BEFORE: I hate to do it, I really do - move my reviews around. After all, this "Avengers" film was probably going to be in theaters for several months, so there was no rush for me to go out and see it. Only there was, I knew the best way for me to link to it was to hold the review until the third week of May, but I'll admit it, I was weak - I couldn't hold out, couldn't stand the idea that millions of people already knew what happened in the new Marvel film, and I wasn't one of those people. I think I held out as long as I could, maybe even a week past that point, but finally I just had to bite the bullet and head out on a Wednesday night (because, seriously, who goes to the movies on a Monday or a Wednesday, besides me? Hardly anyone, it turns out...).
Elizabeth Olsen carries over from "Kodachrome, I'm guessing....
FOLLOW-UP TO: "Black Panther" (Movie #2,904), "Thor: Ragnarok" (Movie #2,770)
THE PLOT: The Avengers and their allies must be willing to sacrifice all in an attempt to defeat the powerful Thanos before his devastation and ruin puts an end to the universe.
AFTER: I waited two weeks for the crowds to die down, then went to see this movie on a Wednesday night, when I knew the theater would not be full, and I could have an extra seat for my jacket and shoulder bag. I was very anxious before seeing this film, not over what would happen, but instead I was nervous overhearing someone in the comic-book store blurting out a spoiler from the film, or even in the popcorn line, maybe someone would be seeing this film for the second or third time, and discussing key plot details. So I kept my headphones in the entire time, listening to Supertramp.
Then came the previews - SO MANY previews! There was "Mission: Impossible - Fallout", and "Deadpool 2", "Solo" of course, and not one but TWO previews for "Venom"! Did I need to see BOTH of those! Run the damn "Avengers" film already! Wait, wait, here's "Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom" again, even though I've seen it so many times I've noticed NITPICK POINTs in the damn preview! Surely NOW the movie will start, right? Nuh-uh, because then came a preview for "The Incredibles 2". God DAMN it! Every minute wasted on previews is a minute where somebody in this theater could mention the name of an Avenger who bites the big one! And...wait for it... here it comes... Nope, it's the preview for "Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald". Damn it, damn it, DAMN IT!
Finally, the movie started. And to calm myself about what was to come, I asked myself, "What's the worst thing that could happen?" and also, "If I were a screenwriter, which Avengers would I call upon to make the ultimate sacrifice?" And so I went in to it thinking that Captain America and Iron Man would die. Maybe Thor, too, but definitely those first two, who together form the heart of the team. Also, those actors have been in the most Marvel movies, and might be most interested in taking a break from them. (This does not constitute a spoiler, because I'm not going to say whether my prediction turned out to be accurate...) But then surely a fractured team of the leftover Avengers would be able to carry on to face whatever threat would surface in "Avengers 4".
If you're not familiar with Thanos, or you only know him through the cameos his character has made to date in the Marvel movies, here's what you need to know about him: he's sort of like an intergalactic Hitler (or Stalin or Pol Pot, whichever). He believes that the universe (and therefore, by extension, Earth) is over-populated and to bring a form of "balance" he's on a personal mission to kill half of the population everywhere.Until now he's been doing this rather laboriously, taking over one planet at a time, killing half of the population, and then moving on. (And the half that survives, he makes them sign a new licensing agreement, in which the fine print allows him to mine their personal data for marketing purposes. As I said, he's more evil than Hitler.) But if he could get his hands on the six Infinity Gems, which each control an aspect of the universe (Time, Space, Power, Mind, Soul, Reality) then he would be all-powerful, and could accomplish this goal just by wishing it to be true.
Of course, this is madness, and only bears some basic in logical thinking if you agree that our planet is over-populated, and humanity will someday use up all of Earth's fossil fuels and other resources, leaving behind a vast wasteland in which everyone will perish. So, umm, yeah, not to put too fine a point on it, but if we don't solve global warming, eat sustainably, recycle our trash and stop spilling oil into the gulf, Thanos might be on to something. But of COURSE we shouldn't start killing people so that the rest of the world can have a better life. That's only something we humans say when we want to hunt deer or catch fish and we don't want to feel guilty about it. "Oh, I'm helping control the deer population..." Bullshit, you just like killing animals and eating venison.
Unlike Hitler or other eugenists, however, Thanos doesn't favor any race, religion or sexual orientation, he kills indiscriminately, at random - his only goal is to reduce the population to improve the lives of everyone - though in the comics, he was doing this to win the favor of Death itself, who is either depicted as the Grim Reaper or a beautiful lady in a cape. In the comics he's infatuated or in love with Death, and he believes that only by killing half of everything he can win her heart. (And maybe free up some parking spaces. Again, he's very very evil.) But thankfully, he's not racist, so that's something?
The comics books that inspired this film are titled "Thanos Quest" and "Infinity Gauntlet" (from the 1990's) along with the "Infinity" series from 2013, where Thanos creates the Black Order (Proxima Midnight, Corvus Glaive, etc.) to aid him in his efforts. Believe it or not, for a short time in between these series, Thanos functioned as a sort of hero for a while, joining Adam Warlock's group, The Infinity Watch, which solved various cosmic-level problems in the universe. But for our purposes, let's stick to the books where Thanos was a mad, serial-killing tyrant.
Thanos gathered all of the 6 Infinity gems in "Thanos Quest", and then faced off against Earth's superheroes in "Infinity Gauntlet" - the most shocking thing was that in the first issue, he accomplished his goal and half of the universe's population blinked out of existence, INCLUDING many of the most powerful heroes. Half the Avengers - gone. The Fantastic Four became the Fantastic Two, and so on. (A more cynical comic book fan might think that the writers only wanted to work with their favorite characters, and this was a cheap trick to narrow Marvel's characters down to just the ones they wanted to use.) But the remaining Avengers, along with Dr. Strange, Silver Surfer, Spider-Man and a few others, needed to band together, figure out what was happening, and still find a way to defeat Thanos. Yeah, it wasn't easy, but then, nothing ever is.
I bring this up because it's possible that we could look to this comic for a hint of how Thanos might be defeated in the next film - the theory goes that deep down, Thanos does not consider himself worthy, so even though he's omnipotent and omniscient, somewhere within his plan lies the seeds of his own destruction. You're just not going to beat him on the physical plane, you've got to strike at his soul, his sense of self-worth if you really want to hurt him, and the Avengers just haven't figured out how to do that yet. (Mantis does come close in this film, with some kind of mental attack...)
Also, the majority of the fighting seen in this film is on an individual level - one hero takes his or her shot at Thanos, then the next one, then the next one, with very little effect. A lot of this is due to the fact that THESE heroes have never worked together as a coherent team, hell, some of these heroes have never been on ANY team before. (There's one group of heroes that shows a little teamwork, but this doesn't work out either...) This has to change if the Avengers are going to defeat Thanos in the next film.
Oh, yeah, about that - funny story, originally this was announced as the first of a two-part series, "Infinity War 1" and "Infinity War 2". Since then, Marvel/Disney has announced that plans changed, and "Infinity War" would be just one film, complete in and of itself - but now I think that's probably a dodge, and the next film will almost certainly be titled "Infinity War Part 2" or some variation on that. Because they're trying to create the ILLUSION that death in a comic-book movie is permanent, and it's just not, any more than death is permanent in the Marvel COMIC Universe, which it most certainly is not. I've seen just about every major Marvel character die over the years, and come back with a new writer, new back-story and a new attitude.
I've got the benefit of 35 years experience reading comic books. I've seen Captain America die at least twice, Thor died (went to Valhalla) two or three times, Iron Man's always dying because of some radiation problem or heart problem connected to his armor, but they always come back. In the DC Universe, we've already seen Superman die (once in the comics, once on film) and also Batman (once in the comics, once on film) so this shouldn't be anything new here, people. Death is a TEMPORARY condition for superheroes - they're the best of the best, they deserve to live forever (in our stories) and then even if they don't, there's always the chance that another superhero will have a resurrection power, or maybe the whole universe will get destroyed and rebooted, and everyone will be alive again! If a writer can think it, it can happen in the comics.
So, anything that happens in this film that you may have heard of, involving the death of this character or that one, it's all potentially temporary. I've determined that I might be able to write a review of THIS film without any spoilers, but I absolutely have to reference what I think will be spoilers for the NEXT Avengers movie. If you don't want to hear them, please stop reading now. (Ahem...) The remaining Avengers, plus Hawkeye, Ant-Man and the Wasp, will regroup and defeat Thanos. This could be as simple as stealing the Infinity Gauntlet while he's in the shower, and then using the time gem + reality gem to go back to a key moment in the previous film, and correcting their mistakes. (Think "Back to the Future Part 2".) But then again, I may be completely off-base. The Disney/Marvel publicity machine has stated that the deaths seen in "Infinity War" are permanent, so therefore we can surmise that they are not.
(If you want any confirmation of my theory, merely visit the IMDB web-site and look at the cast list for the next Avengers movie. There, see? Everything's going to be OK.) Remember what I said earlier about Thanos' plans always carrying within them the seeds of his own destruction? So there's the possibility that maybe, JUST MAYBE, if a lot of the heroes are suddenly taken off the board, the ones that remain might have the exact mix of powers that could defeat him. I know, it's a long shot, but I've read a comic book or two...thousand, so maybe just trust me on this point, especially if it helps get you through the next 12 months.
But if I've got an issue here, it's the fact that many of the Avengers fans are KIDS, and asking them to deal with sacrifice and death on this level is a tough one. A year to a kid is like an eternity, and leading them to believe that their favorite Avenger or Avenger-adjacent hero is permanently DEAD for a period up to a year is a very cruel narrative trick to play on America's youth. Not cool. I mean, I'm used to it, three heroes die and come back like every month in the comic books. They killed off Black Widow at the end of "Secret Empire" last year and I think they brought her back the following month. Death sells comic books, but you can't keep the characters down for very long, it's not a smart marketing strategy.
NITPICK POINT: Once Thanos gets the Reality gem - isn't that, like, game over? After that, if he's attacked by, say, Iron Man, can't he just create a reality where Iron Man does not exist? For that matter, once he gets the Reality gem, why not change reality so that he knows where the remaining stones are? Or better yet, create a reality where his gauntlet is full? Boom, problem solved, on to the destruction of half the universe as planned.
NITPICK POINT #2: Back in "Thor: Ragnarok", Thor learned that he could generate the power of lightning without his hammer, so why doesn't he use this power to restart the forge of Eitri? Surely that would be more efficient than dragging his feet across the rings, while being pulled by Rocket's spaceship, in order to get the rings moving again? (NITPICK POINT #2.5 - how is the DWARF taller than Thor? Doesn't that make him, by definition, something other than a dwarf? I suspect PC culture has gone way too far here.)
NITPICK POINT #3: This is a pacing problem, or rather, a lack of pacing problems, similar to what was seen in "Star Wars: The Last Jedi". Namely that some of the heroes need to travel from one planet to another (Titan, Earth, Nidavellir), and we don't know exactly how long this will take, without the power of teleportation. How far apart are these places? How fast does the Guardians' ship travel? The answer, in all cases, is "things take exactly as long as they need to, in order to advance the plot" and that seems highly unlikely.
Also starring Robert Downey Jr. (last seen in "Spider-Man: Homecoming"), Chris Evans (ditto), Tom Holland (ditto), Chris Hemsworth (last seen in "Thor: Ragnarok"), Idris Elba (ditto), Mark Ruffalo (last seen in "You Can Count on Me"), Scarlett Johansson (last seen in "Chef"), Benedict Cumberbatch (last seen in "Atonement"), Don Cheadle (last seen in "Miles Ahead"), Paul Bettany (last seen in "Legend"), Anthony Mackie (last seen in "Runner Runner"), Sebastian Stan (last seen in "I, Tonya"), Tom Hiddleston (last seen in "I Saw the Light"), Peter Dinklage (last seen in "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri"), Benedict Wong (last seen in "Doctor Strange"), Chris Pratt (last seen in "The Magnificent Seven"), Zoe Saldana (last seen in "Live by Night"), Dave Bautista (last seen in "Blade Runner 2049"), Pom Klementieff (last seen in "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2"), Karen Gillan (ditto), Josh Brolin (last seen in "Labor Day"), Gwyneth Paltrow (last seen in "Proof"), Benicio Del Toro (last seen in "Star Wars: The Last Jedi"), Chadwick Boseman (last seen in "Black Panther"), Letitia Wright (ditto), Danai Gurira (ditto), Florence Kasumba (ditto), Winston Duke (ditto), William Hurt (last seen in "One True Thing"), Jacob Batalon (also last seen in "Spider-Man: Homecoming"), with the voices of Bradley Cooper (last seen in "War Dogs"), Terry Notary (last heard in "Warcraft"), Tom Vaughan-Lawlor, Carrie Coon (last seen in "The Post"), Michael James Shaw, Kerry Condon (also last seen in "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri"), and cameos from Cobie Smulders (last seen in "They Came Together"), Samuel L. Jackson (last seen in "Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children") and Stan Lee (also last seen in "Black Panther")
RATING: 8 out of 10 cell phones (Really? The Avengers don't have special communicator tech?)
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