‘Avengers: Infinity War’ Review

You may consider some of the following to contain spoilers, but they're MILD, all things considered.

It's all been leading to this—y'know, not counting some of those X-Men movies. Or Spiderman. Or the Spiderman reboot. Anyway, all the Marvel Studios movies we've been watching since Jon Favreau and Robert Downey Jr. gave us a decent Iron Man flick in 2008 have been leading to this, and while it might not disappoint from an action standpoint or a tying-plotlines-together standpoint, Avengers: Infinity War is basically a bazillion scenes of explosions layered between melodrama, a whole lot of "remember when?" moments, and the kind of CGI that makes your moviegoing companion say, "Damn, that's really good CGI."

When last we left the Avengers, the team was split and ultra-villain Thanos was hanging around the galaxy trying to get his absurdly gigantic hands on the six infinity stones forged in the crucible of the Big Bang—stones that would give him dominion over time, power, soul, earth, wind and fire (jay kay about the last three—he just really likes that band). See, the plan is to snuff out half the universe's population so nobody suffers as much anymore—which Thanos sees as mercy—but, since they're apparently good and all, the Avengers (and their offshoot pals like Spider Man, Dr. Strange, the Guardians of the Galaxy and pretty much anyone else who can hold a gun or use mind powers or blast lasers from their fingers) set out to stop him. Caught up? Cool.

Obviously, this film was bonkers-expensive to make and, as such, comes with some of the best special effects of all time. Thanos alone looks far better than trailers have led us to believe, and it's hats-off to Josh Brolin for bringing the heat with both voice and mo-cap work. The odd thing is his utter calmness in the face of his own genocide plan, but this makes him far scarier than he had any right to be; the wrinkled chin thing doesn't do him any favors, though.

The rest of the cast boils down mostly to the quips for which they're known. Iron Man (Downey Jr.) is, of course, his arrogant self, while Spider-Man (Tom Holland) cracks cutesy and wise in the vicinity of Dr. Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch), who does his whole stoic-master-of-the-universe thing; Star Lord (Chris Pratt) gets goofy while Thor (Chris Hemsworth) is still a little more silly after his last outing in Thor 3: The Search for More Money. The problem, however, is that for every scene that kicks off amping up the audience with a superhero we feel we know, there's such a brief window in which to provide exposition before it's on to the next. It's exciting at first, but grows a little tiresome without enough screen time for … well, for much of anything. Fight scenes are cool, alright, they're just stuffed in alongside so many other things that the pace feels frantic and the overall oomph of the ending feels pointless. I mean, if we really wanna talk spoilers, here's the elephant in the room: They'll probably win.

Still, it's Thanos' show, and Brolin doesn't disappoint. It's another story altogether for flat jokes from Groot, Paul Bettany's over-the-top drama as Vision and Peter Dinklage's mind-bogglingly awful British accent and ham-fisted performance as a space dwarf (their words, not ours) who makes crazy weapons for gods with a forge powered by a dying star. Scarlett Johansson may as well not even be in this thing, as she pretty much just punches a space monster or two. Elizabeth Olsen is fine as Scarlet Witch. She's fine.

We'll definitely hand out points for directors Anthony and Joe Russo's ability to smartly capture the differing tones of the multiple Marvel films in a cohesive way, we just hope the sequel (did you doubt there'd be one?) slows its roll a little or at least gives us a chance to catch our breath a little with a bit more character development.

Don't forget to stay for the post-credits scene that sets the stage for the next 10 years of these damn movies. Lord knows if a three-month window went by without something ripped from the pages of comics we'd all be super-sad.

7
+It's fun, y'know?
-So fast-paced it's kind of tricky to care

Avengers: Infinity War
Directed by Anthony and Joe Russo
With so many actors we can't name them all
Violet Crown, Regal, PG-13, 149 min.

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