LogFAQs > #904188409

Avengers: Infinity War

It was going to take a lot for this movie to live up to the hype of watching 18 films in the span of a month and a half, but if possible, Marvel managed to exceed my expectations. This was truly an insane moment in the history of cinema, and I say that without hyperbole -- not because it was the greatest movie of all time, but because they actually managed to successfully pull off an "it has all come down to this" film with ten years of buildup. That's completely unprecedented and I'm so thrilled they nailed it.

Much discussion of the snap has already taken place in this topic immediately following my viewing, but I'll touch on it again here... it really says something about the quality of the cast and the characters you've assembled when deaths that you know damn well won't stick still shake you to your core. Hell, not only do I know Spider Man, Black Panther, et al won't stay dead, I even already knew they died before seeing it and I was still just absolutely aghast. It's an incredibly strong scene and I can't wait for the sequel, even though it's kind of a foregone conclusion that we'll be seeing some sort of snap-undoing with Strange's one-in-a-jillion chance strategy.

I don't wanna dwell on that, though, and want to instead put emphasis on how well they managed to handle character balance overall. It wasn't flawlessly split, but I mean, how many goddamn characters do we have by now? The fact that we got real character moments at all in this film is a miracle, despite the necessity of rushing things like the Bruce/Natasha reunion to keep the movie under three hours. They also did a phenomenal job establishing Thanos as a villain I cared about after being somewhat underwhelmed by his lack of tangible build-up over the first three phases. I wouldn't say he's "relatable," but he has a motive you can wrap your head around. Similar to how I compared Vulture to a supervillain version of Walter White, I felt Thanos was a bit of a supervillain version of Stannis Baratheon. Truly convicted in his beliefs and has completely deluded himself into thinking the end justifies even the worst means; heck, the comparison holds right down to sacrificing his daughter.

The best sequence in the film, for my money, was the fight on Titan. The choreography was just absolutely stunning, and maybe the low-key most impressive part of the whole MCU is the creative knack the folks in charge have for superhero synergy. I will never get tired of stuff like Spider Man jumping through Dr. Strange's portals -- it gets the nerd-juices flowing without fail every single time. But not only was the fight itself incredible, right down to him shattering a freaking moon, the emotion was thick too. The moment when they have him on his knees, trying to pry the gauntlet off, and he's mourning for Gamora, devastated that it might all have been for nothing... man, I felt that. Again, a great villain with a lot of nuance that made him extremely compelling to watch.

It's also a testament to the mastery they have of the genre that Infinity War also still manages to be, at times, downright hilarious. I'm not a "NO COMEDY GRRR" guy, but as you could piece together from my Ragnarok review, I think there's a bit of a time and a place and this film struck a nearly perfect balance. This is especially true with Thor, who was both the primary comic relief but also kicked dramatic amounts of ass without them feeling like they need to play "Thunderstruck" when he enters Wakanda (which was fucking awesome, by the way).

I feel like I could see it again and write a whole separate review because there was just SO much here. It was in my opinion a perfect capstone to this journey through the MCU, and thank you guys so much for being my sounding board through the process. Here's to the next ten years.
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