Avengers: Infinity War
Okay, we need to talk about Avengers: Infinity War
This is what an annual comic looks like when it comes to life. When you stop and think about it, it makes absolutely no sense. But so what? It’s a comic book.
And fair warning this post is mildly spoiling. The movie has been out a little over a week, so the time limit on spoilers is running out.
Avengers somehow ties all the different characters in the Marvel universe and bring them into one place here. Iron Man, Dr. Strange, Spider-Man, Hulk, Thor, Black Panther, and millions and millions of others. They all come together to battle Thanos.
Who is Thanos?
It doesn’t matter.
We are dropped straight into a battle with Thanos and Asgard, the home of Thor and Loki, and he is off killing everything in site. And as we find out, that is the point. Thanos grand scheme is to kill half of all life in the universe, because the universe is finite and life will completely over take it.
Not completely sure that’s correct cosmology, but okay, let’s go with it. He feels this need because on his own world there were too many people that led to the world dying because of too many people. So, he felt it would have been necessary to kill off half the population in order to save the other half. Thanos takes the issues of his home planet and stretches it out to the whole world.
So there’s the motivation of the Universe destroying villain--population control.
The Infinity Stones
There are six infinity stones-power, space, reality, time, soul, and mind. Each stone was born in the moments after the Big Bang, and each stone controls that different element in the universe.
Thanos appears on the scene already with the Power stone, having already picked it up.
Question, once you pick up the reality stone, do you really need any of the other stones? I mean if you control reality, what else is there?
But then you get the time stone.
Dr.Strange is the protector of the time stone. Why doesn’t USE THAT STONE TO STOP THANOS? You know, go back in time and stop him?
I know. I know. I’m asking too many questions of a comic book movie.
Just a reminder, Thanos makes a promise in the end credit scene of Avengers: Age of Ultron, to find all the Infinity Stones.
That’s the lead in to those movie.
A mid-credit scene. I hope you stayed for that scene. In 2015.
Anyway, Thanos is making across the Universe in a quest for the Infinity Stones.
After battling, Thor, Loki, and the Hulk, he begins his way to Earth.
Bruce Banner is rushed back to Earth via one of those universe road things, according to Wikipedia, Bifrost is correct term for the intergalactic transportation.
Anyway, Bruce crashes into Dr. Strange’s house and warns him that Thanos is coming.
Dr. Strange’s response?
"Who is Thanos?"
So, good. I don’t feel so bad not knowing who Thanos is.
This is what a comic book looks like when it is brought to life and blown-up on the movie screen.
There is wall to wall action. Settings are all over the universe, and there is there is humor.
The jokes are done well in this movie. They are a good break from the constant action and dread that this movie brings.
Let’s talk about the deaths in this movie.
Yes. A lot of people die in this movie. A lot of the good guys die in this movie.
A lot.
And that got to me. When the first two deaths occurred, I thought they held some weight. Because they are unexpected and there is only a few.
In a world of mystic arts, and gods like Thor, an AK-47 (or whatever sort of gun Bucky is holding there seems...well...just out of place. But it does kill a lot of bad creatures real quick and real good.
But by the end, when everything is falling apart, and the deaths begin to add up, you know that a lot of these deaths are going to be over turned in the sequel. There literally can’t be a MCU after the amount of deaths in this film. And suddenly I found the deaths to hold less weight. When two people die. That holds some emotional resonance.
When twenty important people die, you’re just thinking “How are they going to bring them back in the sequel?”
The missing important story.
The most interesting story line in the movie, is Bruce Banner and the Hulk. For the first time in the MCU, the Hulk doesn’t want to come out. In all the previous movies Banner walks around on egg shells to keep the big green monster from coming out. But in this movie, we want him to come out, and doesn’t want to come out and play. That’s a far more interesting story, but there is so much going on that this story line is put to the side. But it does work.
That's Bruce Banner in that suit, not Tony Stark. That seems important.
Final Thoughts
I enjoyed this movie. Yes, it is currently the biggest movie in the world. Avengers:Infinity War, is constant motion, quirky humor, and silly plot. But it is fun. I do recommend checking this out at the theaters.