So I've seen Avengers: Infinity War...

Alright!

Before I start this review, I have to say this: I missed most of the newer Marvel Cinematic Universe films. The most recent one I saw was Captain America: Civil War, and even there I had to see Avengers: Age of Ultron a little later. I missed Doctor Strange, Spider-Man: Homecoming, Gotg Vol. 2, Thor: Ragnarok and Black Panther. Blame my nighttime work and erratic sleep schedule. I'll probably catch up on those eventually...

Thankfully, I was never afraid of seeking spoilers myself, so I already know most of what happened in those films. Avengers 3 doesn’t fill all the blanks, but it does explain some stuff to newcomers. I’ll try to avoid spoilers in the story, just a heads-up that the film features approximately 90% of all superheroes introduced to the MCU since its beginnings. Though a few of them are just cameos. The absences are few and far between, but oddly noticeable as a result.

For the little story, Thanos (whose role has been foreshadowed since the first Avengers film) has put on his Infinity Gauntlet and, with one Infinity Stone already in it, he is now seeking the others. And from there, his quest gets a little more complicated… Pesky heroes, amirite?

The deaths start from the very first scene in the movie. As colorful and pretty the film may be, just be aware going in that it’s extremely bleak under the surface. Things just keep getting worse over time. It’s 2 hours 30 minutes of “Okay, how can we put the heroes into more trouble now?” Also remember that this movie was first marketed as a Part 1 of 2, with all that implies.

The film’s dozens of superheroes are soon split into 3 or 4 groups, all of whom participate in a way or another by either trying to protect an Infinity Stone or by fending off Thanos’ forces, which includes three very powerful combatants and an entire army of four-armed monsters. That’s not counting the Mad Titan himself, who is a tough customer in battle even if a full group of superheroes comes towards him at once. And of course, he just becomes more and more dangerous as he finds the Stones.

The ultimate plan from the purple giant? To amass enough reality-warping power that he can, with a single finger snap, erase literally 50% of all sentient life in the universe. His justification? There’s just too many people in the universe, taking all the resources, so erasing one person out of two at random surely must be the sole logial solution. Never mind the three hundred other solutions that could be found by someone with slightly more imagination and Godlike abilities brought by the mythical stones.

I mean, props for trying to have something better than his motivation in the comics: There, he wanted to date Death herself – as Death’s personification is a woman in the Marvel Comics. And he came across as a creepy stalker ready to provoke a universal-scale genocide to pursue a romance he had no way of achieving anyway. Dude, she’s just not into you, stop trying to make it happen. But no matter how hard the script's writers try, I can’t accept anything that becomes one’s justification for genocide. In fact, if you agree with Thanos' motivation (that resources are dwindling due to overpopulation), that's okay, but if you agree with his method and plan, then something's definitely wrong with you.

For such a dark movie, this still has all the landmarks of an MCU entry: A tightly-knitted intrigue, lots of action, and the ever-present comedy. God knows we need that levity in the film. Wouldn’t want to be like those DC films now, would we? It’s well-acted, the special effects are astounding, and everyone is on point. This is a conventionally great film. Although the ending left me a little conflicted, this is yet another very good movie where all the elements work. The Russo Brothers certainly knew how to juggle with all the elements of “The most ambitious crossover event in History” (but I wish there’s a Super Smash Bros. movie someday just so it can steal that title). They even took many precautions, including hiring James Gunn as consultant so that they’d get the personalities of the Guardians of the Galaxy right.

The only major strike against it is that you can’t understand this film unless you’ve seen most previous films, or know enough about the films you haven’t seen. It’s also the nineteenth MCU movie in 10 years, with nearly 4 new MCU films last year and just as many this year, so a sort of lassitude has been settling in. It’s like you’re being overfed something good. Sure, it may be good, but you’re kinda tired of it now. If you’re still getting too much of it, you might just no longer accept it. Would it be too much to ask to go back to one or two MCU films per year for a while?

Again, I am warning you, this is a dark movie, and if you’re very emotionally invested in the MCU, this is gonna be a punch. Hell, I’ve missed a lot about the MCU, and it was a punch even for me. Though, granted, that was most certainly the intention. Avengers: Infinity War was at first advertised as Par 1 of 2, until it was changed, but Avengers 4 will likely pick up close to where the previous one left off, so it’s not like giving it a new name makes much of a difference. It’ll make the films between them a little awkward to watch, though. It’s probably a spoiler, but it’s kind of obvious that Avengers 3 was going to end on a sort of gloomy cliffhanger so that Avengers 4 could resume from there.

I did have one major fear going into this movie, and it’s hard to describe, though I think it’s something illustrated best by event comics from DC and Marvel. I can’t stand cosmic-level stories. Frequently, they come off to me as the writers just trying to outdo each other. Like a dick-measuring contest between reality warpers and how much of the universe they destroy.

“Hey look, the Silver Surfer just took the Gauntlet and literally erased a full third of the entire universe!” (That actually happened in The Superhero Squad Show, a Marvel series from the early 2010s)

“That’s nothing, I had Thanos erase exactly half of the population of the entire universe!”

“That’s nothing, our villain summoned a black hole that menaces the entire multiverse and has already engulfed a couple of entire universes!” (Super Paper Mario)

“That’s nothing, we had a big villain that literally erased all the alternate universes we had created for our series!”

“That’s nothing, we had a villain erase 100% of his universe, including himself, every planet, every single character, and now there is no story anymore because there’s literally nothing left to undo it- ...oops.”

I don’t get the interest in constantly raising the stakes and power levels for kicks. The thrill of cosmic horror is not in seeing the undefeatable monster eat the world, it’s in seeing the heroes deal with the situation on various levels. A lot of massive multiplayer events in comic books seem to focus far too much on sticking as many heroes as possible in the same story, dropping the human aspect of conflict. With too many character going around, corners are cut in emotions and motivations, leaving only the big shocking moves from the villains to strike the reader, although those shocking twists feel shallow as a result.

The general idea with comic books is that you can go and read every hero’s own series to understand who they are, but it’s expensive and complicated. The MCU made it somewhat simpler, giving each character or group one to three movies to build up to this. It’s still a lot to go through (especially if you also followed the many TV shows), but much more manageable. And every movie focuses a lot on the human element of the heroes. And to its credit, Infinity War focuses a lot on the emotional side, showing the stakes in the fight and how everyone reacts to the events. It’s a massive multiplayer crossover, but in the 150 minutes of the film, all the characters express how they feel, speak their minds about the situation. In other words, I was afraid the film would be little more than villains showing off their insane power levels and the ensuing fights between good and bad guys. I’m glad it was a lot better than that.

Now I would have other comments that would fall squarely into Spoilers… but I don’t think I’ll touch upon those just yet.