“… I can’t deny that they did the best they could have with what they had.”

Avengers: Infinity War is a very hard movie to review, and that’s becasue I am essentially of two minds about my opinion on the movie. On one hand Avengers: Infinity War absolutely delivered on the ten year build-up that has been been the Marvel Cinematic Universe, delivering references and appearances from characters who would never under any circumstances interact; providing almost the best example of fan-service there is. But on the other hand it was kind of too big for its britches. I mean we’re talking about ten years of movies, essentially being boiled down into one three-hour romp. It was kind of messy if I’m being honest. And now hopefully you understand why this review will be so difficult for me.

So to begin let’s talk about the good. Avengers: Infinity War did the best with what it could. Off the top of my my head I would say that Avengers: Infinity War featured approximately a baker’s dozen of main characters from over the years. This is too many on paper, but I feel that Marvel did the best they could with transitioning those main characters into lesser-roles that still fulfilled fan expectations. For instance I didn’t feel like one ‘set’ of characters were being focused on more than another, but I did notice that the gap between segments was growing as the movie went on. For instance, the beginning shows us almost every character in the span of about 45-minutes. This is obviously to set up the story and introduce the concept of ‘Too Many Cooks’. But as the movie went on I kept thinking to myself ‘Where’s [insert main character here]? He hasn’t been on screen for what feels like an hour’, and that’s becasue there was almost too much to cover. There were times during the movie where I was almost getting frustrated with the seemingly focus-lacked storytelling, but looking back I can’t deny that they did the best they could have with what they had.

Another thing I felt Avengers: Infinity War did really well was the mixture of tones from the various movies throughout the years. It’s no surprise to anyone that, while they all feature superheroes, the Marvel movies vary pretty wildly in tone (at least in some cases). Going into Avengers: Infinity War I felt that this could be the biggest issue, tones clashing and characters being pigeon-holed to fit the current prevailing emotional beat. Luckily that wasn’t an issue for me. I feel that the characters who are the ‘funny ones’ got their fair share of quips, like Spider-Man, Dr. Strange, and The Guardians of the Galaxy, but the characters who were a little more sombre (Iron Man, Captain America) really won the draw. And that isn’t favouritism, it’s realizing that Avengers: Infinity War isn’t supposed to be fun. Right off the bat we are introduced to Thanos, and the stakes are set so fucking high. This opening really introduces us to the Game of Thrones-esque writing that takes place in this movie, and it manages to take a franchise that was pretty fun and give it some serious stakes. I’m almost proud that Marvel would allow the film to be this serious when its bottom-line is toy sales to children. And I also really like that Thanos was essentially boiled-down to a misunderstood single-dad. It was like watching Kramer vs. Kramer.

What I wasn’t such a fan of in regards to Avengers: Infinity War was the ending. I’m not going to spoil anything here so fear not, but know that I found the ending pretty lackluster. This is becasue it is very obvious to me that Avengers: Infinity War is setting up for a sequel (whether or not it is Avengers: Infinity War 2) and that means the ending of Avengers: Infinity War doesn’t really wrap anything up. No movie that knows it’s getting a sequel ever has a satisfying ending, at least until the next movie comes out. I’m sure when Avengers: Infinity War 2 comes out I can look back and say “Wow, that was a perfect lead-up to this movie”, but now I’m essentially sitting here with blue balls becasue it was decided to not give the fans of this movie a satisfying ending. And let’s get real for a second here, why the fuck does the CGI in these movies look like trash? I’m not talking about all CGI, Thanos actually looked amazing, but whenever anything CGI has to interact with anything real it looks like absolute garbage. Marvel, it’s been ten years. Get your shit figured out. Realize that when you rotoscope Robert Downey Jr.’s head onto the Iron man suit, it looks like he’s a bobblehead with Parkinson’s. Know that when you have Thanos, a giant purple man who is entirely made up of CGI, pick someone up, it’s not gonna look good. Work around it. Avengers: Infinity War is the second most expensive movie in history, but some of these effects looked like they belong in something made by The Asylum.

Overall Avengers: Infinity War was a solid entry in the Avengers film series, and it was a pretty satisfying pay-off to the ten years of MCU films. I will admit that it felt a little bloated at times with all of the characters who needed their own spotlight, and the ending was a little lackluster as it was setting up for a sequel, but I didn’t dislike the movie by any means. Except for the CGI. That was bad.

I give Avengers: Infinity War an A