{"id":67863,"date":"2018-04-30T10:26:35","date_gmt":"2018-04-30T14:26:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gayfriendschat.com\/socialblog\/the-worlds-1-movie-avengers-infinity-war-review\/"},"modified":"2018-04-30T10:26:35","modified_gmt":"2018-04-30T14:26:35","slug":"the-worlds-1-movie-avengers-infinity-war-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gayfriendschat.com\/socialblog\/the-worlds-1-movie-avengers-infinity-war-review\/","title":{"rendered":"The World\u2019s #1 Movie: \u2018Avengers: Infinity War\u2019 \u2013 REVIEW"},"content":{"rendered":"

The World\u2019s #1 Movie: \u2018Avengers: Infinity War\u2019 \u2013 REVIEW<\/b>
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Captain America demonstrating the sweaty difficulty of talking about Infinity War without talking about Infinity War\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

NOTE: THE FOLLOWING THOUGHTS ARE FREE OF SPOILERS (THE MOVIE HAVING JUST OPENED) EXCEPT FOR THE MOVIE\u2019S OPENING BATTLE AND A VAGUE SPOILER ABOUT THE GENERAL NATURE \/ IMPERMANENCE OF SUPERHERO DEATHS WITHIN THIS GENRE.<\/b>
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If gloves make a big fashion comeback, blame Thanos. The alien destroyer has been haunting the Earth\u2019s Mightiest Heroes (aka The Avengers) from the sidelines (aka the post credits sequences) for a full decade of moviegoing. He\u2019s ben on hunt for the six \u201cInfinity Stones,\u201d (aka the Tesseract, The Aether, etc\u2026) to decorate and power his universe-controlling glove (aka the \u201cInfinity Gauntlet\u201d). Sorry for all those \u2018also known as\u2019 asides but there are so many names to keep track of!<\/span><\/p>\n

Consider, though it\u2019s much less difficult if you don\u2019t, that most of the six Infinity Stones have gone by at least two different names within the last decade\u2019s worth of Marvel movies. We\u2019ll cite just one example since it\u2019s crucial to the story\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

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The most familiar gem from the previous movies is \u201cThe Mind Stone\u201d. \u00a0When last we checked in with our heroes it was sitting all lovely and golden on the broadly handsome expanse of The Vision\u2019s Paul-Bettany shaped forehead\u2026 but it didn\u2019t start there! If I\u2019m connecting the CGI dots properly it began life as the blue Tesseract cube from <\/span>Captain America: The First Avenger <\/span><\/i>but spent most of its headlining movie stardom in the Thor<\/em>\u00a0movies whilst embedded in Loki\u2019s scepter. Previously the Mind Stone was used to possess people but with The Vision (aka the artificial intelligence formerly known as \u201cJarvis\u201d) it made him sentient and he mostly uses the stone to shoot laser beams. As one does.<\/span><\/p>\n

Anywayyyy\u2026 <\/span><\/p>\n

The Infinity Stones are so powerful that they can alter reality, grant super powers, reverse time, and break all opening weekend box office records<\/a> when sharing the screen.<\/span><\/p>\n

That\u2019s a lot of backstory but what are superhero myths without backstory? The worst thing that can be said about the superhero genre as a whole is how often it defaults to origin story retreads \u2014 how many times exactly do we need to see Bruce Wayne\u2019s parents die or Spider-Man get that radioactive bite? Perhaps the best that can be said about <\/span>Avengers: Infinity War <\/span><\/i>is that it never once slows down to let you catch up. It trusts that you know all these characters already or are willing to just hop on the rollercoaster with them toward yet another apocalypse.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Still, the first casualty of the rush of the pace is coherence. I\u2019ve seen all 18 of the Marvel Studios movies, some of them thrice (aka the ones starring my husband Captain America) and I still got confused during Infinity War<\/em>, and as early as the first scene! We begin with a very unsettling whammy for Thor, the god of Thunder. We\u2019ve apparently jumped forward or sideways from the amusing ending of Thor Ragnarok<\/em> because the Guardians of the Galaxy are not with<\/em> Thor and he\u2019s already all chained up from some attack we weren\u2019t privy to. Thanos promptly kills not one but two of Thor\u2019s favorite people before his eyes (Tom Hiddleston\u2019s Loki and Idris Elba\u2019s Heimdall). The deaths are sick-making because the violence is less visual effects mayhem than painful close-ups on expressive faces. It looks and feels and sounds (ick!) real.<\/span><\/p>\n

Thanos loves that you\u2019re squirming.<\/p>\n

Thanos is <\/span>extra<\/span><\/i>. \u00a0Not only does his glove have six stone settings despite gloves generally being more number-five focused,\u00a0but he towers over and easily defeats the two strongest and biggest Avengers in this same opening scene. The defeat makes Thor angry and vengeful (important plot point!) but The Hulk\u2026 well, this messes with the Hulk in ways which would be spoilery to recount. Just about the only thing that isn\u2019t extra about Thanos is his skin color. He started the movies with a deep purple hue but somewhere along the line the movies chickened out \u2014 and he got desaturated to a greyish lavender. <\/span><\/p>\n

The color is the only thing less than extra about this supervillain. Josh Brolin is chillingly calm-of-voice while detailing the alien\u2019s mass-murdering agenda. Supervillains are usually trying to destroy the planet but with Thanos the entire universe is at stake. Gamora, the green Guardian of the Galaxy (the one who looks like Zoe Saldana if you\u2019re having trouble keeping track \u2014 there are literally over 70 named characters!) warns anyone that will listen that Thanos will destroy half of all life in the universe \u201cwith the snap of his fingers\u201d if he gets his hands on all six stones.\u00a0He already has three of the Infinity Stones by the end of the first scene (if I recall correctly) and has a clear bead on where the other three are. And off we go!<\/span><\/p>\n

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Scarlet Witch and The Vision \u2013 a sorceress and an android in love.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The director brothers Anthony and Joe Russo, who first showed their formidable action chops in Captain America: Winter Soldier<\/em>\u00a0 have the difficult task of topping 18 other movies in terms of the intensity, speed, and stakes of the action. They succeed intermittently though the action lacks both the thrilling character focus of Winter Soldier<\/em>\u2018s intense melees and the emotional heft of\u00a0Civil War<\/em>\u2018s friendly-fire sadness. Infinity War<\/em> never takes a deep breath \u2014 there\u2019s no stopping at, say, Hawkeye\u2019s family home as in Age of Ultron<\/em>\u00a0to recuperate \u2014 which isn\u2019t necessarily healthy for the movie. More time with The Scarlet Witch and The Vision, whose curious romance factors heavily into the film\u2019s story, would surely have granted the movie more rewatchable passion.<\/p>\n

But perhaps any success given the supersized expectations and level-of-difficulty of this franchise devouring other franchises is something to cheer on.\u00a0 And the action, at least,\u00a0is<\/em> exciting and varied. My favorite sequence was a Thanos versus Iron Man, Spider-Man, and Doctor Strange throwdown but there\u2019s a different configuration for virtually any taste since the movie is less a movie with big action set pieces than one long continuously evolving action set piece with tiny emotional interstitials.<\/p>\n

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Still, the action works.<\/p>\n

Those two opening deaths imbue Infinity War<\/em> with a feeling of genuine danger and \u2018anything might happen!\u2019 abandon that\u2019s usually entirely absent in franchises.\u00a0Thanos is extra but then so is <\/span>Avengers Infinity War<\/span><\/i>. If you\u2019ve kept up at all it shouldn\u2019t be a spoiler to tell you that the thrust of the plot centers around Doctor Strange and The Vision, both of whom openly display one of Thanos\u2019s must have gems on their costumes. If you love action spectacle the movie is a must see, each scene packed with detailed incident (it\u2019s not just mindless punching!), visual verve and even character-serving beats. <\/span><\/p>\n

Most of the heroes get at least one big quip <\/span>and<\/span><\/i> one big gif-able action moment despite there being three dozen of them! About five of the characters even get something approaching an emotional arc though let\u2019s not start overstating the movie\u2019s raison d\u2019etre: it\u2019s a spectacle not an acting showcase. That said it\u2019s an awfully good thing that the movie has ten years worth of emotional investment to draw from, courtesy of its generally stellar casting choices and the anchoring power of Chris Evans as Captain America (at this point the amount of swoon he causes is its own super power) and Robert Downey Jr as Iron Man.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Despite all of this and the two and a half hour running time Infinity War<\/em> is only half a movie!\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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This trailer moment is not in the movie. But the movie is faking us out in other ways, too.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

During production it was originally called Infinity War Part 1<\/em> but the Part 1 got dropped along the way \u2014 probably when Marvel Studios realized that audiences were getting sick of the popular Aughts trend of splitting last films of a franchise in two because \u2018why earn one billion when you can earn two?!?\u2019 But being only half of a movie is<\/strong> a problem. We\u2019re meant to be shocked and dismayed at the movie\u2019s crazy over-the-top climax with its alarming death toll but I personally ended up feeling cheated. The deaths become so outrageous in number that it was impossible to take them seriously \u2014 no movie studio would ever commit suicide by killing off roughly $20 billion dollars worth of their intellectual property \u2014 and the drama fizzled away like ash. Part Two<\/em>\u00a0(as yet untitled) will obviously be forced to reverse the destruction which makes Part One\u00a0 feel empty to the core or, at best, like a sick fake out. <\/span><\/p>\n

Cliffhangers are for serials and TV series, which both use chapter structure more naturally than feature films. Ending a movie at the halfway point is as annoying as cutting off a review in mi<\/span><\/p>\n

The post The World\u2019s #1 Movie: \u2018Avengers: Infinity War\u2019 \u2013 REVIEW<\/a> appeared first on Towleroad<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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The World’s #1 Movie: ‘Avengers: Infinity War’ – REVIEW<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n