So, Does 'Avengers: Infinity War' Live Up To The Hype? Here's What The Reviews Say
Disclaimer: the excerpts below have been carefully selected to leave out real spoilers, but proceed with caution.
Just as fatigue started to set in after a dozen-plus movies, Marvel treated audiences to a couple crowd pleasers. "Thor: Ragnarok" and "Black Panther" both showed that Marvel is at its best when they let strong creators shuck the weight of franchise obligations. Can the Russo brothers take the opposite task — the biggest mash-up of Marvel's movie characters to-date — and spin that into gold?
"Avengers: Infinity War" hits theaters on April 26th. Wonder if you should buy tickets now? Here's what the reviews say:
As You Probably Know, The Big Bad Dude, Thanos, Is Trying To Get All The Infinity Stones And Do Some Evil
Thanos, the shadowy alien figure who put the events of the first Avengers movie into motion, is coming. He's after the six Infinity Stones, which are scattered across Earth and space, and it's up to our heroes to stop him before he gets them all and attains an omnipotent power to warp reality to his dark will.
[Polygon]
The Russos waste no time getting down to business, picking up with Thanos aboard the intergalactic ship Thor (Chris Hemsworth) and his merry mates were aboard at the conclusion of Thor: Ragnarok.
It's A Jam-Packed Movie, And If You've Got Any Emotional Investment In It, You'll Be Hooked
It feels packed, but not rushed, delivering a story that's surprisingly simple and straightforward, for all its threads — the Russos & Co. know exactly how much to bite off and chew.
[Polygon]
One hopes that some of the more topical themes debated by the Avengers in the previous installments—particularly about their role in geopolitics and the security state—will be addressed at some point in the second film. It would be a little frustrating if all that half-baked discourse was just wiped out by a bad guy who's bigger than politics. For now, though, the emotional takes persuasive precedence over the pseudo-intellectual.
Obviously, Your Favorite Hero(es) Won't Get As Much Screen Time As You Hoped
Most of the Marvel superheroes appearing in Infinity War, particularly Black Panther and Captain America, are compressed, concentrated versions of themselves. T'Challa (Chadwick Boseman) is given five or so lines to be majestic in his defense of Wakanda; Cap gets a few more minutes to be noble and inspiring.
[Vox]
[Thanos'] prominence may disappoint some fans hoping for more from their favorite heroes, because with so many heroes to juggle, none of them really get to stand out.
[io9]
If you'll recall from Captain America: Civil War (which I'd argue was a better movie than this one, thanks in part to the great Leipzig airport battle royal), our heroes may agree on the saving the world, but tensions exist. They need to be smoothed over, stat.
The Script Does An Able Job Of Juggling The Characters And Their Accompanying Moods
Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely wrote all three Captain America entries and have a deft, jokey, sometimes glib touch that spreads the humor around and prevents this long film from ever getting stodgy.
It's a testament to Markus and McFeely's work that the film never feels crowded, even though it's juggling such a massive number of movie stars. In fact, the film is able to give many characters their own meaningful story arcs throughout the film, with Tony Stark, Star-Lord (Chris Pratt), Gamora (Zoe Saldana), and the Vision / Scarlet Witch love story given particular focus. The result is a film that often feels surprisingly earnest and emotional. It pays off the emotional investment movie audiences have been making in these characters for years, sometimes in genuinely heart-wrenching ways.
Likewise, The Russo Brothers Make The Competing Marvel Styles Work Together Nicely
Those shortcomings are largely offset by the Russos' ability to convey the distinctive dispositions of their many protagonists, so that the Guardians scenes boast their typical droll banter, and Cap and Black Panther's partnership is marked by stout, resolved gravity.
In a film that mixes so many different elements, it would be easy for many of these characters' essential traits to fall by the wayside. But the Russo brothers don't just preserve the characters' innate sensibility. They're actually able to incorporate the filmmaking sensibilities of the different franchises into their own tapestry.
Josh Brolin's Thanos Might Not Be The Best Marvel Villain, But He's More Captivating Than You'd Think
We've met him fleetingly in the past, but now here he is front and center, a saturnine and surprisingly compelling villain given voice and lumbering body by Josh Brolin. Thanos has spent too much time on the wrong subreddit or something, and now lives by a pretty extreme philosophy that involves him trying to kill half of everything that's alive in order to finally bring peace and balance to the universe.
If he lacks the scene-stealing charisma of Michael B. Jordan's recent Black Panther baddie Killmonger, he exudes a heavyhearted menace that's made more unnerving by his clearly articulated, wholly insane justifications for his mission—and the lengths he'll go to complete it.
Thanos is just a bland sociopath who will stop at nothing to complete his collection, which is a bold choice for a movie aimed at comic-book fans. It also doesn't help that "Avengers: Infinity War" can't seem to make up its mind about how powerful Thanos is. Even when his gauntlet is only half-full, it would appear that he could flick aside the worst that the Avengers aim his way, but then there'd be no movie.
[TheWrap]
If nothing else, Thanos does feel like a real character instead of just a purple bad guy – and even if we are probably never going to walk away thinking, You know, he had some interesting ideas, at least we get a sense of, Okay, his reasoning is bad, but at least we know where he's coming from now.
[UPROXX]
The Last Act Is One Gargantuan, All-Out Battle…
It's the largest-scale onscreen fight I can recall since the Battle of Helm's Deep in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. Our heroes, in a valiant last stand, are the only thing that stands between Thanos and universal destruction.
[Vox]
In the new film, when the odds often seem to be against the Avengers, the cast delivers some of its most stirring work, projecting an almost mythical level of heroism that taps into the universal allure of comic books with their valiant, larger-than-life characters.
… And With Stakes This High, The Scale And Treatment Of Violence In The Film Can Be Jarring
The violence is ratcheted higher than usual — parents, please note we get both torture and genocide this time around[…]
[TheWrap]
The thousands of fallen bodies have all the weight of computer-game figures. Even Ryan Coogler — whose boxing-ring work in Creed was masterly — could in Black Panther barely rise above competence in showing people being slaughtered wholesale. It's a matter of philosophy, of ethos, and Marvel's is to throw more attention on whooshing entities in souped-up suits and stuff blowing up real good than on anything halfway human.
[Vulture]
All Together, 'Infinity War' Strives To Be More Than Just Another Superhero Team-Up Flick
You know how a lot of superhero movies get lauded for being "grounded more in reality" or even "it's less a superhero movie and more a movie about today"? Yeah, no one will ever say these things about Avengers: Infinity War.
[UPROXX]
By the end of Avengers: Infinity War, it's almost hard to get your mind around everything you've seen—to the point where you may start planning your next screening as you walk out of the theater.
[io9]
With Alan Silvestri's score pulling out the stops and our heroes fighting for — and, in some cases, losing — their lives, the final bruising scenes on the planet Titan seem nearly Wagnerian in their grandeur.
[Vulture]
Infinity War moves, sounds, and acts like a typical Marvel movie, but then unmasks itself as a creature distinctly its own.
[Vox]
The Ending Will Leave People Aching For The Next Film
Without giving anything away, the climax is startling in its gravity and no Marvel fan will leave before the long final credits scroll gives way to the traditional kicker tease at the very end, which amplifies the ending by serving up even more questions, not answers.
A decade of films have led up to Thanos, and Avengers: Infinity War delivers on that threat with a film that upends the entire fabric of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. No character is safe from the far-reaching implications of his actions, and it's impressive to see just how dark Marvel is willing to go for this story.
It's after midnight on 4/24/18, and I'm sitting across from my 15-year-old daughter, who claims not to like movies much but is an exuberant Marvel fan, and who rocked and laughed and gasped throughout the long running time of Avengers: Infinity War. Before the film, she couldn't believe she was seeing it days ahead of the rest of the world, which made me feel like Super Dad. Now, I feel extra puny. She is curled up in a chair, repeating, "What the f— just happened?" over and over. Her eyes are still red from crying. She begs me to do the movie justice.
[Vulture]
TL;DR
It's been easy to criticise individual chapters of the MCU for being insubstantial — merely episodes in a longer, denser, years-long narrative. Infinity War pays off that patience, and even leaves one waiting for what comes next.
Intimidated By All The Characters? Don't Be
Need a refresher on which movies are part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and what order to watch them in? Digg's Fan Service series has you covered.
Watch The Trailer
