So, here we are. Not only the biggest,
most ambitious crossover event in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but likely
also in the history of the superhero film. And while it’s far from the first
company-wide crossover for Marvel Studios, it’s frankly the first one to feel
like a bona fide event since the initial Avengers
movie six years ago. It’s pretty exciting…as long as you don’t think too much
about the fact that they’ve done this in comics many times, and with a few
exceptions, these events rarely live up to the promise laid out in the months
and issues of other series leading into them.
This event (as if anyone needs me
to explain it at this point) involves the powerful space Titan Thanos (Josh
Brolin), to this point only seen in cameos and post-credit teasers. Now, this
hinted-at threat is finally on the warpath, scouring the galaxy for the
all-powerful Infinity Stones to fulfill his ambition of committing genocide on half
the universe’s sentient beings (in his view, “saving” it). Stopping this
godlike force of destruction and his followers requires the combined forces of nearly
all the Marvel heroes. Namely, the now-disassembled and scattered Avengers, the
Guardians of the Galaxy, and the forces of Wakanda we were just introduced to in
Black Panther.
The “good stuff” promised by such
an event is pretty much a home run. The final act features not one, but two terrific
action set pieces (one a large-scale battler, one more up close and personal)
that eventually combine in a climax that’s a real gut punch. A prolonged gut
punch at that, for the finale takes its time to misdirect the audience about
which characters suffer which fate, before leaving them utterly stunned and
unsure of where things go from here. That much is worth the price of a ticket
and the wait.
But, the wait really does feel
like a wait. The picture up to that point feels a bit like the middle filler
episodes of a continuing series. Although it’s filled with the patented Marvel humor
and has some good fights, it still seems to drag more than the previous Marvel films,
even though it’s not that much longer than some of its predecessors. And though
it manages to juggle all the characters and subplots into a cohesive and followable
narrative (at these amounts, a minor miracle for a single movie), the balance
of those events and faces is skewed all over the place. Some get little screen time
and little to do, some reveals are so slight they almost feel anticlimactic. On
the other hand, there are a few subplots that are very good, as well as one or two cool surprises
There is one consistent through line that makes
the movie, however: Brolin’s Thanos. He'd make a formidable foe on brawn alone, his physical (okay, technically digital) presence
alone exuding power and pain. But
the film’s best moments intimately familiarize the audience with the guy’s
psyche in some pointedly, and surprisingly, emotional scenes. It doesn’t
go so far to elicit sympathy, though, and never lets the viewer forget that he’s truly
evil, for all his mannerly monologuing. Rather, it serves to make one feel
personally invested in the fight against him, more so than with any
one-and-done Marvel bad guy; you truly want to see him defeated.
In short, Thanos lives up to the
hype, and on his back, so too does Infinity
War. Now, the MCU faces their biggest challenge: writing a conclusion for
next May that lives up to what they’ve done here. Though they’ve yet to make a
true failure of a feature film, that’s going to be tough; the note this one ends on is
really something.
