Infinity War is fucking incredible. The Russos and Marvel ABSOLUTELY nailed it. My God. If I tried to list everything I love about this movie, this post would go on for far too long, so I'll try to keep it relatively short. This movie reminded me of The Deathly Hallows Part 2 in a way. It doesn't waste its time trying to set up its characters, it goes in assuming you've seen all of the previous entries, and moves at a brisk pace. My one worry going into this film was if they were going to be able to truly deliver on Thanos, and boy did they. Josh Brolin as Thanos is right up their with Heath Ledger's Joker in my book. "What did it cost?" "... Everything." The scene that will probably stick with me the most (and by design), is the opening scene. I ADORE that you don't seen Thanos attack the Asgardian ship, you just see the aftermath. Right when the Marvel logo came up and that low, ominous music came fading in, you knew shit was about to go DOWN. You see some guy laying off in the distance by Thanos, and you come to realize it's Thor, Hulk gets his ass handed to him, Hemidall dies. And what really made me bawl like a school-girl was Loki dying. That scene hit me in the guy like no other. Seeing Thanos literally squeeze the life out of Loki is almost too much to handle. I love that Loki went out a hero. Absolute perfection. Even if some characters did get side-lined a bit, everybody got their moment to shine. That's remarkable. One pairing in the movie that was SO good was Thor and Rocket. Who saw that one coming? The ending is fucking spectacular. From when Thanos enters Wakanda on, it's emotional hell. You truly feel the weight of what's happening in that scene. I find it incredible that most of Vision and Wanda's relationship development has been offscreen, yet her destroying the mind stone in his head plays SO well. Alan Silvestri's score really shines in this scene, it is gut-wrenching. And just when you think Thor saved the day..... *snap* Everybody (or half, really) fading out of existence is goddamn emotional, but what really makes the scene heart-breaking is Peter Parker dying. Tom Holland was fucking incredible in this scene. You have this fucking kid scared out of his mind not wanting to die, and his mentor who got him into this in the first place not able to do a thing. This scene made me cry even harder on my second viewing. The Russos and Christopher Markus & Stephen McFeely have pulled off a remarlabke achivement. The fact that all of this is so emotional and gut-wrenching even though you know most of these characters will indeed be coming back is incredible. Comparisons to "The Empire Strikes Back" with movies happen far too often and is a major cliche, but this movie is absolutely on that level. Dare I say, better. It's gonna be a long year.
I read a theory that Peter seemed to be the only one scared because his Spider Sense was alerting him of what was to come. Makes it all the more heartbreaking.
Mantis sensed something was wrong too - wasn't she the first to go on Titan? I'm really bummed that Proxima Midnight and Ebony Maw are dead. I get that the Black Order weren't that important to the storyline, basically just a means to get the Infinity Stones and serve as villain fodder for any given group while Thanos is dealing with another set of heroes, but damn... Midnight was voiced by Carrie Coon, who absolutely should have been in the MCU already because she's awesome. The character, not so much, but hey, whatever, still badass. Ebony Maw was just... man, what a creepy fucking villain, I loved it. I could watch a whole movie where Maw is the villain. Surely this is the first superhero movie where, basically, the villain has everything go their way and the movie ends with the bad guy walking off into the sunset? That's ballsy.
^I was a bit bummed that Ebony Maw bit the dust so early as well. I loved him every time he was on screen. Such a cool character. RIP Squidward.
I've been thinking about this movie for a while. Something I didn't think about that, upon reflection, is fucking awe-inspiring, is that none of the featured heroes felt shoehorned in or pointless. Every single hero or heroine had a moment and moved the plot forward in some way. Everyone's "arc" contributed to the final outcome. It seems like such a simple thing to say, but with the most ensemble cast of ensemble casts to ever cast an ensemble, that's freaking astounding.
Absolutely agreed. At no point during the film did anything feel filler. I thought the progression of the plot through the characters felt natural and never rushed or forced in any way. Which boggled me even as I watched the movie.
The only thing that weirded me out about this movie was just how little Cap/BW/Falcon were used. So much of the press/hype leading up to this movie was about "oh Cap is 100% gonna die. It's the second to last movie on Chris Evans' contract " and we got like ... 4-5 scenes with him? And he didn't die? Maybe I'm just having whiplash from all the press. Cool that he got the last line though "oh God".
I found this weird at first, but I came to accept it, since it allows for characters like Vision & Wanda, the Guardans, and Thanos to truly take the spotlight. I went it to it expecting the Guardians to be more of an afterthought, and was pleasantly surprised to see that in a lot of ways, they were the emotional core of the film. I remember reading a interview from a month or so back with the Russos where they said that if you feel like some characters get sidelined in Infinity War. there’s a good chance they’ll be more in the spotlight in Avengers 4. So we have that to look forward to at least.
Personally I do commend the Russos for balancing all the characters together even though a lot of the major players got the short stick. I really liked Thor's arc in the movie as well. Plus, I like how the characters felt they were coming out of their own solo movies - Gunn Guardians, Waititi Thor, Russo Bros Capt America, Coogler Black Panther - that was a big improvement over the over-Whedonized characters in Age of Ultron.
I never understood why people were freaking out about that. Thor said pretty blatantly that Thanos had killed HALF of his people.
I pretty much loved everything about this movie. I find it kind of funny that the hero that I resemble the most (Star Lord) has pretty much everyone who saw the movie pissed off at him. I guess that's par for the course...
Thought crossed my mind. I think it's because if they really made Thanos THAT strong, there would be literally no point in Avengers fighting back. He'd have wiped them out in an instant and the movie would have been pointless.
I think they explained it in the opening scene on the Asgardian ship with the following piece of dialogue: Ebony Maw: No. Let him have his fun. Thanos IS that strong, he just wants to have fun. He demonstrates some of the power of the Infinity Stones throughout the movie but purposefully doesn't utilize it to the extent he could. As an example, the fight on Titan. Dude literally just summons a fucking moon. He could very easily have just had the moon crater the whole battlefield as a whole. Instead, he broke it into bite-sized chunks and went meteor storm. He's playing with his food. That's why he took his armor off in that first scene. He wanted to prove that HE could defeat all. That he had the conviction to do what was necessary.