Praise4Media #57 - Avengers: Infinity War

It’s time, after a decade’s worth of buildup we begin the most ambitious crossover Marvel has ever put into film with Avengers: Infinity War

Infinity War is a movie adaptation of an event comic, not exactly the one it's named after but the concept in general. And not a personal, small story like Heroes in Crisis (come back next week for that) but a grand scale epic saga that brings together characters from across the universe. And it’s been building for a while, with the idea of infinity stones introduced properly in Thor: The Dark World (I know the tesseract predates, but this was the film where they were officially referred to as infinity stones) referenced in Guardians of the Galaxy and Doctor Strange and expanded on in Avengers: Age of Ultron.

Thanos was introduced as early as the Avengers, making his official debut in Guardians of the Galaxy, where his two ‘daughters’ had become prominent characters. There’s usually build-up to event comics too. Infinite Crisis built off Identity Crisis, Day of Vengeance, The Omac Project, Villains United, pages of Justice League, Superman and Teen Titans and the Rann/Thanagar War. Secret Empire built off a crossover called Pleasant Hill, and the events of Captain America

The Infinity duo of films will draw off just about every film in the MCU but here are some important things you could do with knowing before jumping in.

The Time Stone is part of Doctor Strange’s Eye of Agamotto

The Space Stone/Tesseract was supposedly on Asgard when it was destroyed, we see Loki gaze upon it briefly when he was enacting the plan, and it's safe to assume he took it.

The Power Stone is on the Nova Corps home world of Xandar

The reality stone/Aether is with the Collector on N.O.W.H.E.R.E.

The Mind stone is currently in the head of the vision, he laments that he still doesn’t know what that is

During the events of Civil War, Thor and the Hulk were absent as Tony Stark, Rhodey, Vision and Spider-man fought against Captain America, the Scarlett Witch, Black Widow, Ant-man and Hawkeye, the latter half are now wanted fugitives, with Cap giving up his shield after his fight with Iron Man.

Black Panther had a role in Civil War but uncovered the manipulations and ultimately agreed to help Cap with Bucky Barnes. With help from his sister, Shuri, Bucky has recovered from his mental conditioning and is now living in Wakanda

With the people of Asgard having escaped the destruction of their home and heading to Earth, Thanos’ ship shows up right behind them.

With the departure of Joss Whedon after the hell that was working on Age of Ultron (I imagine working on Justice League was just as pleasant) the Russo Brothers have stepped up as director. They directed both Winter Soldier and Civil War, showing they have a good grasp of believable action and can handle a large cast with multiple plotlines.

Christopher Marcus and Stephen McFreely are writing the screenplay. They also have done a number of Marvel projects including all the Captain America films and Thor: The Dark World. Some of the best and worst of Marvel then.  But here it’s do or die time, so let’s take a look at Avengers: Infinity War.

We open with the Starship Asgard calling for help, as Thanos’ forces are attacking. It’s not looking good either, everyone on board seems to be dead. We’ll find out later that half of them survived, but I’m not really sure how. Anyway, he’s come for the tesseract with his minions, Proxima Midnight, Corvus Glaive, Ebony Maw and Cull Obsidian and, to the surprise of absolutely no-one, Loki stole the tesseract during the battle on Asgard, but before he hands it over to Thanos, Thanos has to face the Hulk.

And I guess when the plot demands it, Hulk isn’t the strongest there is, because he gets his ass kicked in this fight. I get that Thanos has the edge since he already has the power stone, but he doesn’t even appear to be using it. Would be nice to see the Hulk put up a bit more of a fight, since this is the last time we’ll see him in a combative role in this film. Anyway, with the Hulk defeated, Loki tries to stab Thanos, and it goes badly. Loki gets killed, for realz this time apparently, much to Thor’s horror.

Heimdall uses what little energy he has left to send Banner away, err… Thor is right there? Anyway, Heimdall is killed, Thanos has the tesseract, and the Starship Asgard is blown up, remind me how half of Asgard survived this again?

Anyway, as luck would have it, Banner is sent right through the roof of the Sanctum Sanctorum, the home-place of Doctor Strange and his compatriot Wong. Thanos sends his minions to Earth to collect the remaining Infinity Stones, cue title card. Nitpicks aside, it’s a great opening, fully establishing the threat level which will only increase as the movie continues.

On Earth, Tony Stark and Pepper Potts are getting married. This might seem like an odd shift given that in Civil War, they’d broken up and Pepper had only since cameoed in Spider-man homecoming. None the less, she still has concerns about his armour. He now it stored in a chest plate, and it’s made of nano-parts or something. What it means in terms of this film is that he can take a hell of a beating and stay standing, it’s a good way to allow for some intense action later on.

Tony has been dreaming about having a child, which is not very subtle foreshadowing but their talks are interrupted by the arrival of Doctor Strange, Wong and Bruce. They bring Tony up to speed on Thanos and since we know how much the Chitauri invasion messed him up, he’s rightfully terrified of the idea. He and Doctor Strange have an interesting chemistry. In many ways they’re quite similar, they’re both smart, somewhat egotistical and exceptionally powerful in their own ways. It makes for some enjoyable banter. Tony’s lost track of Vision and somehow he reckons Steve might be able to find him, I mean he does but I don’t get that. Anyway, he’s about to make his call but then a giant space donut arrives.

Those ships look stupid, I’m just gonna say it. Anyway, Tony armours up and the gang head into action, quickly confronting Ebony Maw and Cull Obsidian, who are after the Time Stone. Tony tells Doctor Strange to run, but he refuses, not wishing to run from a fight. Bruce tries to turn into the Hulk but finds he can’t. In a convenient move, Peter Parker notices the ship and thanks to Ned noticing it to, he manages to sneak out of the bus and come to help as Spider-man.

Wong sends Banner away as the fight begins and it’s a pretty cool fight. Ebony Maw is just the right kind of irritating to make you want you to see him taken down, but is pretty powerful, able to dodge multiple attacks from Iron Man and counter most of Doctor Strange’s magic. Cull Obsidian is more of a strong brute type, he doesn’t get much dialogue or personality but he’s dispatched quickly as Wong sends him to the arctic.

Spider-man enters the fight, but is quickly sent after Strange. Maw keeps him at bay long enough for Strange, who had been knocked out at this point, to be beamed up to the ship. Spider-man follows along and Tony sends the Iron Spider suit to help him as the ship is about to leave the atmosphere. He boosts after the ship, just barely catching up, but Spidey has manages to stay on in spite of Tony trying to send him back. Tony makes one last call to Pepper, who is upset at what’s happening, we lose the call before anything comes of it. Wong heads back to the Sanctum Sanctorum to protect it now the Sorcerer Supreme is missing.

We cut to Glasgow, where Wanda and Vision are having a date. Vision is still concerned about the infinity stone in his head and it’s made worse when Thanos’ forces arrive for it. Proxima Midnight is clearly the more intelligent of the 2, but lacks the presence or personality Ebony Maw had, Corvus Glaive is another brute, although apparently the two are in love, and they’re siblings, ewww. They quickly stab Vision which limits his power levels for the movie. Wanda uses her very vaguely defined powers to get him away but the two catch up too quickly. Vision is able to hold his own for a bit, but it’s not got looking good for them. The arrival of Cap, Falcon and Black Widow turns the tide, as they display the best teamwork, I think I’ve seen in all of the Avengers movies. This is definitely worthy of the Avengers theme playing over it.

They’re a little annoyed Wanda didn’t check in but the news about Thanos and the disappearance of Tony Stark takes priority. They get a call from Bruce Banner.

We now head into space where the Guardians of the Galaxy are doing what they do best, listening to and old but great song. It seems Gamora has gotten into the singing too, while Drax and Rocket are just bored and Groot is playing on the console he has now. They’re responding to a distress call, hoping to make a bit of money but they arrive at the wreckage of the Starship Asgard (I know it has another name, but Starship Asgard sounds cooler)

Thor bumps into their windscreen and they bring him in, commenting on his muscular physique compared to Quill. I don’t know if this supposed to be ironic given what we know is coming in the next film, but… Thor wakes up and quickly gets acquainted with the crew, finding out about Gamora’s connection to Thanos. He knows that Thanos decimated Xandar last week and grabbed the power stone. I have questions about this

How does Thor know? I’m guessing the events of Ragnarok happened less than a week ago given how it led directly into this film. Did he know before he ended up on Sakaar? If he did, why didn’t he act sooner. Screw Loki having control of Asgard, that sh*t can take care of itself for a few hours. 

Thor is probably the only one who could’ve stopped Thanos whilst he had the power stone (with his hammer anyway) but with Thanos having 2 stones, there are 4 left to protect, with 1 being in an unknown location, and 2 being protected on Earth (how does Thor know about the Time Stone being on Earth? Another dream?) it’s likely Thanos’ next stop is NOWHERE, where the collector has the Aether aka the reality stone. Thor decides he needs a hammer, and tries to head to Nidavellir, which for some reason is in space, rather than another realm.

The crew decide to split up, with Thor, Rocket and Groot heading to Nidavellir, whilst the others try to stop Thanos at NOWHERE. We have the guy with jet boots and a gun, a super-strong fighter, a super-strong brawler and a mid-level telepath against Thanos, yeah, I don’t see this going well.    

Cap and his crew arrive at the upstate Avengers facility, where Rhodey and is waiting for them. Ross via hologram tries to make them surrender but clearly Rhodey doesn’t give a sh*t and ends the call. We get a reminder that the stupid romance subplot between Hulk and Bruce was a thing, until we move to business. They decide they need to destroy the stone, which Wanda can do but they need advance technical skills to remove the stone without killing Vision at the same time, so there’s only one place to go.

We cut to Wakanda where Black Panther has already received word of the Avengers’ intent, and has come to see Bucky Barnes, now cleared of all programming and dubbed: The White Wolf. I dig it. At this point there are 5 major plotlines, and I’m gonna cover them out of order for the sake of simplicity.

We’ll start with the Guardians of the Galaxy. We get a flashback to Gamora’s past. She was a scavenger on her home planet, living homeless with her mother. Thanos, with both Chitauri and the Black Order, invades the planet and has the populace line up in 2 rows. He finds Gamora and helps her keep her mind off things, by getting her to balance a small knife. She’s distracted as half the population is executed by firing squad.

In the present, Gamora tells Star Lord that he knows something Thanos wants and to kill her rather than let her be captured by Thanos. Star Lord begrudgingly agrees to this as Drax is awkwardly watching. They arrive at NOWHERE and conduct what they believe to be a surprise attack but when Gamora charges in, it’s all revealed to be an illusion. The Collector is dead and Thanos’ already has the reality stone. With it he wipes the floor with the Guardians and captures Gamora, with Star Lord’s attempt to carry out her final wish unsuccessful. He disappears, not even killing them off.

Gamora is taken to Thanos’ ship, it’s revealed Nebula had tried to assassinate him several weeks ago and has since been captured. He also has a recording from the optic drive that confirms that Gamora destroyed the map to the soul stone. By torturing Nebula she eventually confesses that the stone is on the Planet Vormir.

Thanos takes her to Vormir and they’re greeted by, surprisingly, the Red Skull, who after being sent away by the space stone has ended up as the guide to the soul stone. I wonder who guided others before him. He explains that the Soul Stone requires a sacrifice of sorts, you need to lose someone you love. Gamora laughs at this but Thanos is visually upset, and that in itself is a credit to the effects team, who really did a good job. Josh Brolin, who plays him is also a great fit for the version of the character they’re doing. I’ll get to his motivations soon. Though it pains him, he kills Gamora, claiming the soul stone.

I… I can’t fault this scene. It is a textbook example of fridging. Nebula’s death is solely to develop Thanos’ character, and Star Lord’s later on but it does work, it’s sad to see Nebula go, and it’s in-keeping with a theme here, which I’ll come back to later. Whilst this is happening, Nebula manages to escape and contacts the Guardians, telling them to meet her on the Planet Titan

On the flying donut, Tony and Spidey argue a bit, but Peter comes up with a decent plan to rescue Doctor Strange from Ebony Maw, blow him out the airlock and send him flying into space. It works and once again, Tony and Dr Strange are at odds. Strange wants to head back to Earth to protect the time stone but Tony realises it’s only a matter of time before Thanos comes back, potentially with a much bigger assault and theorises it might be better to attack him on his home turf with the element of surprise. Strange ultimately agrees, but says he’d happily sacrifice the two of them to protect the time stone.

The ship auto-pilots to Titan, but they’re unable to land and end up crashing. They’re soon confronted by the Guardians and the two teams fight, ending up surprisingly evenly matched, which they shouldn’t be because Strange is the master of the mystic arts and could beat all of the Guardians on his own.

Anyway, the two teams eventually realise they’re on the same side, and Spidey and Star Lord (I just realised they’re both called Peter, cute) begin spouting pop cultural references at each other. There’s quite a lot of pop cultural references in this film, generally stuff considered classic like Alien, Footloose and Spongebob?

Whilst that’s going on, Star Lord is being an idiot and Doctor Strange is using the time stone to examine possible futures, over 14 million examined and only one where they win. Thanos soon arrives and is saddened to hear of Ebony Maw’s death, it’s another brilliant fight scene, showcasing everyone’s skills and abilities to as full an extent as you could. One could argue that the mirror dimension isn’t used well but I’ll let that pass.

It’s here we fully understand Thanos’ motivation. Titan was his home planet, which suffered from over-population which eventually lead to cataclysm, Thanos proposed a random genocide of half the planet to save the other but it was rejected. Now he seeks to enact the same plan across the universe. This is far more interesting and nuanced than being in love with death. It’s still a horrible plan, and one could argue he could save the universe in other ways with the gems, but that’s kinda the point, he’s completely convinced his way is the only way, he’s never stopped to consider the others.

They enact a plan, Doctor Strange uses his sling ring to transport Nebula on top of Thanos, who uses her abilities to pacify him. Whilst a combination of Strange’s magic tendrils, Spidey’s webs and Star Lord’s gravity thing hold him down. Tony and Spidey try and take off the gauntlet but then Star Lord decides to ask where Gamora is. Nebula realises that Thanos has the soul stone, and he must be dead and Nebula can sense him grieving.

Angered by this, Star Lord attacks, and Thanos is able to escape. Peter Quill, you just doomed the universe, asshole! Thanos uses the gauntlet to throw a moon at them, which briefly distracts Iron Man and sends the others flying, Spider-man barely able to catch them and get them protected with his webbing. Doctor Strange uses all his talents to fight but Thanos manages to beat him, although Strange has hidden the stone.

Iron Man recovers and lays on all he has, really utilising the nano-parts idea set up earlier, but it’s not enough. Tony gets stabbed in the stomach and Doctor Strange ultimately surrenders the Time Stone to save him, saying it’s coming to the endgame now. (Ha, title drop for the next film)

Meanwhile, Thor, Rocket and Groot arrive at Nidavellir after Rocket hands Thor a spare eye, and find the star that powers the Forge has gone out. He finds Idri, the Dwarf that constructed Mjolnir, is the only dwarf alive. Thanos came to him to get the Infinity Gauntlet created. Idri did so to save his people but because of reasons, Thanos killed them anyway, and not just half. Anyway, he has an axe called Stormbreaker which he can construct, that can summon the Bifrost, but to do this successfully, they need to get the Forge working again.

Thor and Rocket use the shuttle to do exactly that. Not entirely sure how it works but let’s just run with it. But one of the shutters that allows the sun to enter the forge won’t open, Thor is going to have to hold it open, exposed to massive amounts of heat that ultimately will do no damage to him at all because God of Thunder. Also, what happened to his lightning powers from Ragnarok, were they directly tied to him being on Asgard? He could do it on Sakkar!

Anyway, the forge is lit but Idri can’t find a handle, with time running out before the metal solidifies, Groot uses his own branch to make a handle. Thor is dying from the sun, I guess and needs Stormbreaker to heal him, goodness knows how that works.

Back on Earth. Cap arrives at Wakanda with the remaining Earth Avengers. T’Challa has arranged for many of Wakanda’s forces to help against what could be considered a sizeable assault. Shuri examines the mess that is Vision’s head and proves that she’s probably smarter than Tony and Bruce combined which means she gets to stay out of the action and perform the surgery whilst the others fight back against the assault. Bruce wearing the Hulkbuster armour since he still can’t transform.

Ships begin to land outside Wakanda and ok, the Black Order minions just look ugly, don’t know if it’s the CG, but it reminds me of Steppenwolf from Justice League and that’s never a good sign. Proxima Midnight and Cull Obsidean are leading the attack, claiming that Corvus Glaive is dead. Spoiler alert, he isn’t.

They commence their attack with the foot-soldiers bursting through the Wakandan barrier, killing themselves over and over. In any other movie, this would be horrifying. They’re able to hold off the forces that come through, but there’s a problem, they have the numbers to try and get in from behind, and that way there’s nothing between them and Vision. Black Panther opens a small section of the barrier, allowing them to flood through, but keeping them in sight. It becomes a massive battle and with the sheer numbers being on the side of the Black Order, plus with Proxima Midnight and Cull Obsidean entering the battle, things aren’t looking good.

Things change in their favour with the arrival of Thor, and Groot (and Rocket too, I guess…) Thor goes on a rampage, decimating the Black Order forces, and looking for Thanos. There’s a neat little moment with the Winter Soldier and Rocket, Rocket wanting his arm. Considering Rocket’s affinity for robot parts, and their similar histories, it’s cool.

The Black Order have other tricks though, using diggers that look like they’re out of Mortal Engines to get underneath the barrier. Wanda decides she can’t stay on the sidelines any longer and decides to join the battle but right at that moment Corvus Glaive arrives and, how did he get through undetected? Did he get through the barrier, seems like an easy way to kill himself, and we will see later that the barrier can kill them so…

Shuri’s attacks are hopeless but it becomes a fight between him and Vision, with Vision still damaged from earlier. Proxima Midnight confronts Black Widow, Okoye and Wanda whilst Cull Obsidean backs up Corvus Glaive but Bruce in the Hulkbuster armour fights him off, eventually sending him right into the barrier using a rocket hand, killing him. Like I said, the barrier can kill them, so how did Corvus Glaive get through?

Cap arrives to back up Vision, who’s barely holding it together as Wanda finishes off Proxima midnight just as she has Black Widow down.  Cap manages to disarm Corvus Glaive but Glaive manages to pin him, as Vision uses Glaive's weapon to finish him off. But it’s not much to celebrate as Thanos arrives. Vision convinces Wanda that now they have to destroy the stone whatever the cost. As the others desperately try and hold Thanos off, she manages to do exactly that.

But Thanos now has the time stone and rewinds the stone back to being whole and takes it for himself. Thor aims Stombreaker right at him and it lands right in Thanos’ chest, but with the power of the soul stone, Thanos shakes it off. He briefly retreats into the soul realm where a Young Gamora asks if he did it, and what it cost him, he did and everything. He retreats and before the Avengers can truly recover, he performs the deed he set out to do.

In space, we say goodbye to Star Lord, Drax, Nebula, Doctor Strange and a particularly tearful one to Spider-man. Back on Earth, we say goodbye to Black Panther, Falcon, the White Wolf, Wanda and Groot. And if you think for a moment these deaths are gonna be permanent, I want whatever drugs you’re on.

We end the film, with Thanos, having achieved his goal, sitting in the Garden, at peace. Just kidding, we actually end with an End Credits scene. Nick Fury, seeing the chaos around him calls the one person he hopes can help, Captain Marvel.

Avengers: Infinity War is at its heart about what you’re willing to sacrifice. Cap is adamantly against sacrificing lives, and it’s echoed by Wanda and most of his team. There’s never really a debate until the end, when it’s too late. Star Lord is conflicted and never really wanted to kill Gamora, and it costs them dearly. Doctor Strange ultimately gives up the stone rather than seeing everyone killed.

Thanos meanwhile is strongest in his conviction, very much willing to sacrifice everything to get the goal, and ultimately, he wins. And it’s fitting, despite my summary probably not doing Justice to this, it’s very much Thanos’ story. The writers did a fantastic job taking a character whose motivations probably wouldn’t have translated well to film, and making him the most compelling and powerful Marvel villain to date. The only continuity error that creates is with the Avengers Assemble stinger but it’s a minor problem.

There are some issues when it comes to the balance of characters. The Guardians of the Galaxy look bad in this compared to the Avengers. Vision is never at his full potential in the entire film. The Hulk is written out after 5 minutes, Wong disappears after the first act, never to be seen again, etc. It also means that with the multiple threads, it can end up feeling a bit scatter-brained. That said, having a cast this big means you do have to make some allowances for stuff like that. James Gunn was apparently involved with the Guardians dialogue, and you can tell, it felt like them. Civil War ultimately was much simpler, because although it had a large cast, the scale was a lot smaller and there wasn’t a need for multiple subplots all running at once.

The action in this film is very good, whilst it makes powerful characters look powerful, it doesn’t do that at the expense of less powerful characters. Something Joss Whedon was somewhat guilty of in his Avengers movies. The scene where Black Widow, Cap and Falcon use teamwork to fight Proxima Midnight and Corvus Glaive is a brilliant, if short example.

But they don’t skimp out on scale either, the battle of Wakanda is massive, and it looks massive, the fight on Titan has scale in other ways, like Thanos throwing the moon or Doctor Strange dividing into 100 different selves.. When it comes to character, there are bits and pieces here and there. The biggest is the focus on the relationship between Thanos and Gamora, but there is some setup for Thor, who has been through hell during this movie and Ragnarok and a bit for Tony, as he faces his demons from Avengers Assemble again. You could argue some for Star Lord exists also.

Avengers: Infinity War delivers on what an event comic should deliver, a big threat, increased scale and fun action. Having character interactions abnormal to the films is also fun to work with and we get some decent character banter.

Rating -150%