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Over 10 years of the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been leading to this
precise moment. The first part of The
Avengers: Infinity War clearly marks the biggest movie of Marvel’s
Universe, and its grand scale, infinite characters and multiple locations didn’t
disappoint. This film is important, so I will reveal little except for the superheroes
of the MCU team up to stop Thanos (James Brolin) wiping out half the universe.
Splitting a single movie into two parts has been a popular move with the
major franchises, and with all the characters in this story its perhaps the
right route to take to make sure everyone’s favorite character gets their
moment in the spotlight. Even so, characters are left out and others left a
little on the wayside, but the film does a decent job at juggling all the
characters. It’s mostly because all the work developing the characters in
previous films meant that we already knew most of the characters.
The spectacle is tremendous, the cast of characters endless and the
film’s length does match this spectacle yet, clocking in at almost 150 minutes,
Infinity War is a long film for just being ‘half a story’. The film does suffer
from its length because, following a dramatic and exciting opening, the middle
half of the film becomes a drag up until another character bites the dust, showing the film means business. Of course Avengers Infinity War is not
alone in suffering these faults, but the video game like story that requires a
character to do a task to continue on with their quest somewhat inflates the length, and that stems from some wobbily writing.
What sticks this film out from the rest of the MCU is the fact that this is the
first time it felt as though there was a genuine threat to our heroes. It seems
the right time for the mantle to be passed from one group of heroes to
another, and you can certainly feel that one or more deaths are incoming,
especially with a villain as formidable as Thanos (certainly Marvel’s most
interesting villain yet) causing most of the mayhem. Yet it still retains the
humour and chemistry between the characters, and the Russo directing duo do a good job keeping
it light but maintaining that threat often sparse in Marvel movies.
The likeability of characters and the enthusiastic performances is what
keeps this film going even if the script's rough edges threatens ever so
slightly to show signs of struggling to deal with the massive stage that this
story is set on.
3.5/5
Nice review! I too thought that it was too long for telling only half of the story, and yet a part of me wanted it to be longer as it often felt like things were left out. Overall, I enjoyed the film, especially the cast and the interactions between the characters from different universes.
ReplyDeleteExcellent review! It was a bit long for only half the story, but I felt it was much more justifiable here than in either Twilight or The Hunger Games where both parts of the final book they were based were stretched to nothingness. Having such a full roster of characters to play with helps Marvel in that regard. I'm really looking for the second part of the story.
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