I technically can't say I've been with the MCU since day one. I was on a mission for my church from 2008 to 2010, meaning I never saw "Iron Man" or "The Incredible Hulk" in theaters. But I quickly caught up when I got home and starting with "Iron Man 2" in summer 2010, I have seen all of them in theaters, usually on opening weekend. I don't consider this that major of an accomplishment. When you're a fan of a franchise and it only takes two to three trips to the theater to keep up, it's a rather easy task to have seen all 19 movies. If you're a more casual fan or you never really venture out to the theater and thus you haven't seen every MCU movie, then that's where this gets a bit tricky because "Infinity War" is NOT a standalone film. Sure, you still might be able to enjoy the action sequences, laugh at the humor and appreciate the crazy finale, but there's a really good chance you might be completely lost in regards to the story if you've missed significant parts of this journey. Specifically, I'd say every Phase III movie is necessary to see in order to completely appreciate "Infinity War," those movies being "Captain America: Civil War," "Doctor Strange," "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2," "Spider-Man: Homecoming," "Thor: Ragnarok" and "Black Panther."
From that point, there's even more back tracking, because most of those Phase III movies are fully appreciated only after seeing their Phase I and Phase II predecessors. What this means is that "Infinity War" is a movie for the fans. Usually I don't like using that phrase because "this is a movie for the fans" is often a cop-out used by people to condescend towards those who didn't like a movie that they did enjoy. I got that thrown at me by some DC fans when I gave "Batman v. Superman" a negative review, which I found really annoying because I AM a DC fan. In fact, I grew up with DC more than I did Marvel, so to say that I'm not a true fan because I didn't like that movie made me want to slap some people upside the face. But yet I say "Infinity War" is for the fans simply because it's best appreciated upon seeing every previous movie in the MCU and might fly right over the heads of those who aren't caught up. If you have seen every movie and you happen to not like "Infinity War" because of all the death and destruction or for other reasons, then don't take offense to my statement. I'm not saying you aren't a fan. You're allowed to not like this movie and still like everything else in the MCU. I just hope you take the time to understand why this is my new favorite movie in the MCU.
While I am a big fan of the MCU, I always hesitate to label myself as a Marvel fanboy. The term fanboy often comes with a negative connotation that infers said person refuses to say anything bad about the franchise and will thus blindly praise every movie in that franchise as the best thing since sliced bread. When it comes to Marvel fanboys, that often means also hating everything DC has done as if this is a sporting match where you have to pick one or the other because cheering for both teams doesn't often make sense. I've always hated this. Why can't we enjoy both? If DC figures out how to make more movies like "Wonder Woman" and less movies like everything else in the DCEU, then I will gladly ride both of these franchises. Thus you shouldn't see my high praises of "Infinity War" as me being a Marvel fanboy who always blindly praises everything they do. That's not true. In fact, it was "Wonder Woman" and "Logan" that made my top 10 last year, not "Thor: Ragnarok" or "Spider-Man: Homecoming," even though the latter two would've been worthy choices. And I was highly critical of both "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2" and "Black Panther." More than many, anyways. So I'm not just going to automatically praise everything from Marvel, despite what it may seem.
I know that might sound sadistic, but I felt that this is what Marvel needed to do in order to give this movie the emotional impact needed to make this movie 10 years and 18 movies in the making worth the wait and the hype. Then we can get our happy ending in part two next year, which will be more satisfying of a victory in the process. One that the Avengers actually had to work harder than ever for. This is a high bargain to ask from a movie, especially one that has been mostly pleasant comfort food for a good majority of the previous 10 years. Demanding that out of a movie was setting myself up for failure, especially because I didn't believe that they could do it and I was ready to be super critical. I was excited. But not as excited as I should be with all this baggage I was taking into the movie theater. Yet this, my friends, is exactly why "Infinity War" is the best movie in the MCU and one of the best superhero movies ever made. Because they did it. I didn't think they could. But they did. I've been reeling all weekend. I've been emotionally traumatized. I feel like I got punched in the gut and beaten with a baseball bat. Yet in a weird, sick, twisted way, I've enjoyed it. It's resulted in one of the most unique and rewarding cinematic experiences of my life.
Yes, this is a spoiler review, but that doesn't mean I'm going to talk about every single aspect of this movie. This is a 149-minute long movie with perhaps more characters jammed in than I've ever seen, meaning I can talk about this for hours and practically write a book on this blog if I were to cover everything. But I'm not going to. What I will do is speak opening about the aspects of this movie that I felt need to be mentioned. Like the fact that we start this movie off with a bang in learning that Thanos has wiped out all of the Asgardians. Or, well, half of them as Thor later states in the movie. This was a phenomenal way to start off the movie. It does make the ending of "Thor: Ragnarok" a bit sad when you know what's coming next for them. But it sets the tone for this entire film. At the end credits scene of "Ragnarok," we saw them come face to face with Thanos' ship, likely because Loki stole the Tesseract before Asgard itself blew up and that Tesseract is exactly what Thanos is looking for. We learn immediately that Thanos is absolutely ruthless as he then boards their ship, kills half of them, including Heimdall and Loki, scares Hulk into hiding for the rest of the movie, steals the Tesseract, leaves Thor badly hurt, then leaves as if he's done something noble.
My biggest question there is WHERE'S VALKYRIE?!?!?!?! If she's among the dead Asgardians, that might be upsetting to me because I wanted a lot more from her in the MCU. But as we don't know her fate, I won't hold that against this specific movie. I do think it's a noble death for Loki. As the god of mischief, he's been wavering from day one and has caused a lot of pain and destruction. Yet in "Ragnarok" he finally seemed to come around and his arc is finished in a heroic way as he nearly kills Thanos right there, but his blade is stopped inches from Thanos' throat and then is choked to death by Thanos. I think this is a great way to finish off Loki's arc and sadly I hope they keep him dead, otherwise I feel that might compromise this moment. Yet along those lines of Loki nearly stopping Thanos, that ends up being the theme of this movie. Both the Avengers and the Guardians come so close on so many different occasions, yet Thanos ends up coming out on top in each situation, adding to the painful, emotional beat down that that movie gives the audience. The other thing that this opening scene accomplished was making me uneasy for the rest of the film. If they're willing to kill half the Asgardians, with Loki included, then no one is safe.
Interestingly enough, the way it turned out wound up being the exact opposite of what I was expecting with all the new members getting killed off and the old members surviving, but I'll get to that in a bit. Thanos needs to be discussed at this point. Now, I don't think we've learned everything about Thanos at this point. And I'm not sure why exactly he's made it his mission to obtain all the infinity stones and destroy half the universe. But so far I buy into it. One of the most fascinating things about him is that I think he genuinely believes that he is doing the right thing. Regardless of the reason, he feels like he needs to bring balance to the universe and he's going to do whatever it takes to get that done while not feeling any sort of guilt or remorse while also not feeling necessary to wipe out everyone. He almost kills Thor at the beginning, but when Loki agrees to give up the Tesseract, he lets Thor go free. He almost kills Iron Man at the end, but when Doctor Strange agrees to give up the Time Stone, he lets Iron Man go free. Even then, when he's about to kill Iron Man, he tells him that, "I hope they remember you." Yes, that line was in the trailer and I thought it was going to be done in a mocking tone, but it turned out to be a respectful gesture for a formidable opponent.
That whole mindset from Thanos really fascinated me and helped me buy into his motivations while also being scared of him due to the fact that he was willing to kill any of my favorite Avengers if they got in his way, more out of duty rather than power and vengeance. What officially put me over the top in regards to Thanos is the scene with him and Gamora. Darth Vader went from ominous presence in "A New Hope" to fascinating character in "The Empire Strikes Back" when you learn that he cares for his son Luke. Thus Thanos draws parallels to Darth Vader on that level because he became even more interesting once we learned how much he cared about Gamora. After Gamora takes Thanos to the soul stone following Peter Quill's failed attempt to kill his girlfriend on her request when Thanos uses the reality stone to turn Quill's bullets into bubbles, it is revealed via Red Skull, which was a shocking revelation that he was still alive, that in order to obtain the soul stone, you need to sacrifice someone you love. This is the point where Gamora starts laughing because she's convinced that Thanos is like Voldemort by being incapable of loving. OK, she doesn't reference Voldemort. But that's what I was thinking. And I was with her. Gamora is safe and Thanos' plan has failed.
Yet in one of the most powerful moments in the movie, we suddenly see Thanos shed a tear. I gasped in horror because I suddenly realized what is going to happen. Gamora, a character I really have come to love, is toast. Sure enough, Thanos apologizes to her and throws her off a cliff. And doing so destroyed him inside, which caused me to feel for him a bit because he just lost his daughter due to the fact that he felt it was his duty to collect all of the infinity stones. I didn't expect to empathize with Thanos in this moment, especially not after he just killed one of the best Guardians, who I don't think is coming back, but I did on a certain level. Suddenly this big baddie was more than just a crazy villain who wants to destroy half of the universe, but he actually has a heart. He didn't care for much. But he cared for Gamora. And that was proven over the fact that he was rewarded with the soul stone after this sacrifice, which he wouldn't have received if that was a fake sacrifice. After this moment in the movie, Thanos now had four infinity stones, the purple one that he got before the movie began, the Tesseract that he got from Loki after killing the Asgardians, the reality stones that he got by burning down the Collector's planet and the soul stone that he got by sacrificing Gamora.
Thus we are left with just two stones for him to collect, the time stone that Doctor Strange is protecting and the yellow stone that's in Vision's head. There's a lot of different story arcs that lead up to the point of Thanos obtaining these final two sequences and I'm going to breeze past all of it. There were a lot of characters to follow, a lot of humor that was cleverly implemented in and a lot of action sequences that I really enjoyed. What I will say about all of this is that it reminded me of a Star Wars movie in the way this whole story was told with various parties at different parts of the galaxy while we took turns bouncing around to all of them. Star Wars does this with a lot of fancy swipes and fades and although "Infinity War" didn't do any of that style of editing, it almost felt like it did. I was most impressed with how the Russo Brothers balanced all of this story telling. They risked the movie becoming overly bloated with too many characters and too many story arcs, but as they've shown previously with "The Winter Soldier" and "Civil War," they're pretty good at this storytelling and have continued to maintain a high level of quality with increasingly more characters to balance with each new project Marvel has put in their hands.Long story short, we are left with two final battle sequences, one on Titan with Iron Man, Doctor Strange, Spider-Man, Star-Lord, Drax and Mantis taking the battle to Thanos and nearly manage to remove the Infinity Gauntlet until Star-Lord screws everything up when he learns that Thanos killed Gamora. I know a lot of people are giving Star-Lord a lot of crap for losing his temper like this, but I personally think it makes him one of the more human characters in all of this movie, making him extremely relatable. You definitely feel for Star-Lord and I'm sure everyone can relate to a moment where they acted irrationally upon learning something devastating. This also adds yet another moment in the movie where the heroes almost won, but then came up short. Later in this sequence, our other emotional moment is where Thanos nearly kills Iron Man. This moment nearly wrecked me because I honestly thought Iron Man was gone, but then Doctor Strange succumbs and gives up the time stone in order to save Iron Man. But does he succumb in a moment of weakness? I don't think so. Remember, Doctor Strange saw every possible outcome of this battle and I'm guessing he saw that Iron Man was necessary to beat Thanos and that the time stone needed to be given up.
This leaves us to our final battle. While everything in the previous paragraph is happening, we also jump around to everyone else gathered in Wakanda in what has to be one of the most epic battle sequences in any superhero movie and possibly any movie overall. While the other battle is very improv, this one is very strategic and organized, but involves so many different characters doing so many awesome things, After nearly countless epic moments in this battle, there are two moments where the Avengers almost win that again add to this emotional beat down when they come up short. The first is Scarlet Witch finally agreeing to sacrifice Vision in a super sad moment because I finally bought them as a couple. When Scarlet Witch successfully destroys the infinity stone in Vision, I thought that Vision wasn't going to get the final stone. But then he uses the time stone, making useless Scarlet Witch's sacrifice and kills Vision himself. Ouch. And finally, Thor soars in with Stormbreaker, his new awesome axe, and nails Thanos right in the chest. I thought Thanos was dead and suddenly panicked in trying to figure out what happens in the next movie. But nope. Thanos then says, "You should've gone for the head." Thanos then snaps his fingers and all is over.
And this leads me to my final point. This movie began with Thanos desiring to obtain all of the infinity stones, balance the universe by destroying half of everyone living in it, then relax on his own place after successfully completing his mission. And he succeeds. That final shot is a very somber moment that leaves everyone watching completely wrecked. But all the death coming before it is rather shocking as half of the people start to disintegrate. Victims of this disintegration include Doctor Strange, Spider-Man, Black Panther, Scarlet Witch, Falcon, Bucky Barnes, Mantis, Drax, Star-Lord, Groot, Nick Fury and Maria Hill. None of these people are actually dead. The Avengers are going to find a way to reverse this. I don't know how, but they are. But still, even knowing that none of them are dead for good, this didn't diminish the sadness of the situation as each new person gone broke my heart, but none more than Spider-Man as he nervously hugged Tony, saying, "I don't want to go." Surviving members include Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, Hulk, Black Widow, War Machine, Okoye, M'Baku, Rocket and Nebula. We don't know about Shuri because she was off screen and Ant-Man, Wasp or Hawkeye because they weren't in the movie.
I'm certainly excited to see how this all turns out. It pains me that we have to wait a whole year until the currently untitled "Avengers 4" will finish us off. There is a lot of pressure for them to complete this the right way without diminishing what they accomplished in "Infinity War." As such, as I expect everyone who disintegrated to come back, especially because some of them, like Spider-Man, have movies on the schedule, part of me hopes that those who died before the disintegration remain dead, thus meaning the stakes set up in this movie were real. In other words, Loki, Gamora and Vision I think are dead forever. But we shall see. However, even if the conclusion of this arc isn't as good, I don't think that diminishes what the Russo Brothers accomplished with this movie. Both "The Empire Strikes Back" and "The Dark Knight" are two penultimate films that are nearly perfect movies, and two of my all-time favorites. Even though "Return of the Jedi" and "The Dark Knight Rises" didn't live up to those movies (though both are solid films -- don't get me wrong), they didn't ruin the legacy of their predecessor. At the very worst, that's the case we're looking at here. As I am sticking to my guns that "Infinity War" is the best MCU film, I think it was a given that I'm giving it a 10/10.
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