David Pierdomenico
It’s finally here. The entire Marvel Cinematic Universe was always building to this point and now here we are. Amidst all the hype and anticipation, there is only one question audiences must ask. Does Marvel deliver? Here is an attempt to answer that behemoth of a question. For those who haven’t seen it yet, fear not. This will be entirely spoiler-free.
Thor meeting the Guardians of the Galaxy
The Ensemble
We always knew the great Infinity War would be coming, and much was left to speculation, including how directors Joe and Anthony Russo would attempt to tell such a story. It was a daunting task, but all things considered, they handled it extremely well. Initially there had been a great deal of concern that this film would suffer from “Too Many Cooks Syndrome”. After all, no one had ever attempted to compile this many main characters into a single film.
The Russos’ answer was rather than focus on individual characters, they chose to focus on teams of characters in different locations, each with different objectives. In many ways it felt like an episode of Game of Thrones. There was no single main character, rather the event itself was the driving force. Normally this wouldn’t have worked in a film, but these characters were already well developed in their own films (take notes DCEU). Even though some of them didn’t get that much screen time, the audience was already very familiar with them and didn’t necessarily need to see them complete an arc.
Wakanda is the site of the large scale battle as epic as Lord of the Rings.
The Plot
Early on, it was suggested by the Russos that this would very much be a film about Thanos. And while that’s not entirely false, it’s also not entirely true.
A more accurate statement is that this is a film about people reacting to Thanos. It does an excellent job at the start of picking up right after the post-credits scene of Thor: Ragnarok, and also addressing the lasting consequences of Captain America: Civil War. Even as Tony Stark learns of this new threat, he is reluctant to contact Cap because the wounds of their conflict are still quite fresh. This makes the situation all the more dire for our heroes, since they are more divided than ever at a time they need to be united.
Thanos has his own journey as he is attempting to acquire all of the Infinity Stones, but as this happens several teams of Avengers and Guardians of the Galaxy complete missions from Earth to deep space to prevent that from happening. Much like the first Avengers film, part of the excitement is seeing Doctor Strange interact with Spiderman, Iron Man, and Star-Lord, as well as watching Thor team up with Rocket and Groot, or witnessing Black Panther shout, “Wakanda Forever!” as he leads a battle charge with Cap, Winter Soldier, Black Widow, Hulk, Falcon, and War Machine. It all feels like a global, nay intergalactic conflict and all the while Thanos ominously looms over them as a constant threat. He is all the more threatening having possession of the Space Stone (from the Tesseract), allowing him to teleport anywhere in the universe at any time.
Josh Brolin does an excellent job bringing humanity to Thanos, despite having to act via motion capture.
The Villain
There was no way this couldn’t be addressed. Despite all the praise and acclaim Marvel has received, they’ve always been criticized in the villain department. Too often they’re generic “bad guys” who want to take over or destroy the world for…reasons. While they’ve gotten better recently with Vulture and Killmonger, there was a great deal of apprehension regarding Thanos, especially given the fact that his plan all along was to wipe out half the universe. Marvel had their work cut out for them with making him an interesting and well-developed character. And admittedly, they did the best they could with a character like that.
The very best antagonists believe they are in fact the protagonist; that what they’re doing is right. Thanos is trying to wipe out half the universe, but he does so out of a desire to bring balance. He feels that societies grow vastly overpopulated and out of the control, and that cutting it in half is mercy. Given the current issues with overpopulation in the real world, one can almost understand where he is coming from. He’s also not without a heart. Despite Gamora’s betrayal of him, he genuinely cares for her as his daughter, and even demonstrates a great deal of respect for Iron Man, believing him to be an honorable, worthy adversary. Although he’s still not the best villain in the MCU, Thanos is the very best version of the archetype that wants to destroy everything. By no means is he dull or underdeveloped like Ronan or Malakith.
The Impact
It would very safe to assume that the MCU will never be the same after this film. Because this was the culmination of the entire series, Marvel wasn’t afraid to do things that they previously lacked the courage for. The simple fact is not everyone makes it out alive and not everything gets fully resolved. However, to be fair, this is only the first part. It was refreshing to see Marvel film go as dark as this one did, and not be afraid of risks as others were. There is of course still the signature comedic relief now and then, but at times it gets grim and even downright depressing. In many ways it feels like the Return of the King or Deathly Hallows of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. We’ve seen heroes fight villains, but this film shows us a full scale battle with many characters we care deeply for. Because of this, Infinity War feels so much more grand and epic than any of the previous entries. It was a near impossible task to make this film live up to all the hype. And the most shocking thing of all is, it does.
Still having no title, we’ll have to wait a year for the conclusion to the Infinity War storyline.
Tonight at 7 p.m. EST we release our SPOILER commentary/analysis for Infinity War on our YouTube channel….click here to subscribe so you don’t miss it!
