Avengers: Infinity War - A Coty J. Spalding Review
Updated: Jul 19, 2018
Written by: Coty J. Spalding
Plot Summary – Avengers: Infinity War
The movie opens up with Thor’s ship being attacked by Thanos. Hulk, Thor, Loki, and Heimdall all attempt to thwart the tyrant from Titan and all fail, with Heimdall sending Hulk back to Earth before he and Loki are killed and Thor is left for dead. We follow Hulk as he crashes through the NYC Sanctum
Santorum and reverts to Bruce Banner, who warns Dr. Strange and Wong of the oncoming threat. Strange in turn approaches Tony Stark to explain what Thanos wants, that being the six Infinity Stones, before Thanos’ lackies, Ebony Maw and Cull Obsidian arrive to take Strange’s Infinity Stone. Wong, Stark, and Stark’s protégé, Spider-Man, all manage to drive off Cull, but the Maw escapes with Strange on board his space ship. Spidey and Stark follow him though, defeat Maw, and rescue Strange, but ultimately figure it best to stay on board the ship in order to stop Thanos before he can even get to Earth.
Meanwhile, we move back to Earth with Wanda the Scarlet Witch having a romantic affair with the Vision in Scotland. Vision tries to offer Wanda the chance to just stay with instead of going back to the other Avengers in refuge, but before she can accept or decline, Vision is attacked and nearly killed for his own Infinity Stone, by another of Thanos’ minions, Corvus Glave. Wanda tries to protect Vision but is herself attacked by Corvus’ lover, Proxima Midnight. Wanda and Vision manage to fight them off but are eventually cornered and left with no assistance, or so they think. Proxmia spots a mysterious figure in the background and attempts to attack him, but the figure anticipates her attack and reveals himself to be Captain Steve Rogers. Steve is then followed by the arrival of Sam Wilson AKA The Falcon and Natasha Romanoff AKA the Black Widow. Now outnumbered five to two, Proxima and Corvus make a tactical retreat. Realizing that they’ll need more help to protect Vision’s stone, the five of them return to Avengers HQ and are greeted by Rhodey AKA War Machine who welcomes them home. The team then discusses what to do to protect Vision from Thanos, and Vision suggests that he be killed in order to destroy the stone, but Steve counters that all they need to do is remove it and THEN destroy it. Knowing just where that’d be possible, the team then heads out to Wakanda where Princess Shuri will be able to remove it for Wanda to destroy.
We move back to Titan with Mantis, Peter Quill, and Drax of the Guardians of the Galaxy arriving to face Thanos with Strange, Spider-Man, and Stark. There’s some brief disagreements, but eventually the new team forms a plan which almost works. Mantis uses her emotional manipulation powers to lull
Thanos into a half awake state, while Strange briefly restrains him, and Stark and Spidey nearly pulling off the Infinity Gauntlet, which Thanos uses to control the four stones he already possesses. The day is nearly won until Quill asks Thanos where is Gamora, Peter’s lover and Thanos’s daughter, Thanos
confesses that he was forced to kill Gamora in order to take the fourth stone. Quill then flies off the handle and starts hitting him in the face causing him to fall off Thanos’s shoulders and reclaim his gauntlet. The team tries every trick they have to stop him but it all fails. Strange finally gives up the Time Stone to Thanos in exchange for Tony’s life. Thanos agrees, takes the stone, and leaves for Earth.
We arrive at Proxima Midnight leading Thanos’s invasion force in Wakanda. The battle is left mostly a stalemate with Vision eventually being forced to leave Shuri’s operation in order to enter the fray, but the tide quickly turns with the arrival of none other than the King of Asgard, Thor, along with Rocket Raccoon and Groot. The battle eventually ends with Banner killing Cull, Vision killing Corvus, and Wanda killing Proxima. Thanos eventually arrives though and wipes the floor with each and every one of the Avengers and kills Vision and takes his Infinity Stone, now having taken all six. Thor actually manages
to stop Thanos by burying his new axe in the Titan’s chest. Thanos mocks Thor by murmuring “You should’ve gone for the head.” Before snapping his fingers causing half of all life in the universe to disappear. The film ends with a post credits scene of Nick Fury and Maria Hill sending out a signal for help to Captain Marvel and we cut to the Disney logo. There’s a little more plot to it than that, but that’s the gist of it.
PROS:
Josh Brolin as Thanos is the best MCU movie villain to date, no joke. Probably one of my top five or ten comic book movie villain. What I really like about this guy is that while he’s clearly an insane genocidal maniac, there’s also an odd politeness to it. When he first meets Star-Lord and realizes he’s Gamora’s boyfriend he muses that he likes him after Gamora just begged Star-Lord
to kill her so that Thanos won’t manage to squeeze the location of the Soul Stone from him. When he thoroughly wrecks Tony Stark on Titan, he says that he admires him and hopes that the half of humanity that survives remembers him. When Wanda kills Vision so that Thanos won’t get the Mind Stone, he compliments her on her strength of will. But at the same time, he’s also intimidating as hell. There’s a scene where the Guardians find Thanos on Knowhere and he’s squeezing the Collector for the Reality Stone by pressing his gigantic boot against the Collector’s chest. And the absolute most intimidating thing about Thanos is the fact that he genuinely believes that wiping out of the universe’s population is for the greater good. He’s so
hellbent on genocide because he honestly thinks that if he doesn’t kill half the universe, the entire of the universe will slowly kill itself. And Brolin is just brilliant in the role.
Chris Hemworth’s Thor is the best he’s ever been. This is the first time Thor has ever really felt like a god to me. In all the other films save for maybe Ragnarok, Thor has always come off just a prince with some kickass super powers, here though the scale of Thor’s power really seems genuinely biblical. Personality wise, I like how his whole motivation this time boils down to “What do I have to lose?” A quarter of his people are dead, his brother is dead, his father was
dead before this film even started, his mother was dead before his last film even started, his best friend died right before his brother did. All Thor has now is vengeance and the hope that he
can save his adopted home from a maniac.
Benedict Cumberbatch’s Dr. Strange was really good in his solo movie, here though he tops himself. Strange is a seasoned veteran now which lets him show off all kinds of epic powers, such as one instance where Thanos is sending an attack his way, and Strange turns the attack into butterflies. And performance wise, the fact that most of Benedict’s scenes are him bouncing off of RDJ is a great benefit to him. Strange and Tony Stark’s trading barbs is perhaps
some of the best dialogue of the film.
Irish actor Tom Vaughan-Lawlor is fantastic as Ebony Maw and is probably the best movie henchman since Faora in Man of Steel. He has this very posh, high pitched voice that contrasts wonderful with Josh Brolin’s blunt baritone, and his power set makes for his some battles at the start of the film.
Zoe Saldana’s Gamora has a limited role here, but her scenes with Thanos and Star-Lord are all fantastic. You completely buy her hatred for her quote-unquote “father” and her love for her boyfriend. And the moment where she thinks Thanos has finally lost is my favorite scene, you can just feel the pure joy she has in that moment when she thinks that the universe will finally be spared from the Mad Titan’s misaimed wrath, is a really good moment..
Tony Stark, Scarlet Witch, the Vision, Captain America, Falcon, War Machine, the rest of the Guardians, Black Widow, Bucky, T’Challa and Spider-Man are all real good in this movie, they all have decent character moments. A lot of these characters aren’t even on screen for five minutes, so there’s not really a lot of moments with them so there isn’t a lot to discuss, but they’re good.
The score by Alan Sylvestri is wonderful and used to brilliant effect with the standout moments being Thor’s arrival on Earth and Cap’s first appearance in the whole film.
CONS:
Do you really expect me to believe that one of the biggest poster children for superheroes and the main lead of the highest grossing solo superhero movie are really dead now? Come on!
Speaking of which, not enough of the Black Panther cast. I know the movies were made at the same time, but you could give someone other than T’Challa a significant moment.
In Thor Ragnarok, it was established that Thor had the ability to control thunder and lightning
without the use of his hammer. So what does he do in this movie? He goes out to forge a new hammer! I mean Stormbreaker is a badass weapon and it definitely provides some great resources, but if you’re gonna give him a new weapon at least explain why he needs it.
Not enough Cap.
This movie has already made two billion dollars worldwide, if you haven’t seen this movie yet, you’re probably not interested. However, for the sake of formality, I’m gonna give Avengers: Infinity War, a 4 out of 5.