Infinity War Thread With The Spoilers

I seriously want Avengers Fo4r to begin with them in an alley behind a dive bar somewhere passed out.

Finally got to it last night in a mostly full theater. Overall I liked it. I actually did like Thanos and it was nice to see the villain get some sort of motivation. Shit, I think dude was the main character in this thing. Plus, his CGI was pretty decent. It wasn't really rubbery or distracting like his little cameos in the previous Marvel movies were. I guess my expectations weren't super high for this. Like, I thought it would probably be pretty good (like a B grade for me) and they hit that along with doing some good, surprising things.

Anyway, here's some stray observations:

• There was some weird whiplash with Thor in this. After the goofy tone of Ragnorok, it was weird to try and sort of keep that update to the character. It almost kind of fit when he was with the Guardians, but, still.
• Speaking of Thor, are all the Asgardians dead? He said something about half of them being dead, but like, the whole ship full of all the Asgardians was blown up. So, was there some escape pods or something? What happened to Valkyrie? More importantly, what happened to Korg?
• On Dr. Strange being obtuse about the future, I guess maybe he wasn't saying because telling people the future changes the future, or something. I dunno. I kind of wanted one of the standard Marvel comedic undercuts after he tells Tony there was one possible future where they win and the music swells and then cut. Instead they should have had just the music cut out and have Tony ask, "So, are you going to tell us how to do that?" Someone tell Marvel I'll do punch ups for $50k a script.
• Cumberbatch's American accent is so bad. He could have just been English. That would have been fine. The 12 nerds who cared would have gotten over it.
• Hey everybody, it's Red Skull! Remember Red Skull! He's protecting this infinity stone for reasons. But this time played by a different actor.
• On the lack luster reaction from characters turning to ash: I wonder if this maybe had to do with some of the actors not knowing they were turning to ash. From the interviews I saw with the cast, it seemed like most of them didn't actually know what was going on in the scenes they weren't in and maybe just one or two had a full script.
• That Spiderman death scene was great. Tom Holland is a great Spiderman. RDJ had a really bland reaction to the character who was set up as sort of an adopted son's death. Like, he seemed slightly annoyed instead of, I dunno, devastated by this personal loss of someone he was personally responsible for protecting that represents the failure to protect humanity at large, he's driving motivation in both Ultron and Civil War.
• Hell, Captain America had a pretty bland reaction to Bucky's death.
• Captain America had nothing to do in this movie. Grimace, punch, repeat.
• Banner not being able to turn into Hulk was cool. It was also kind of weird since the trailers clearly had Hulk fighting in Wakanda. Like, did they spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on special effects just for a misdirect in the trailers? Or can they just go through a couple of clicks and insert one CGI character for another?
• Someone said it earlier in this thread, but Marvel clearly wasn't expecting Black Panther to be as huge as it was, otherwise they may have given those characters something to do. Shit, Shuri gets knocked off a platform when trying to fix Vision and then nothing for the rest of the movie. We don't even see her land.

Black Panther starts right after Civil War. This happens far enough after Civil War for Captain America to grow a sexy on-the-lam beard. So, at least a couple of months.

I mean, they could make Th4 without Loki. Then the whole plot wouldn't have to revolve around Loki betraying Thor, then eventually winning back his trust and sacrificing himself to save the day. Plus, more screen time for Valkyrie and Korg, who I am saying are still alive.

That Vision series is great, but there's no way it's ever getting adapted.  It's just too far off from the MCU template.  Maybe the X-Men guys would do something like that, but MCU won't.

Don't crush my dreams! If stuff like Thor Ragnarok and Black Panther can finally be made a vision adaptation could happen!

I said not to crush my dreams!

I would shit my pants for Kid Loki. Anyway, for future instalments I think they should get Danny de Vito to play Pip the Troll.

Watching the movie I had the thought that Nebula has actually had the shittiest life of everyone in the MCU.  I mean, Gamora was warped being raised by Thanos, sure, but he only seemed to keep Nubula around as a way to torment Gamora.  Like, even all the torture Nebula received through her life was just a way to manipulate someone else - how shitty is that?

Hey, I just realized two people named Peter were onscreen at the same time. If Cap and Dr. Strange meet we'll have two Steves with facial hair.

Also, now that I've had a couple of hours to absorb the movie I can say it was better than Age of Ultron.

It seems a lot of people have complained that this movie is all plot no character, and while that's not entirely an unfair criticism, it's also not completely accurate either.  There is an attempt to have an emotional core to this movie, it's the relationship between Vision and Scarlett Witch, and it's a complete bust.  It. Does. Not. Work.  The problem with it is that we're given absolutely no reason to care or invest in their relationship at all, and it fatally undermines placing them as the people we're supposed to invest in.  Scarlett Witch has had virtually no screen-time post-AoU which has gone beyond "hi, I'm the Scarlett Witch!" and Vision is just unspeakably bland on-screen for whatever reason. His sole moment of not-being-dull is his brief scene in Edinburgh when he's human, but it's about 45 seconds long, then it's back to the red version that's just... there. That's not nearly enough to carry the weight of the film, and no other film has invested enough time in them to build the relationship up to the point where that scene could work as a reminder.  Really, who gives a figgin about their relationship?  Why should we, beyond the vague abstractions of the plot?  Even Tony and Pepper have a more nuanced relationship, and theirs mostly consists of shouting at each other / not shouting at each other / shouting at each other again.  Or, sure, rest it on the emotional relationship of Tony's surrogate-father routine with Spider Tween (all the love for Tom Holland, who's amazing in the role).  Groot and Rocket Raccoon have more going on emotionally than Vision and Scarlett Witch and one of them's a fucking tree!  It's frustrating precisely because you can see what they're going for with Vision and Scarlett Witch, and having it fall so visibly short undercuts what should help hold all the action and plot shenanigans together.  

Stray Observations Any Other Business:

• Why is Bucky in this?
• Loki's death, if it is to be one of the ones that sticks, is also completely unengaging. It's not built to in any way, nobody seems to give a shit about it one way or the other, and it's a complete throwaway of an otherwise-fantastic character who deserves better. Idiotic. If it sticks.
  
• Fine, we know there's going to be a Big Reset Button^tm - that's not in and of itself fatal to watching half a film (sigh), but give it some room to breathe at least.  Half our characters are dead!  Oh no!  What's going to ha... oh the movie's over.  We have two and a half hours of what amounts to CGI bunting, but you can't spare three extra minutes for your big play to land? (Spider-Man aside)
  
• I didn't know about Peter Dinklage as a giant in this going in. That was legitimately fantastic.
• The whole How Thor Gets His Groove Axe is also terrific.  I kinda wish it had been in a better movie.
• I miss Phil Coulson in these movies.  At least he added a human face that was prepared to undercut the rapidly-becoming-wearisome pompousness of Absolutely Every Fucking Thing, and not just with a quip or a one-liner.  His sincerity added a lot, and these movies desperately need some kind of alternative perspective on things rather than all this fussy self-importance.
• Thanos is a shit bad guy in the movies. Sorry, but he is.  His chin looks like a ballsack presumably because he sucks so much dick.  Great, we have a villain with a motivation!  Could we maybe, though, have one with a less stupid motivation please?

This sounds like I hated this and I didn't.  Colours moved in front of my eyes for two and a half hours while I had a couple of beers, and that's all I really expected. And all I really got.  But every Avengers movie has been weaker than the one before it (the first one remains legitimately great) and that's not exactly inspiring me for Avengers 4: Electric BackForMore.  

   

So I have more thoughts on the movie beyond "I am feeling all the emotions right now" and angrily snapping at anyone trying to invalidate me feeling all the emotions.

This felt like a clinical, brutal (that word is going to come up alot), brilliantly put-together movie. I don't know how this movie feels for a Marvel outsider, I've watched every MCU movie multiple times. Even The Incredible Hulk from 2008. I was feeling everything as I watched these characters I've been emotionally invested in for a decade struggle, fail, and die in massive numbers. Spider-Man's evaporating was the most heartbreaking, but seeing the vast majority of the Guardians of the Galaxy die (sucks to be you, Rocket), Bucky dying in front of Cap again, Loki finally swinging around to the side of good in Thor: Ragnarok and dying almost immediately for it. 

There were a few setpieces that particularly struck out for me. The in medias res opening of Thanos and crew taking over Thor's refugee ship suuuuuuuuucked (in a good way). Thor: Ragnarok was one of my if not my favourite MCU movie, and seeing everything set up in that movie ripped apart in a thrilling, brutal sequence with just enough hope spots to string you along (They've got a Hulk! Oh crap. Okay Heimdall's doing something! Crap again. Surely Loki has a pla- oh no.) while ripping apart what's left of Thor's life while he can only helplessly watch. To Prole's point above, I think Loki's death was given as much due as it could in a movie like this while also realistically... look, Thor and the audience are really the only people at this point who cares if Loki lives or dies. And Thor is clearly broken up about all of it. Loki's story arc woven through the Avengers and the Thor franchise was great and had come to a logical end in Thor: Ragnarok, and then it was abruptly ended in a way that makes sense, pays off all of his relationship development with Thor (dude probably would have worked with Thanos if he wasn't afraid/certain Thanos was going to kill his brother), and set up Thanos as a serious hero-killing threat for all the MCU. And probably wrapped up Tom Hiddleton's contract issues up nicely? I loved it, even as I hated it. 

I felt like this movie made Scarlet Witch. The directors promised that this movie would sign a spotlight on the characters who frankly will probably never get a solo movie, and they delivered with Wanda. Since Vision is a largely monotone robot, the job of selling the relationship between Vision and Scarlet was all on her, and I felt Elizabeth Olsen delivered. From her epically delivering in fight scenes, to her heartbrokenly desperately trying to murder her ro-boyfriend in time to save the universe, to the utter shock and despair of oh crap Thanos has time magic now. And again, she was so badarse in fight scenes. I loved Vision and Scarlet running around Scotland trying to get away from stabby guy and stabby girl. They took the strange romance arc buried under three or four different subplots in Captain America: Civil War and ran with it, and I dug it.

Iron Man and Spider-Man. Just... fuck you Marvel. God damn. Fuck. You. I thought Marvel movies were supposed to be fun. Moving on.

I liked Thanos as a villain. Yes, if you examine his motive logically it feels unnecessary. At the end of the day he's a slapnuts lunatic who's obsessed with killing half of things when it's very clearly not the only solution to things. I don't think that invalidates his arc though? We see the character going through struggles, his relationship with Gamora, Nebula, and his other children, the tragedy of having to throw Gamora off a cliff because Red Skull said so. (Seriously how crazy is it that Red Skull is back). The fact that he's shown working for it keeps from having a character at even his least-powerful form in the movie beating the shit out of the Hulk from feeling cheap. Yes, he's everywhere he needs to be at all times just about effortlessly smacking down the heroes, but he's putting in the legwork. And when he told the vision child Gamora "yes, but it cost me everything", I felt it. This was a lunatic who had a (logically just wrong) vision, busted his arse and pulled it off, and in the process lost all of his children and everything he loves. Except Nebula. He still has Nebula. 

The movie as a whole, just wow. The creeping dread throughout the movie as Thanos starts by curb-stomping Thor, Hulk, Heimdall, and Loki, and things just keep getting worse. The heroes getting more and more desperate as ill-hatched scheme after ill-hatched scheme keeps failing. Setting up two epic action setpieces where the heroes have two ill-hatched schemes going to try and deny the already stupendously powerful Thanos the Doctor Strange plot bauble and the Vision plot bauble. And then, the crushing failure. All throughout, the action, the CGI, and the performances were top notch. I can only applaud the execution of this movie. 

I did not enjoy the movie. At all. I was miserable in the theatre. In a way that demonstrated that everyone involved was doing a spectacular job, but fuck that movie was rough.  

And to the ugly, out of context truth of this movie. It's franchise-breaking. The things Marvel did in this movie, at least a fair chunk of them will need to be taken back due to market necessity. Unless Marvel is willing to go balls-to-the-wall shakeup and Miles Morales is Spider-Man, M'Baku is the new Black Panther, and Guardians of the Galaxy is Rocket Raccoon and Nebula travelling through space and dealing with PTSD, they're gonna need to bring these actors back. In a way that doesn't feel cheap. It's a hell of a hurdle for the franchise to manage, but the mad geniuses who made Infinity War seem confident they've managed it. I don't know if they'll succeed, but I'll be buying a ticket to find out. 

I have so much (irrational?) anger over this, from a professional reviewer

"Thanks to Josh Brolin’s surprisingly nuanced performance, it’s very easy to understand why he’s bent on killing off half the universe. At times, he genuinely seems sympathetic, mainly because we spend more time with him than most other characters in the film."

NO.
NO IT ISN'T
AND NO HE DOESN'T
ARE YOU A SOCIOPATH

Just because you can logistically say "yeah that WOULD solve the problem" doesn't mean it's easy to understand why he's carrying out genocide NOR does hanging out with someone automatically make them sympathetic . "Interesting" and "compelling" does not equate "sympathetic", and if you think that's the case, you are not allowed to pick out your own dates ever again. 

I don't understand why this is SO HARD for people to understand, especially people who are purportedly watching movies and analysing them for a living.

You know who's evil and sympathetic? Nebula. But I can't recall a time I saw anyone really calling her sympathetic.


what the fuck for real

I am hoping that we get more about what really happened on Titan in Part 4, because I don't buy Thanos's explanation.  "I suggested we randomly kill half of our population, they laughed at me, then society collapsed and everyone died!"  Maybe he's telling the truth.  But I sort of doubt it.