines of friendly company. The rest of the guardians lend their unique chemistry to enhance this exchange that eventually leads the group to a divide and conquer plan approach.
Group 5: The Titan Attack Force - Doctor Strange, Iron Man, Spider-Man, Star-Lord, Drax & Mantis
This group wait and formulate an attack plan for when Thanos comes to Titan to retrieve the time stone presumably from his general Ebony Maw. However, "the Maw" as Thanos calls him was ended by Iron Man and Spider-man's Alien inspired space ejection scene. Who knew Ripley would inspire an Avengers mission success? Also you thought the sarcasm and bravado meter was already at max with Strange and Stark? Well, make room for Star-Lord. Granted he brings a more goofy than obnoxious ego to the party but he announces his presence all the same, shooting down Stark's plan and taking full credit for their eventual submission of Thanos, however temporary it was. One thing he certainly can take credit for is the botching of their plan when he lost his cool and broke Mantis' connection with Thanos by punching him out of rage, at learning of Thanos' sacrifice of Gamora for the soul stone. Realistically though, how would anyone expect him to react at losing Gamora whom he legitimately just had a romantic breakthrough with earlier in the film. (If anything is rushed in this film and feels slightly forced its that romantic moment on The Milano but they compensated with a funny Drax and Mantis exchange overlying it.) The key moments with this group are Doctor Strange’s use of the time stone to foresee over 14 billion future scenarios based off their battle with Thanos on Titan and only in one does he see our heroes triumph. One would assume that is why everything preceding on Titan occurs as it does from Strange’s opening dialogue reminding Thanos of his mission’s origin to the barter he makes in trading the time stone for Tony’s life. Clearly, Stark is central and essential to the timeline plan in which Doctor Strange saw them succeed. Strange emphasizes this in only four words when questioned by Stark as to why he did that, he simply says: “It’s the only way.” The first of two important four word sequences that set the stage for the next film.
Group 6: The Neutron All-Stars - Groot, Rocket, Thor and Eitri
This crew works to forge stormbreaker using the heart of a neutron star to heat and fuel the iron works for Eitri. Rocket and Thor have some valuable heartfelt exchanges and it feels eerily like Rocket's initiation of him as a fellow Guardian; a powerful being fighting for what’s right solely because it’s the right thing to do and for quite a bit of revenge too. Thor once again impressed, by using his otherworldly strength to complete yet another suicide mission. This time holding open the iris of the neutron star. He is proven worthy again by wielding the mighty storm breaker which doubly acts to open the bifrost and bring this crew minus Eitri to Earth for some much needed aid to our Wakanda Warriors.
Group 7: Wakanda's Warriors Supreme - Scarlet Witch, Vision, Captain America, Falcon, Black Widow, War Machine, Bruce Banner, White Wolf, Black Panther, Okoye, Shuri and basically all of Wakanda & the late additions of Groot, Rocket & Thor
The only jam packed, army in an elevator esque, portion of the film and it still delivered with the most epic battle scene since the New York invasion in the first Avengers film. For the record, I think the New York invasion was still the better of these but the War in Wakanda is a close second. Banner in the Hulkbuster suit was cool but goofy. However, seeing Banner as a big contributor without solely relying on the big guy is a comfort but do not fret we have hardly seen the last of Hulk. Thanos damaged Hulk’s ego more than anything in their fight and sadly the big guy was too embarrassed and perhaps for the first time ever, scared to come back out and fight. The Rocket, Bucky team up was excellent comedic relief in a tense scene and fitting too as Rocket needs to replenish his inventory of robotic body parts having just given his glass eye to Thor in a bonding moment, and he wastes no time eyeing Bucky’s shiny new arm. Scarlet Witch hangs on the sidelines presiding over Shuri’s mind stone-ectomy of Vision until she comes to the aid of Okoye and Black Widow, crushing Proxima Midnight with a toss into her own army’s blade machines. This provides the opening Corvus Glaive needs to get Vision in harms way near the battle. After valiant attempts from each of the heroes in the group are shrugged off easily by Thanos thanks, to his powerful five stone gauntlet, he succeeds in recovering the final stone, killing Vision in the process. This is seconds after Wanda had to make the heart wrenching decision to destroy it along with Vision. That’s no problem for Thanos though, who thanks to the time stone easily reverted the destruction and plucked the stone from Vision’s brow. A final epic blow courtesy of Thor’s mighty Stormbreaker axe deeply wounds the mad titan perhaps even fatally but as Thanos tells him, he “should have aimed for the head.” Thanos snaps his fingers and the worlds stop spinning for half of the life on them in the entire universe. Thanos has succeeded.
As the majority of our heroes and half of life all around the universe turns to dust Thanos is seen taking a seat atop, presumably a Wakandan hilltop, overlooking green pastures below. A retiree taking a rest after achieving that which he set out to accomplish so long ago. We are led to assume by this scene the mad titan is finally at peace mentally and emotionally and perhaps soon to also be at peace physically as Thor’s battle axe wound is still heavily bleeding. However, “Thanos will return” is the closing screen caption so even if he does die, which I think is unlikely, he’ll be back.
Now on to the fun part of speculating what will happen in the next Avengers film, set to come out next May. As you likely know by now, Captain Marvel is paged by Nick Fury right before he goes the way of Kansas’ signature song. Captain Marvel will have her own stand alone feature in March 2019 apparently set in 1990 and including a Nick Fury origin story arc. This film will hopefully set the stage for Captain Marvel coming into the fold of the New Avengers and MCU cycles. As for the “dead” heroes I don’t believe they are dead at all but rather like Gamora stuck in a limbo like place as a result of the influence of the soul stone. It is no coincidence that all the original Avengers (Cap, Iron Man, Hulk, Thor, Black Widow and Hawkeye) are still alive and a bunch of our heroes with upcoming future films (Black Panther, Spider-Man, Guardians) are not. Clearly a recovery of those turned to dust will occur. Stark and his former compatriots now have something to avenge and so it’s time to get the band back together and figure out the one in 14 billion+ scenario solution that Doctor Strange foresaw. I still believe we will be dealing with heavy losses at the end of the next film but they are likely to come from those who survived this first film. I believe the remaining Avengers will need some combination of the time stone and soul stone to resurrect their fallen friends and those whose existence around the universe was snuffed out. Stark and Wakanda Tech will likely be critical in this process too. If trading that which you love makes the soul stone appear, it’s certainly plausible that sacrificing one’s self in exchange for those currently trapped in the Vormir soul pool could destroy the soul stone and reverse its effects and as we all know, Steve Rogers is always up for making the ultimate sacrifice. Markus and McFeely used another four word phrase to foreshadow this as several of our heroes throughout the film, including Cap, stated “we don’t trade lives” yet that may end up being precisely what they must do. And adding two words to this phrase could end up making it a story just like Hemingway's. "'We' don't trade lives; I do" may very well be Captain America's closing line and such a fitting six word story for our ultimate hero.