Avengers: Infinity War

2018 blockbuster

Rating: 12/20

Plot: A one-gloved man tries to collect enough stones to give him bragging rights over the entire universe. A bunch of superheros from eighteen other movies try their best to stop him.

I had a lot of questions and mixed feelings about this one as I walked out of the theater, so I thought the best way to articulate my feelings about this messy, bloated blockbuster would be to interview myself. There are spoilers, so if you haven't seen this movie (or are still seeing it since it's probably still going on), you should probably read this later.

Shane: Hey, Shane. How are you doing?

Me: What the hell? What kind of interviewer starts out an interview with "How are you doing?"

Shane: Sorry. So, you notoriously have trouble understanding comic book superhero movies. From your 12/20 rating, it seems that you didn't enjoy Infinity War very much. Is it because you didn't understand what was going on?

Me: No, not at all. This time, the plot was maybe too simplistic. A bad guy wanting to be all-powerful has to collect these powerful stones--the time stone, the kidney stone, the rolling stone, the everybody-must-get-stoned stone, the Rosetta Stone, the Stone Cold Steve Austin, the Oliver Stone, and the Blarney Stone--so that he can pull off an intergalactic practical joke to get back at everybody who made fun of his CGI chin. The Avengers and some friends are either trying to stop him from getting those stones or trying to get a giant Peter Dinklage to help make them an omnipotent ax. The movie's packed with characters, mostly with dynamics not seen before as some of these characters are meeting for the first time, but for a movie that seems like it should be really confusing, it's almost so simple that it's dumb.

Shane: Didn't you enjoy some of those dynamics?

Me: Not especially. I like the rapport between Iron Man and Spider-man, and they have some good moments with Dr. Strange. The Guardians of the Galaxy characters really annoyed me here, and Thor and Rocky Raccoon buddying up didn't really do much for me.

Shane: What? How could you not like these characters?

Me: Oh, don't get me wrong, Shane! I do enjoy these characters, much more than the effect-laden, formulaic stories they find themselves in. I like most of the performers quite a bit in these. I'm not as tired of Downey Jr.'s portrayal of Iron Man as he probably is at this stage; Hemsworth's grown on me, probably because he became a lot more fun in the Taika Waititi movie; Tom Holland is extremely likable as the fifteenth Spider-man in the last fifteen years; Boseman has a lot of screen presence as Black Panther; Chris Evans has a beard; Cumberbatch knows how to wave his hands around so that some special effects can be added in later. The characters and performances are mostly fine, although a lot of them are kind of coasting on the good vibes and character development created in all of those other movies.

Shane: Most of them?

Me: Some of these characters just don't do it for me, man. The one guy who has the Rosetta Stone ripped out of his head (Vision, I think) is boring, and I can't even remember what he does. He doesn't really do anything but have something ripped out of his head in this movie. It's also unclear what his girlfriend does. What's her name? Scarlet Witch? And their relationship, like every single romantic subplot here, doesn't seem real at all. The Guardians of the Galaxy got on my nerves, especially Chris Pratt's character who is genuinely unlikable here. I mean, shouldn't we actually be blaming his impulsiveness for getting half of the universe killed off? Oh, sorry. That's a total spoiler.

Shane: That's ok. We'll warn people at the beginning of the interview.

Me: Ok, good. The other Guardians--that character played by Dave Bautista gets some fun lines, but the green lady, the raccoon, the surly video-gave-obsessed treenager? After two-and-a-half movies, they're already a bit tiresome. The tree guy, whose name I just can't remember because it's not mentioned in the script enough times, should be considered the Jar Jar Binks of this franchise if all of these fanboys weren't so dazzled by the special effects.

Shane: That "treenager" pun just made me wet myself. That's a good one.

Me: Thanks. I also wet myself. Scarlett Johansson, as much as I enjoy seeing her on the screen, is really not playing a character who interests me at all. I don't see how they can make a Black Widow standalone movie. The other auxiliary characters? Blah. There are too many of them to have to fit into this movie to really give them enough time to leave a mark. They all kind of seem like cameos, don't they? And there were two performances that I actually thought were pretty bad.

Shane: Which two would those be?

Me: One would be Peter Dinklage. I guess making him a character who dwarfs Hemsworth is supposed to be a funny gag, but I though his performance was laughably bad. This might not be a popular opinion, but I've always thought he's really uneven anyway. Sometimes, he's great. Sometimes, he's kind of bad. And sometimes, he's great and bad in the same movie. The other was Mark Ruffalo who seemed like he might have been on something. Ruffalo didn't make it easy for me to understand any emotions his Bruce Banner character was supposed to be feeling, and there are a couple of shots when he's in a Fat Iron Man suit that looked really stupid. The whole thing with him not being able to Hulk-up also probably needed a little more exposition. Or maybe they should have just left him in space. Did he serve a purpose here?

Shane: You mentioned that you didn't think the romance worked in this. Don't you think that those relationships helped add some of the depth necessary to give this have some real emotional impact?

Me: Are you kidding me?

Shane: No.

Me: There are three couples here, four if you count the homoerotic thing that the raccoon and Thor have going on. You've got the aforementioned Scarlet Witch and Vision thing, the Chris Pratt and green lady thing, and the Iron Man and Pepper Potts thing. Pepper Potts is in about 4 minutes of this movie, only to make everything going on with Downey Jr. seem that much more dramatic, I guess. It was 4 minutes too much although part of me hopes there is a standalone Pepper Potts movie in the future. The Pratt and green lady romance seemed forced in that second Guardians movie, and here, the whole thing seems about as authentic as a couple of middle schoolers deciding to go out. The romantic stuff was a cheap way to try to jerk more tears from the audience when the characters start getting killed off, but it was handled so superficially that it's nothing more than an irritating diversion from the bombast and universe-trotting superheros' scattered adventures.

Shane: You haven't mentioned the villain yet. Don't you think this is one of the more well-rounded Marvel villains?

Me: Well, he's no Pepper Potts.

Shane: What?

Me: I think the only reason why some Marvel fans are saying Thanos is a better villain than almost all of the others in these movies is because he gets so much screen time and character development. Brolin is given so many lines and so much backstory with that relationship with the green lady and that stuff on his home planet that the audience is tricked into thinking he's well-rounded. Once time passes, Thanos is going to be considered just another big CGI cliche. He doesn't look bad, and I think I liked Brolin's performance. But despite all that phony character development, the character's motivations, overall master plan, and methods don't make that much sense.

Shane: Care to elaborate?

Me: Sure. The guy, almost nobly, wants to dustify half of the universe because he believes it's overpopulated. It's a resource thing, right? I kept wondering why there was no stone (maybe the Wilma Flintstone?) that would cause him to realize that maybe there were other ways to make sure there are no have-nots in the universe? Like, maybe he could use his infinite power in this infinite universe and just, you know, make more food and resources? I think we're supposed to buy that this character is compassionate but misguided, but as he's trouncing around the galaxy tormenting people--how many torture scenes are there in this anyway?--it all seems contradictory. I think I'd almost rather have the guy just want all these stones for the generic reason of ruling the galaxy selfishly or wanting to accessorize.

Shane: And his methods?

Me: C'mon. Did you see the scene with Benicio Del Toro's weird character? Thanos can distort the environment and deceive the good guys. And with a glance, he can make characters break into cubes. He's an all-powerful, almost god-like villain who could probably sit on a chaise lounge sipping intergalactic lemonade and still defeat all of these puny superheros and heroines. Yet how does he most often take advantage of his omnipotence in the last third of this movie? He punches people really hard. Imagine how stupid the end of Aladdin would have been if Jafar would have started punching everybody instead of using his magic powers. It was just as stupid here.

Shane: I always thought that Jafar stuff at the end was a little silly.

Me: Oh, I did, too. And Thanos turning Black Panther into a house cat while making puns would have been silly as well. But it still doesn't make sense that the guy goes around punching people. It's almost like he doesn't really want to use his newfound powers because he thinks it would be cheating or something.

Shane: Overall, didn't you enjoy the action scenes?

Me: Let me answer that question with a question of my own. Do you think you're actually going to remember any of these action sequences by the time the next installment in this sprawling MCU comes out? Nothing's memorable here. These action sequences are the same we've seen over and over again. They're frenetic and often don't make a lot of sense. And I can't even keep track of what Spider-Man and Iron Man's suits can do at this point. Spider-Man gets this goofy-looking new suit and can all of a sudden unleash these extra legs? It looked a little stupid. I think I like my Spider-Man a little simpler. Iron Man's new suit has some new tricks, too, but they felt more conveniently created for these particular action sequences than anything that makes sense.

Shane: What about the epic Wakanda battle?

Me: Oh, yeah, that was great if you like dizzying CGI figures filling the screen with a complete lack of stakes.

Shane: Lack of stakes? You can't be serious there, Shane. I mean, characters die in this.

Me: Oh, you felt something there? This movie moves so feverishly that you don't have any time to breathe, let alone really feel anything that's going on. I wouldn't laugh at anybody who told me they were bummed when Loki or the green lady died, though the latter's death was very clumsily executed. You could see it coming from a Thanos chin away, and everything about it--the camera angles, the smaltzy score, the CGI baddie's tears--made it seem too manufactured to really make me care. And the Wakanda fight scene with the seemingly endless supply of buggy minions? I not only couldn't follow what was going on but also didn't really care. I think I'd actually rather watch that big battle scene with the Gungans and the battle droids in The Phantom Menace instead of watching this again. That's the blockbuster movie scene I was reminded of at least. Again, no stakes at all.

Shane: But characters really do die.

Me: Please. You know none of them are dying during that battle scene. It wouldn't be enough of a moment for any of them, even the auxiliary Avengers. And all of the characters whooshing away at the end of this? As soon as Black Panther bit it, I rolled my eyes loudly enough to bother the couple sitting in the row behind me. Black Panther and Spider-Man sequels have already been announced. Are we really supposed to believe that those characters aren't coming back? I kept hearing about theaters full of people weeping at the end of this movie. They must have been really gullible moviegoers.

Shane: But the suspense doesn't have to be whether or not the characters are really dead. We'll all be wondering how these characters are coming back, right?

Me: No, not really. Who cares? Once you kill off half of your characters and then bring them back the next movie, the franchise winds up having no rules. And once you have a character who can snap his fingers and kill this many people, you just have no way to top that. I mean, where can these movies go from here? All other villains will feel about as threatening as Coyote in the Road Runner cartoons. And when a character dies, moviegoers are just going to shrug and assume they'll come back to life in a future installment anyway. It kind of makes the whole thing seem a little pointless, doesn't it? It's even more of a soap opera than those Fast and the Furious movies.

Shane: But you like those movies!

Me: And another thing--let's talk about the tone. You have to applaud the Russo brothers and screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely for making a story that manages to be this cohesive and work this well with a cast of characters so large. I actually thought this would be more of a narrative mess than it ended up being. The messiness of Infinity War has less to do with the story that's being told, which as I said was fairly pedestrian, and more to do with the clash of tones. There's all this mystical nonsense with characters who are like gods, actually are gods, or can do whatever the hell it is Dr. Strange can do. There are the science fiction elements with the Guardians of the Galaxy characters and all the different planets some of these characters end up on. There are the more grounded goings-on happening on earth. There's Pepper Potts. It's just too much going on. I think I might have been able to handle it all a little better if the Guardians wouldn't have shown up, but then Chris Pratt wouldn't have been around to completely screw things up.

Shane: Well, let me ask you this. What was your favorite scene?

Me: I don't think I have one. It all kind of blends together in this bland mess. Some likable characters, a few quips and exchanges between these characters that are almost fun, some expensive-looking special effects, a whole lot of loudness, that scene with Pepper Potts. Was there something here that was supposed to stand out?

Shane: I think so! Thanos sacrificing his daughter? That fight where they nearly subdue Thanos? The shocking ending?

Me: As I've said, there's no resonance to any of that. I mean, we're really supposed to go nuts over a scene where Iron Man and Spider-Man are trying to pull a glove off a giant CGI man? I don't remember much of that Age of Ultron movie. I'm fairly positive that I'll remember the overall story of this one, but I don't think anything that happens here is going to wind up being anything that will permanently reside in my brain. Well, maybe the way the characters dustify. That might be memorable. Only it won't matter when the events of this entire movie are erased in Avengers 4 next year. It kind of makes it seem like Marvel's cheating us, doesn't it?

Shane: Before we end this, can you tell me something that you did like?

Me: I might have liked Thanos's henchmen/henchwomen. I'd probably need to see them again to make up my mind. Actually, I'm pretty sure I hated them. Forget I brought them up. Even though I didn't think the tones or genres melded well, I did like a lot of the sci-fi imagery in there. I like that there are two actors named Benedict in this movie. One of them is named Benedict Wong. Oh, and I really liked Stan Lee's cameo.

Shane: You did? I thought you hated those.

Me: Yeah, I was just kidding. I hate those.

Shane: Ok.

Me: Oh! I also like that there's a Tobias Funke cameo in this. That's hilarious. I didn't see it while watching the movie, but I saw a shot online, and that's easily the best thing about this movie.

Shane: THAT'S what you liked?

Me: Heck yeah! In fact, I nearly blue myself.

Shane: The post-credits scene? Did you stick around?

Me: Yeah, I had to sit through fifteen minutes of closing credits just to see something that I'd have to look up to understand. I felt cheated.

Shane: Ok, anything else? I'm kind of bored with this whole conversation.

Me: Not really. I didn't see this until Monday night after the huge opening weekend, and it was a late enough show that only two other people were in the theater with me. One of them talked to me afterward and told me that he thinks such-and-such are going to be in the next movie. I had no idea what he was talking about and nodded politely. Was that worth mentioning?

Shane: No, probably not. Ok, thanks for answering my questions.

Me: No problem, Shane. Smell ya later, man.