Avengers: Infinity War

IF YOU THROW ANOTHER MOON AT ME I’M GONNA LOSE IT

Wow the Russos actually did it. I can't believe this movie works as well as it does. The movie just breezed by, there is so much going on and it is paced so well. The action is great and the stakes are real. Thanos's plan is a dumb one but they do make him a well rounded character and he is one of the few villains to actually pull it off. There is a ton of humor but it also manages to be really emotional at times. It is going to be a long year but at least we get to see Captain Marvel in between.

EDIT: After seeing it again it still is amazing how well everything works. This is probably the darkest MCU movie so far but still is fun and has a ton of one liners. The humor is still fantastic and on GotG level. I just realized that it is the original Avengers team that is left to start Avengers 4. I expect most everyone that turned to ash to come back but not without sacrificing the original team.

A great job at what could have been a big mess. So many characters, such different tones in the worlds of the different heroes, such a big story arc to be told in one movie (Ok, the rest is to be told 26 April 2019, but they covered a lot of ground in this one). Things that caught my attention: great performances by all the cast, real stories interweaving the larger story, not just 3 minute cameos. Laugh out loud lines. A real threat demanding great cost. Spectacular success for the Russos in a Herculean endeavour. Just really well done! On a rewatch, I bump up my rating from 9 (superb) to 10 (I don't know how it could have been better) out of 10. [Superheroes Action Adventure]

Anyone who does not like this or tries to find fault in this is pure heartless.
this is a masterpiece throughout. its every frame will leave you in awe.
each of the massive number of characters is NEVER underused.
the comedy is outstanding.
and for any comic book movie lover or action lover there are moments that will be stamped in your head forever.
The doctor strange action moments truly outshine everyone (im a dr. strange fanboy but still i believe so)

OK the excellent reviews from all over the internet including trakt here are more than enough and I don’t want to rehash something in an overall sense. I have already given a TLDR review on trakt.

I went to see it for the third time and I want to give a different kind of Character by Character review.

this movie is 11/10 for me. fan boy alert. I will speak nothing but praise for this movie and it might irritate some realistic people. So, avoid reading :) in that case.

even after seeing it for the third time. it was as magical as first. (which happens very very less even with the most awesome-est movies)
there will be spoilers ahead. I have hidden most of them. But there could be some I may think not spoiler-y enough. Also, you really should manage to see this movie by now, sorry….

Characters:

Tony Stark/Iron Man: Evergreen as ever. Nails his acting throughout. And iron man action. unbelievable. the new "bleeding edge" armor actually made me worry at first because now the transformation is too quick and smooth instead of the robotic assembly in all previous films. but that is so much delivering in battles. [spoiler]especially in the end before thanos stabs him. how he plants his feet on ground. including one time on thanos's hand. and "creates" shields and when his armor is damaged he is actually pulling nanomachines from the leg to compensate while shooting plasmas or whatever"[/spoiler] mind blowing throughout

Thor: thor ragnarok fans won’t be disappointed!! Half of his time is spent on his quest for his new weapon against thanos and that allows him to team up with rocket and groot for some excellent humour. [spoiler]and when he lands in Wakanda with stormbreaker. I know I screamed along with the whole theatre. [/spoiler]

Bruce Banner: I love ruffalo’s acting. And he also delivers (yes, I’m gonna be praising almost everyone here). His inability to hulk is amazing. And its actually so cute. It was a slightly lighter version of him than previous ones. He worried more. He had fun more [spoiler]in the hulkbuster[/spoiler].

Hulk: yes, I’m writing this separate because he is a different personality from bruce banner. [spoiler]he came in the beginning and got his ass kicked after a couple of minutes. [/spoiler]. Although those couple of minutes were decent action. But hulk fans will surely be disappointed. He is not as much as one would want. The best theory is “smart hulk” coming in avengers 4. His 1 second appearance at the end while resisting transformation were cute and hilarious. NOOOOO

Captain America: the new “nomad” look is great. And he is still a confident personality all set to fight thanos as soon as he realises his threat. Not too many standout action moments I’ll say. He isn’t having that many moments at all rather but its fine. But on Wakanda when they begin battle. Him and black panther running towards enemies the fastest was really goosebumpy. It’s the small details like this which makes the movie great. [spoiler] I really missed his usual circle shield as it allowed some cool action especially when used as a projectile. His new “shields” are practically fancy gauntlet kind of things. And definitely can’t be thrown. [/spoiler]

Black Widow: again, not much to do here. Blonde btw so that’s a major change in looks. She and banner could have had some moments. But nothing is really done. Decent action alongside Okoye and Scarlet Witch against Proxima. The feminism thing landed well here.

Doctor Strange: my personal favourite. Fans WON’T be disappointed. And will probably have tears. His signature comic book moves are used. Along with him bringing the mirror dimensions once. And his cape usage!! Oh God. Each and every second of his presence is golden. His interactions with Stark are satisfying. He and Thanos also get an verbal interaction. His actions scenes are probably the coolest and shiniest. Not to mention his conjuring helps a lot like [spoiler]quill jumping on his shields and portals for Spiderman and mantis[/spoiler].

War Machine: decent presence. The big bang scenes for him. He really blows stuff up on Wakanda and its badass. [spoiler] has decent interactions with captain black widow and bruce. [/spoiler]

Spiderman: I don’t have any other words yet again. Fans won’t be disappointed. Cute and chit chattyness is back. And still remains formidable. His interactions with stark are really cool with the great mentor ward relationship shown. He is the youngest and it shows. [spoiler] got you… and you … sorry I can’t remember everyone’s names. And his death should hit you the hardest. [/spoiler]

Black Panther: I love black panther so much (yes like everyone… I know). his walk is amazing. I don’t know whether it’s the camera work. But his walk is so much vertical. His first shot came from the behind while that cool African music. His leadership and bravery are there for everyone to see on Wakanda. And how he runs head first with captain in the battle. Amazing!!

Vision: being a stone bearer he had to be come a plot point and thus is very underpowered here. But it works fine. his sacrifices are emotional and moving. His chemistry with Wanda is believable. Really vulnerable here compared to previous powerful appearances.

Scarlet Witch: again, good chemistry with vision. How she protects vision after corvus stabs him had some cool moments before captain and team show up to save him. It was full of fear and ultimately tragic for her. But she had great action moments on Wakanda alongside Okoye and black widow being extremely powerful of course.

Falcon: not much dialogue. But great action presence. Russo brothers are truly the master of actions. I am running out of complimentary words for the scenes. The flying kicking shooting combo was great both when saving vision and on Wakanda.

Winter Soldier: decent acting and small action. again, he is just a good soldier who can shoot. But he has a really cute moment with rocket. [spoiler] he is referred to as “white wolf” now btw. [/spoiler]

Loki: [spoiler]the first and quickest death of the movie :’( [/spoiler] totally redeems himself after everything. Great acting, he actually finally refers to himself as odinson at the end.

Heimdall: again, not much role here. [spoiler] dies really quick along with Loki at the start[/spoiler]. One dialogue and that’s it. Idris alba is great as always

Eitri: new entry played by Dinklage. I think he was fine. and had a good failed dwarf presence. 0 action in case anyone not seen is wondering. But provides decent acting and helps thor build stormbreaker.

Wong: present in act1 alongside Doctor Strange, banner and stark. He is a good actor and compliments Doctor strange all the time. Has decent action throughout act1 and pulls a cool portal hand cut move with cull obsidian.

Mantis: really awesome. More cuter than guardian2 whenever speaking. And helps fight thanos at the end too.

Nebula: did not have much to do here. But there were cool moments here and there. [spoiler] when she lands on titan to fight thanos she boomerangs her knife. That was really a cool shot[/spoiler]

Drax: shines!! Truest to the character. Impulsive jumping on everything everywhere. And “speaking literally” everywhere. Why is gamora is probably one of the best jokes of infinity war if not THE best.

Gamora: acted really well emotionally. She was a plot point here, being thanos’s daughter. Her pain and frustration were visible. Her interactions with thanos throughout were golden.

Groot: groot fans rejoice. [spoiler]and then cry[/spoiler]. They have really done awesome work with groot. His “I am groot” is different every time. And u can always tell or take a good guess what he is saying. This time a teenager. And he kicks decent ass on Wakanda. And his moment when he provides the handle for stormbreaker made the theatre go wild. james gunn recently revealed that his last “I am groot” [spoiler] before dying was “dad”. Need…. Towel…. :’( [/spoiler]

Rocket: hilarious rocket is at it again. This time sticking with thor and landing on Wakanda later with him. His interactions with him are good. And his obsession for artificial body parts continues and is hilarious as ever.

Potts: she is.. there. @ tony’s introduction. And then getting angry at him when he is on the spaceship. Nothing much here. No comments.

Collector: also there. Just for moments. Nothing to comment.

Thanos: yes, the main lead of the movie. If you are not careful you will start sympathising with him and take his side actually. Brolin’s acting kicks major ass. And his cg work is amazing too. He is kicking every avenger’s ass throughout. And its not just mindlessly. He is motivated. Adamant to wipe out 50% of everything. And his love for gamora, the interactions with her. Both adult and young. [spoiler] and ultimately having to kill her while having tears in his eyes. [/spoiler] it brought tears to MY eyes and I was cheering for him… ahem… must check self for genocidal tendencies…

Star Lord: amazing comedy. Really. it’s evident Gunn was involved. How he scolds groot. Interacts with rocket, Drax. And love for gamora. Amazing. And I don’t care what half the internet is saying. it’s a story. And his impulsiveness caused[spoiler] thanos to win after almost losing[/spoiler]. He is like that!!. He shot Ego literally 2 seconds after he told him about his mother. Where as it took tony stark time to sink in, in civil war after hearing similar news. People are different. And quill is like that. So, he started punching thanos mindlessly. He lost the girl his love. Enjoy the memes but he was amazing in my opinion.

Okoye: has some decent cute lines to say and kicks major ass when fighting on Wakanda!! Great acting

Shuri: good expositional dialogue and is there to help vision. Not really much but good.

Ross: he is there to still whine about captain America. Nothing much

M’Baku: again, after BP he is there to kick ass on Wakanda. And his presence is fierce!!!. Good acting

Ned: yes, he is there for 5 seconds but it was hilarious. Spiderman asks him to distract and gets what he wants because of his natural behaviour. Hilarious

[spoiler]Nick Fury: there at the end to call captain’s marvel. Before dying like others. Few seconds of role. It was almost like he knew what’s going on or something. He almost said mother**** .
Maria Hill: along with fury. Before dying
[/spoiler]

Proxima Midnight: I will admit I don’t know the children of thanos from the comics. So, I might not know if something wasn’t done right. But in the movie, all were great. Proxima had good facial animation shown in interactions with cap+black widow. And good voice acting.

Cull Obsidian: the physical hulk counterpart I guess… [spoiler]although hulk never came as we know[/spoiler]. he was bulky and well designed. Kicks good ass. No voice acting here.

Corvus Glaive: great action against vision. Not much voice acting here.

Ebony Maw: probably the best of “children of thanos”. the most unexpected. He is formidable against Doctor Strange and has good interactions with him. And then good small banter with iron man. His action moments were great. As he is also a wizard of some kind. Stands tall and thin and simply waves hand to avoid “projectiles” thrown at him etc. very “elegant” and “sophisticated” action.

I hope I covered everyone. I want to add few things about the ending:

[spoiler]they killed half of everything. Which was really unexpected. But one beautiful thing was how they did it. Subverting expectations at almost every finger snap death. I may mess up/forget the order in the following, but you’ll get what I mean.[/spoiler]

[spoiler]It starts with Bucky. Then few Wakanda army soldiers. Fine
Then black panther comes to help out Okoye. All expecting Okoye to vanish, but it turns out to be black panther. Okoye’s face horror reflects the audience.
Then its scarlet witch. one would think ok vision is gone. Scarlet witch will remain to “avenge” etc. but nope. Too much tragedy for her and to top it off. Gone
Then its groot and rocket. Audience: they killed groot already. its time for rocket yeahh. Obviously not our groot.
Nope its groot!!
Then its falcon while war machine looks for him. He goes unnoticed completely. Every death was horrific.
Back on titan. It starts with mantis I think. After that Drax.
At that point we are like. not quill obviously. c’mon that’s like 3 guardians already. But nope. quill too. bye bye. Cry more
Nebula remains.
Doctor strange’s close up. And he says to stark. this was the only way…..
He is telling a dialogue like he knows something. so c’mon obviously not him. Nope he is gone too!!!
Oh, u stopped crying. How dare u? MORE!!!
Then its Spiderman. C’mon 4 deaths already there. Its enough right.
Nope time for the death of Spiderman. The young one. done a bit more dramatically to hammer it all in.
He dies in tony’s arm. To everyone’s horror including tony’s. while saying “sorry”….
[/spoiler]

The movie’s writing is awesome and perfect.

First of all, I avoided ALL spoilers. Didn't see even one trailer. Never saw ANY art concept before viewing the movie. It made everything more impactful. Been doing this since Ant-Man, and it really changed my experience in the theatre.
Oh, only in the MCU. The rest are inconsequential, doesn't really matter (I'm looking at you DC with your shitty movies and at you Star Wars).


Now about the underused characters someone mentioned:
half of the heroes are dead, most of the ones that are alive now are the characters that have a trilogy (Tony, Thor and Steve) and/or are essential to the continuation of the Universe. The ones that are dead now, probably will continue the Marvel Universe when the old heroes die or retire in the next movie (more die than retire imo, and can you imagine they killing Spidey for real?).. My guess is that Tony, Cap, Thor and Doc (he saw that 1/14000000 win possibility, remember?), together with Cap Marvel (and even Gamorra's sister who knows) will work together to bring the dead back to life in the majority of the movie then, maybe 40-50 minutes of a might battle royale with the deaths of our favourites heroes and a ending sad enough to make everyone cry buckets.

Gonna be even more epic.

Avengers: Infinity War

I entered this movie with tempered expectations, but it elicited a reaction of pure giddy joy that I didn't think a Marvel movie could give me.
Tight pacing, spectacular visuals, good humour and worthy acting.

9.5/10
#NicksMiniReview
https://t.co/H4gVkTRuDX

There is one feeling after watching this movie and it sums up with the following statement: This would be my favorite hero movie of all times if they do not resurrect everyone. Saying this, it is expected of them to come up with a solution to do exactly that, unless they really surprise us in the second installment of Infinity War. Still, if one analysis Infinity War just in itself and do not connect to past movies or the ones that will follow, Infinity War would deserve to be in everybody's top 10 superhero movies of all time.

The best superhero stories don't necessarily need the villain to win, but it is "realistic" (aka better and it feels more satisfying) when the villain's strategy is better and/or they are stronger than the heroes and they get to win because of that. It is even more satisfying when the reasoning of the villain kind of makes sense while their logic is flawed somewhere (showing the weakness of the villain), especially if the superhero and the villain agree on something but their approach is quite different to solve the problem.

There is room to argue that Thanos is one of the great villains since he has a purpose beyond just being a villain for the sake of villainy.

It's weird to think that 10 whole years of wonderful movies have passed, but a decade ago there I was, enjoying _Iron Man_ with a friend and leaving the cinema in awe (and absolutely not a clue about everything that would unfold afterwards). Now here we are, at what feels like the culmination of so many stories.

I have been to the cinema to watch _Infinity War_ twice now and could not be happier with it. One of my biggest surprises was how much of a protagonist Thanos is. Despite the fact that we have dozens of characters scattered, there are a lot of moments where they take their time to show us who Thanos is, explain his motivations and particularly show us his relationship with Gamora without it feeling like it detracts from everything else.

In fact, I felt like every single character involved here had a moment to shine. Inevitably with a cast this massive, some of them had a more considerable relevance in moving the main plot (Gamora, Thor, Strange, Stark, Vision) while others were more there as "support", but even then, we were treated to brilliant interactions, such as Groot and Rocket being instrumental in the creation of Thor's new weapon. The fact that not just characters, but whole plot elements come from the other movies helps in making the experience much richer, like the banter between Stark and Parker coming straight from _Spider-Man_, or the Wanda/Vision romance following up from _Civil War_.

(That is making me ask myself whether you need to watch a whopping 18 movies in order to enjoy this one properly. If you do, there is great reward, but if you don't I can see how the amount of characters could be odd. At the very least one should watch the two preceding _Avengers_ films, _Civil War_ and maybe the first _Guardians_... I do wonder what a casual movie goer would say.)

(Speaking of other movies, it dawned on me that this one makes _Thor: Ragnarok_ really sad... guess we have to look at it as the calm before the storm!)

In any case, we have reached a point where the MCU is so big, we literally have eyes on a huge battle on Earth, a fight in Titan and the creation of a legendary axe elsewhere in the universe all at the same time, which makes me reflect on the dimensions of it all. Regarding visuals, what can one say, really... very likely the best superhero combat scenes I've ever seen, Marvel or otherwise. Definitely the most "comic book" ones for sure. The moment I single out as the absolute best was the fight in Titan. Seeing Doctor Strange, Iron Man, Spider-Man and half the Guardians combine all they can do best against the Mad Titan was so incredibly awesome. Strange's portals, Spidey's webs, then ALL of them restraining Thanos... just thinking about it makes me want to run to the cinema again.

I was trying to choose a MVP of the film, which seems impossible... after some deliberating, I'm thinking Doctor Strange just for how useful he was in all aspects. I liked him so much in this that I feel the urge to rewatch his film, which will happen soon. Other than him... Mantis, just because of _"like Kevin Bacon?"_ and _"kicking names and taking ass."_ All of the Guardians working with everyone else was just all I wanted and more.

Beyond the awesome and the funny... are the tragedies. Minutes into the film we already lose two characters, which is effective in making us realise we should be very worried about Thanos. There's the question of how definitive the deaths were (I'm referring to the ones before the final scenes). Gamora's was dramatically sad, especially when you see Thanos himself cries, but the one that gutted me was Vision. The way it was done, how after Wanda's intense effort Thanos simply reverts things and yanks out the stone without a second thought, what a scene.

The ending is shocking, impressive and will puzzle a lot of people that don't know a thing about the comics. Visually I think they nailed the right effect for the fading away, all of a sudden but also gradual and one after another, with the gut wrenching reaction of the ones seeing it all unfold. I'm not even frustrated about the long wait to see what happens, because the "to be continued" is what allowed for such an unforgettable conclusion, with Thanos triumphant.

That's my biased rant. I expected it to be great, was impressed by how much it surprised me. Here's to another 10 years of films, hopefully! Next up, Ant-Man and Wasp.

Loved this movie. This was one of the first Marvel movies where I felt that there were actual stakes. The performances were top notch as always. If nothing else, you have to atleast appreciate the unprecedented scale of this movie.