Avengers: Infinity War is a 2018 production from Marvel Studios and the first of two final setpieces during the third phase of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It’s under the direction of the Russo brothers, Anthony and Joe. Meantime, familiar MCU writers Stephen McFeely and Christopher Markus wrote the script. This movie is in a way the convergence of stories from the previous 17(!) films and therefore features about any character you can think of.
So, here is the list of actors I always give at the start of these reviews, only this time is longer than ever before. This movie features Robert Downey Jr., Chris Hemsworth, Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Benedict Cumberbatch, Scarlett Johansson, Tom Holland, Chadwick Boseman, Zoe Saldana, Elizabeth Olsen, Josh Brolin, Chris Pratt, Paul Bettany, Karen Gillan, Sebastian Stan, Anthony Mackie, Danai Gurira, Pom Klementieff, Dave Bautista, Benedict Wong, Don Cheadle, Idris Elba, Tom Hiddleston, Gwyneth Paltrow, Vin Diesel, Bradley Cooper, Letitia Wright and Peter Dinklage.
The movie scores an 8.4/10 on IMDb but received only a 68 Metascore.
A Summary
The movie starts on the Asgardian ship which they used to leave Asgard after the events of Thor: Ragnarok. Thanos (Josh Brolin) already retrieved the Power Stone from Xander and now gets the Tesseract from Loki (Tom Hiddleston) which contains another Infinity Stone. When Loki tries to sneak up on Thanos, he gets killed. Heimdall (Idris Elba) can just Bifrost Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) to Earth as their ship gets decimated. He lands in the New York Sanctum, which is Stephen Strange’s (Benedict Cumberbatch) domain now.
After Bruce tells Strange and Wong (Benedict Wong) about the situation, they contact Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.). At that moment, Maw and Obsidian, two of Thanos’ Children arrive in New York to seize the Time Stone from Strange. Banner is unable to transform into Hulk, which leaves Tony, Stephen, Wong and newly arrived Peter Parker (Tom Holland) to fight against the villains. Maw captures Strange and they leave with their spaceship, while Tony and Peter pursue.
We switch to the other side of the ocean, Schotland, where Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen) and Vision (Paul Bettany) have been hiding. They are ambushed by Midnight and Glaive, two other Children of Thanos. However, the two Avengers are saved by Steve Rogers (Chris Evans), Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson) and Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie), who arrive just in time to save them.
In meantime, Thor (Chris Hemsworth) is picked up by the Guardians of the Galaxy. Knowing that Thanos is after the stones, the Collector in Knowhere is a logical next destination as he has the Reality Stone. While Peter Quill (Chris Pratt), Gamora (Zoe Saldana), Drax (Dave Bautista) and Mantis (Pom Klementieff) head to Knowhere, Thor goes to Nidavellir with Rocket (Bradley Cooper) to forge himself a new weapon. The mission to Knowhere is already too late though as Thanos already has the stone and uses it the create an ambush where he can capture Gamora.
Nebula (Karen Gillan) told Thanos, after being tortured, that Gamora knows where the Soul Stone is. So Thanos heads to Vormir where Red Skull is keeping the stone but to get the Soul Stone, Thanos must give up something he truly loves. With some remorse, he throws Gamora in and retrieves the stone.
On Maw’s spaceship, Peter and Tony have freed Strange and killed Maw. The three of them head to Titan to face Thanos. On Titan they find Quill, Drax and Mantis, so together they devise a plan to fight Thanos. Strange uses the Time Stone and sees that there is only a 1 in 14000605 chance that they succeed. An attempt to steal the Infinity Gauntlet from Thanos failed after Quill heard the news about Gamora and went mental. Now, Thanos could kill every one of them but doesn’t because Strange gives up the Time Stone.
Thor and Rocket arrived at Nidavellir but found it completely deserted. The giant dwarf Eitri (Peter Dinklage) tells them that Thanos came by and killed the other dwarves. Thor restarts the forge by opening a hole for the nearby neutron star and Eitri creates Stormbreaker, with some help from Groot (Vin Diesel). All the other Avengers have been preparing in Wakanda for the upcoming fight against Thanos’ army, who wants to retrieve the Infinity Stone from Vision’s head, the last one he needs.
While Shuri (Letitia Wright) tries to safely remove the stone from Vision body, Wakanda’s forces have lined up to defend them. Led by King T’Challa (Chadwick Boseman) the big fight starts. Despite everyone’s best efforts, they fail when Thanos himself arrives at the battlefield. Wanda takes matters into her own hands and destroys the Mind Stone while it is still in Vision’s body, killing him in the process. However, Thanos rewinds time with the Time Stone and takes the Mind Stone out of Vision’s head, killing him a second time.
Just before Thanos snaps his finger, Thor implants his new axe into his chest but that doesn’t stop Thanos from snapping his fingers as he kills half of the life in the universe. We see a lot of heroes disintegrate, with the likes of Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan), Peter Parker, Doctor Strange, Groot, Peter Quill, T’Challa, Sam Wilson, Mantis and Wanda. While Steve Rogers, Thor, Bruce Banner, Romanoff, James Rhodes (Don Cheadle), Rocket, Okoye (Danai Gurira) survive the snap. The whole universe has been changed.
The Story
Loki’s attack on New York during the first Avengers movie was already Thanos’ doing. That was more than six years and 11 movies ago. You can’t give your opinion about this movie if you haven’t seen at the very least every Avenger movie. Avengers: Infinity War is the conclusion to storylines long in the making and an ultimate pay off to long-term fans of the universe. I would like to consider myself among these fans and therefore will be giving my opinion as a fan of the whole series.
The start of the movie immediately sets the tone with the scene where the Asgardians encounter Thanos. It is made clear that Thanos doesn’t shy away from sheer genocide to achieve his goals as he kills all the Asgardians aboard the ship. At this point, he only posses a single stone but his power is not te be underestimated. As Hulk, Thor, Heimdall and Loki aren’t able to stop Thanos. This shows us that the odds are heavily stacked against our protagonists.
Besides, Thanos is a villain with a compelling story to tell. He witnessed first-hand what happens when a population outgrows its resources and therefore wants to prevent that from happening around the whole universe. It might seem like Thanos is the worst villain ever seen in MCU but I would say it isn’t so black and white. Mostly because he may have point. We can see it in our everyday, real, life, we are burning fossil fuels to keep everybody warm but in the process were destroying our planet through climate change.
Thanos is a complex villain that intrigued me. He was able to keep me heavily invested in the movie at all times with help from the children of Thanos. His sidekicks proved to each be a bigger challenge than most of the heroes have ever seen before. They weren’t mere cannon fodder but they added to the story, especially Ebony Maw.
One of the most important characters from the long list of attendees is Gamora. She is the adopted daughter of Thanos and she showed the other side of Thanos that we needed to sympathize with his ideals. His emotions when he acquired the Soul Stone gave Thanos a human side opposite to his dark, genocidal side. This storyline also plays into the Guardians of the Galaxy, who already had a Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 of standalone movies at this point. Those were always great fun but in Infinity War Peter Quill faced way tougher decisions, which included killing Gamora.
The same could be said for Thor. Not long before he had to kill his own, long-lost sister during the events of Thor: Ragnarok. While that movie was also aimed more towards comedy, he also lost his father, Odin, during that time. Now, right at the start of Infinity War, he loses his brother Loki and friend Heimdall. It takes a toll, even on gods. His arc added greatly towards producing a great story.
Meantime, the more Earth-bound protagonists were having a great time until Thanos’ sidekicks showed up shortly after Bruce Banner crash-landed at Doctor Strange’s sanctum. Tony, overconfidently as always, engages and ends up leaving with the space ship, trying to lose Peter but failing. This shows how Tony’s affection towards the young kid has grown and he wants to protect him. While Doctor Strange is unfamiliar with both of them, he quickly realises they need to work together which ends with Strange giving up the Time Stone to save Tony Stark. It shows Strange’s all-knowing character and sets up the story for Avengers: Endgame.
In the end, everything comes down to Vision and the last stone in his possession. While I think that Wanda should’ve destroyed the stone way earlier, the dynamic between the lovers provides a nice plotline to explore. Just like Peter was willing to shoot Gamora but didn’t, Wanda destroyed the stone and killed Vision, only to see everything restored and Vision killed by Thanos. Absolutely brutal use of the Time Stone to end of this first part of the magnificent and elaborate story.
The Characters
This movie features just too many characters to write specific parts for the most important ones. I just want to express my gratitude towards Marvel Studios for trying this maybe too-large scale project. Seeing almost every character with whom I’ve become affectionate over the years it just amazing. It gives me goosebumps to see old-schools characters like Captain America and Hulk charging in to fight alongside newer additions, such as Black Panther.
Infinity War also provides a meeting ground for some groups of protagonists. For example, the Guardians of the Galaxy are unfamiliar with most other heroes and their first interactions with Thor are soo much fun. This Chris Pratt vs Chris Hemsworth vibe going on during that scene provides the viewer with a laugh during tough times. Just like the interactions between Iron Man and Doctor Strange did.
The movie maybe does have too much characters to properly create an arc for any of them. Other than Thor and Gamora there aren’t really any characters who experience some sort of growth during this movie. While that doesn’t cause too much of a problem for me, that does hit the movie from a quality perspective. But we got to see Red Skull again, who would’ve thought?
The Production
This movie production value is just through the roof. Implementing such a large amount of main characters into a single script provides an extremely difficult challenge. While most characters might not have had the best of the writing, just pulling this feet off is already incredible to me.
From the visual perspective, this movie takes MCU movies a step further. It features every kind of special effects with space and Earth both having a piece of the action. The fight on Wakandan soil is one of the biggest and most amazing I’ve ever seen. Alongside epic moments like Captain America entrance to help out Wanda and Vision or Thor opening a hole towards a dying star it shoots the production value through the roof.
P.S. as a huge Lord of the Rings fan I feel like Tony Stark’s line: ‘You’re embarrassing me in front of the wizard’ is the second-best quote behind Tony calling Hawkeye Legolas during The Avengers.