The Overdue & Unnecessarily Grumpy Review of Infinity War

Except for Black Panther I haven't been all that keen on recent Marvel movies.  I didn't really like Thor: Ragnarok or Guardians of the Galaxy 2.  The former I recently posted a grumpy review of and now I'm going to do the same with Avengers: Infinity War.  With so many critics kissing Disney's ass, I think someone needs to not look at their movies through rose-colored glasses.

SPOILER WARNING!  If you're even later to this party than I am, then you'll want to not read further.  But most people aren't reading it in the first place.

The thought that kept occurring to me is how unfair it is that DC comes out with a darker, gloomy movie like BvS and all critics whine, "Why can't it be fun like Marvel?"  But Marvel comes out with a dark, gloomy movie and critics are like, "Genius!  This is Brilliant!"  It seems like a double standard.  Not to say that BvS didn't have problems, but so does this.

Since a bad CGI Thanos first appeared in a cookie scene at the end of Avengers 1, they've been building up this whole Infinity Gauntlet thing.  They'd already shown 5 of the six stones in various movies.  And so now it was finally time to bring it all together.

It's kind of a gyp that it starts Thanos off with one stone.  I guess he stole it from...someone.  The Nova Corps?  Could they not afford to pay John C Reilly or Glenn Close to show that?  Maybe it'll be a deleted scene on the Blu-Ray?  Of all the movies I probably should have rewatched before this, Guardians of Galaxy turns out to be the most important, because I was confused as to who had the purple and red stones.  I thought the Collector's place had been trashed in GOTG and Knowhere pretty much destroyed?  I guess not.

We also get gypped of mostly seeing Thanos fight Thor.  We do get to see Thanos beat down the Hulk, which seems like one of those fights Thanos wins only because it's his movie; if it had been a Hulk movie he probably would have won.

This also introduces us to the "Children of Thanos" who are...?  I mean they don't even seem to get names.  One is a sort of Snoke-looking dude with Force powers.  And another is a sort of Hulkish dude.  And one looks like the Green Goblin (only gray, so maybe the Hobgoblin) and one is female with a white-and-blue face and another is...forgettable.  I don't think we ever saw any of these dudes in other movies, which is kinda weird.

Conveniently Idris Elba sends the Hulk to Dr. Strange's house, despite that the two never met.  If Idris Elba could just beam people to Earth, why didn't he do that before the attack?  Or during the attack before then?  You know, instead of just letting everyone die?

How is it too that when Dr. Strange's cape flies to him he's also suddenly wearing his blue tunic?  I mean does he have a spell to change clothes or what?  Just as conveniently Tony Stark is hanging out in New York City.  And conveniently Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, Iron Fist, and Daredevil are all out of town despite that any of them would be more useful than Spider-Man--ok, maybe not Iron Fist.

At the end of Spider-Man Homecoming, he rejected Tony Stark's offer to join the Avengers and get a new suit, but now the new suit is thrust upon him so he can go into space, rendering the end of that movie pointless.  But at least he can come up with a plan based on the end of Aliens, though it's more like Alien Resurrection, which was directed by Joss Whedon, who also directed Avengers 1 & 2.  I'm just saying.

Meanwhile, conveniently the Guardians of the Galaxy respond to the distress call of the Asgardian ship and find Thor.  As I said in my review of Thor Ragnarok, the point of the movie was mostly that Thor didn't need a hammer, but guess what he wants to do now?  Go to some planet and get a new hammer!  So we pissed all over the ending of that movie too.

And Meanwhile Vision and Scarlet Witch are hanging out in Scotland for...reasons.  There's really no significance to that location, I don't think.  Paul Bettany gets to be without makeup for a little bit, which had to be nice for him.  Then unnamed Thanos henchpersons show up to try to get the "mind stone" the Vision uses to live.  And while the henchpersons couldn't be defeated by the mind stone or magic, they can be taken down by conventional weapons wielded by the Falcon, Black Widow, and Steve Rogers.  Earlier Tony Stark said Rogers could find the Vision, but really I think it was Black Widow who knew where they were and he was still on speaking terms with her, so why didn't he just call her up?  Or maybe next time Lojack your android.  Come on, you think Batman would just lose track of Cyborg?

Back in space Star-Lord, Gamora, Drax, and Mantis go to Knowhere and find Thanos has already got the reality stone, or the red one.  I guess he killed the Collector or whatever.  Who cares, right?  Eventually we get Thanos's tragic backstory.  Like Jor-El he warned his planet they were all going to die but no one listened and guess what--they died!  But instead of sending a baby to Earth, he decides to get all these stones and kill half the universe.  Why?  Because the universe is overpopulated, apparently.  The infinite freaking universe is overpopulated.  Right.  I mean, couldn't you just move some of these people to other planets?  Give them more advanced technology to solve overcrowding or hunger?  Nah, let's just kill half the universe.  I guess we're supposed to sympathize with him because his planet didn't randomly kill half its people?  Incidentally that's not really a new idea.  The bad guy in Kingsman pretty much had the same idea, only more scientific.  Or the bad guy in the James Bond hologram program in DS9.  I'm just saying.

It's kind of confusing that Thanos comes from "Titan" and Titan is already a moon of Saturn.  I suppose a lot of people watching the movie probably wouldn't know that.  But for me it's kind of annoying.  I guess the reason is that in the comics he's known as "the mad Titan" though in the comics he was also part of the cosmic gods or whatever, along with the Collector and some others.  I don't read enough Marvel comics to remember all that shit.

So anyway, after telling off the Secretary of State, Steve Rogers gets all his Avenger buddies (but not Hawkeye or Ant-Man) on a plane for Wakanda so Black Panther's sister can try to get the mind stone out of Vision without killing him.  But of course bad guys come a calling.  It's kind of like Episode I (The Phantom Menace) where they all gather outside, the good guys hiding behind a shield while a horde of bad guys try to kill them.  Only in this case the bad guys have a bunch of lizard-dog thingies.

Meanwhile Thanos and Gamora go to find the Soul stone (the orange one) which is on some planet.  The biggest surprise is when the Red Skull shows up as the guide to the stone.  It was kind of a pointless cameo, but I guess it answers where he went.  Thanos murders Gamora so he can get the soul stone.  Hooray!

Meanwhile, Thor, Rocket Raccoon, and Groot go to some rundown planet where the star has burnt out and the rings frozen.  The only one left alive is Peter Dinklage, who gets to play a dwarf, but a giant dwarf!  Which makes me think of the Robot Chicken parody movie:  Attack of the Giant Midget.  (Who would be, as you might guess, a normal-sized guy.)  Neil deGraase Tyson would probably be having a coronary at all the unscientific bullshit going on to get the forge lit so they can make a new hammer for Thor.  This one has an axe blade on one side like the one from the Ultimate line of comics that this version of the Avengers was based on.  (Though I thought "Stormbreaker" was the name of Beta Ray Bill's hammer?  But again, I'm not totally up on all the Marvel stuff.)

Then Thanos goes back to the ruins of Titan, where he's jumped by Iron Man, Spider-Man, Dr. Strange, and the GOTG.  Their genius plan is to hold Thanos down and rip the Infinity Gauntlet off while Mantis pacifies him.  Doesn't Iron Man just have an industrial-strength bone saw in his suit or something?  When that of course fails, Thanos kicks all their asses and Dr. Strange saves Tony Stark by giving Thanos the Time Stone, or the green one.  Why doesn't Dr. Strange just use the Time Stone to go back in time and stop Thanos before he gets these stones?  Shut up, that's why.

Back on Earth the lizard-dogs start to overwhelm the force field so the fighting begins in earnest.  Actually, why are the Wakandans just fighting on the ground?  They still have planes left, right?  Martin Freeman didn't destroy them all at the end of Black Panther, right?  So why weren't they attacking the alien troop carriers and strafing the clusters of lizard-dogs?  Even in Captain America's day they knew about air support.

The coolest part is when Thor comes down in a blaze of lightning and shit and starts blasting the shit out of the lizard-dogs.  Meanwhile, the bad guys try to get to the Vision and grab the mind stone.  And then Thanos shows up.  Scarlet Witch destroys the mind stone (killing her lover), so Thanos is screwed, right?  Nope.  He just uses the time stone to rewind to when the mind stone is intact.  D'OH!  As he's going to use the completed gauntlet, Thor shows up and drives the axe into his chest.  So that's it, right?  Nope.  He only has to snap his fingers to kill half the universe.  D'OH!  As Thanos said, why didn't you cut off his head?  (Or his arm?)

So then people start turning to ash:  Black Panther, Star-Lord, Drax, Groot, Falcon, Scarlet Witch, and Spider-Man among them.  Ironically I think all the original Avengers survived, unless Hawkeye died or something.  It's weird they don't show people turning to ash all over the world.  What, you don't have the money or something to show people dying in front of major landmarks like the Capitol, Eiffel Tower, Kremlin, or pyramids?  It really would have sold the moment because for all we know only Wakanda was affected.  It's sloppy is all I'm saying.

Thanos escapes to someplace to watch the sunrise.  In his mind or whatever he sees Gamora as a little girl, like when he first finds her and talks with her.  It's one of those things if I did that it'd be creepy or "far out" and someone would call me a "chimo" but when Marvel does it, it's OK. [eye roll]

Unless you're a gullible moron (or a little kid) you should know that of course the people who died aren't going to stay dead.  I mean there's going to be a GOTG 3 and a Spider-Man 2 and a Black Panther 2 (it just made like 1.5 billion dollars!) so obviously they couldn't do that if these characters were dead, could they?  Duh.  Thus it didn't really move me much.  I mean, if they'd killed Steve Rogers or Tony Stark or Thor I'd be concerned since I don't think any of them are signed long-term, but they went the opposite way and killed mostly characters you know will be back.  Weak.

Anyway, as soon as they announced this would be split into 2 movies I knew this one Thanos would "win" and the next one they would have to strike back and save the day.  So obviously in the next one they'll get the gauntlet back and use it (especially the time stone and reality stone) to bring everyone back.  Hooray.

Overall this was an OK movie and obviously it made a ton of money, but it's not one I'd put in my Top 10 or anything. I mean there are a lot of characters but they don't really use most of them that much.  If you liked Black Panther, well, he doesn't do a lot; he doesn't even show up until about 2 hours in.  Steve Rogers mostly just fights, as do the other ones on Earth.  It mostly focuses on Thanos, Iron Man, Star-Lord, and Thor.  I guess that's not a huge surprise since they're some of the higher-paid actors, right?  (2.5/5)