Ever since I was a little kid reading comic books I had a fantasy of a day where there would be giant comic book movies where my heroes would save the earth on a grand scale and everyone would be into it. Strangely, over time, that small fantasy become a reality. I never thought when I saw Iron Man 10 years ago, and the filmmakers made that “little” Avengers joke at the end, that I would be sitting here writing a review for any Avengers movie, let alone their third one in a large scale franchise that has made billions and gave everyone a small glimpse into a world that I loved so much as a kid and still do.
After years of waiting and wondering, the reality finally happened: Avengers: Infinity War has been unleashed, and that little kid in me wept with joy as my hopes, fears and dreams were answered. This is the Avengers movie I never knew I wanted. This is epic, grand, and fantastic from top to bottom. Throughout every character scene, action beat, comedic moment, and tear-filled gasp, this hit every mark and then some.
So lets do some catching up, shall we? So, way back in 2012 with the first Avengers we had a glimpse of Thanos. As comic fans gasped in joy/horror, leading to many parents and non-nerds asking, “uh, who’s that?” thus, the fascination of Thanos begun. Fans soon began flocking to comic stores needing to know more. Thanos is a super powerful alien titian who destroyed everything in his wake. He seeks death like a lover and wants nothing more than to rule all of the universe. There’s this little thing he has called an Infinity Gauntlet, which has all these massively powerful cosmic Infinity Stones. Each holds a special power which can control: Space, Reality, Power, Mind, Time and the Soul. With these, Thanos can destroy and remake the universe in his image.
Thanos’ whole mission in this first movie is to collect all the Stones together. So he goes or sends his children to where they are. We pick up Infinity War right after the events of Thor: Ragnarok, Where Thor and the Asgardian people were floating though space seeking their new home. As we all knew, Loki took the Tesseract, which is a Stone and Thanos has found them. After an awesome opening a battle the movie kicks off into several different directions but all leading to the same end. Being broken down into different groups of heroes was a great move by the filmmakers. Not only is it interesting as a viewers to watch different interactions with heroes we’ve never seen meet before, but its also hilarious. Some of these heroes are too similar and really know how to pick on each other’s nerves. Some of the best moments that will be remembered are just the simple interactions between these heroes.
Tony Stark, Spider-Man and Doctor Strange start off as one small team, later joined by Drax, Mantis and Star-Lord. They are the space team if you will; they will be taking on Thanos on his turf. Captain America, Black Widow, Bruce Banner, Vision, Scarlet Witch and War Machine travel to Wakanda joined by Black Panther and The Winter Solider who make plans for Thanos’ ground forces on Earth. And then there’s Thor, Groot and Rocket on their own small mission who of course join the fray on Earth. Each team is great to watch as are all the actors who at this point know this characters better than they know themselves.
No need to talk about all the heroes and actors who play them here. All has been said that can be about their performances. And they all are solid and just as great as they have been. But lets focus on the newcomer to the party, Thanos. Josh Brolin turns in an amazing Shakespearean performance full of cruelty, power and nothing but sheer villain terror. When he enters a scene you hold your breath for you just don’t know what he’s going to do next. Brolin was worth all the hype in his casting. His CGI/motion capture is some of the best seen. He is a character that has all the dimensions a great villain needs. I don’t want to say there’s anything sympathetic about him, because there isn’t, but there are emotional moments for the villain where you feel his pain. But at the end of the day, he is the best Marvel villain and totally worth the wait.
The movie has some truly great fight scenes, which is saying something that now we’ve had 19 of these Marvel movies up to this point. There are a lot of the same action beats we’ve seen many times before, but the directors, the Russo brothers, worked in many new action elements that just help make the movie that much better. A personal favorite scene is the train station fight scene where Cap and Widow fight against two of Thanos’ children. It’s a dark and up close personal fight with great fight choreography.
This movie is 10 years worth of story, plot and themes that have all been woven together with time and detail. The filmmakers managed to make not only a good Avengers movie, they made the best Avengers movie. It’s everything comic and film fans have wanted since the beginning, all your heroes standing side-by-side taking on the greatest evil the universe has ever seen. This is very much a part one. It has a cliffhanger not unlike Han Solo being frozen or Jack Sparrow being eaten. This is just the first part of what will be an epic long film that fans will enjoy over and over. This was worth the wait.
