Avengers: Infinity War (Film Review)

I watched Infinity War on Labour Day last Tuesday and I'm finally taking the time to blog about it. The fact that I've been itching to blog about it for a week tells you that the movie is good. Way good. Actually, this isn't really a film review, but I'm titling it as such because I don't know what else to call it. This is just more like my random thoughts on the movie. I'm not a Marvel fan and I didn't read the comic books. I didn't watch all the Marvel movies either. But now that I've watched Infinity War, I'm definitely more interested to watch some of the other movies that I've missed.

Although I didn't watch every single movie, I still enjoyed Infinity War quite a lot. It was better than what I had expected. I mean, I saw that the poster could barely fit all the superheroes (although some characters were conspicuously missing in action. I'm talking about you, Hawkeye) and wondered how they were going to give all the characters ample screen time. And obviously, they didn't end up giving sufficient screen time to every single one of them, but they focused on the characters who were important to the plot and kept the plot moving at a rapid space, so that was fine.

A few moments in the movie left me feeling incredibly sad and many characters died at the end of the movie, since Thanos was bent on wiping out half of the population in the universe. However, this is ultimately a superhero movie and so I knew that they would be coming back. And so I would never cry when it comes to superhero movies. In addition, the movie was moving at such a fast pace that it didn't really let the audience fully comprehend the (supposed) finality of death. But I was definitely on the verge of feeling somewhat emotional when I saw Thanos kill Gamora, his adoptive daughter.

I really loved both Guardians of the Galaxy movies, so to find out more about Thanos and Gamora's relationship was great. Gamora actually thought that she managed to kill Thanos at one point, when they went to Knowhere to find the Reality Stone, and she actually cried when she saw her father's dead body. It was too good to be true however, since Thanos was just messing with reality using the Reality Stone. And when Thanos had to sacrifice Gamora to get the Soul Stone, he cried too. They seem to hate each other, but they also care about each other. It's screwed up. The other death that tugged at heartstrings was of course, the death of our friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man. It took him the longest time to vanish so that he could have a moment with Iron Man and it was just devastating to see the teen superhero go when I just got to know him through his recent movie, Spider-Man: Homecoming. (I kind of knew him from the previous two versions of Spider-Man, but well, you know what I mean. Maybe third times's the charm?)

Speaking of screwed up families, I loved Thor's interaction with the Guardians and how he shared a little about his own screwed up family. Then Star-Lord tells him about his shitty family issues as well and it's just funny. Thor kept calling Rocket Raccoon a rabbit the whole time as well! Then, when Thor, Rocket and Groot finally make it to Wakanda after forging Stormbreaker, Thor introduces Groot to Captain America. Groot says "I am Groot!" and Captain America says "I am Steve Rogers." Omg just hilarious. Now, for some reason, I wish to watch the Thor movies.

Anyway, Thanos isn't exactly a crazy evil villain who wishes to take over the galaxy for no apparent reason. Most traditional villains wish to do so, but Thanos is capable of logical thinking and reasoning. He thinks that the universe is overpopulated (I don't know about other planets, but Earth definitely is) and resources are finite (true) so half of the population should be wiped out in order to create a sustainable paradise of sorts. Okay, so here's where I stop agreeing with Thanos. There isn't even a need to wipe out half of the population. I mean, have you ever heard of natural selection, Thanos? Creatures will adapt in order to survive and if they don't then they'll die on their own. You don't have to do anything! Isn't it better to let nature decide so that you won't have to arbitrarily wipe out half the population? Thano's plan isn't even a foolproof one. Since it's like a lottery system, you could actually be killing off brilliant minds and leaving brainless people behind! Also, as some people online have already discussed that if Thanos was so powerful, why can't he just use the six stones to make more resources, or cause birth rates to decline, or just something else instead of killing? This argument makes sense too, so in the end, Thanos just has a bad plan.

I know Drax isn't a main character like Iron Man is, but I want to talk about how he seems to have become the comic relief character for Marvel. In Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, he was the one cracking jokes and laughing most of the time. In Infinity War, he was also the funny one. When he wanted to get revenge on Thanos for killing his family, half of me went like, "Not this again!" and the other half of me went, "Oh good, they didn't forget about his backstory." Another impressive character was the creepy dude who was part of the Black Order, or the Children of Thanos, or whatever. Basically Thanos sent his minions to retrieve the stones, and I felt that only Ebony Maw was creepy enough to actually present a real threat. He was torturing Dr Strange and it was scary. I think that in a superhero movie, if you feel afraid that one of the superheros would die, the antagonist is definitely doing a good job of frightening you. I was also pretty disgusted by the way Nebula was being tortured and I was glad to see her escape. To be fair, Proxima Midnight, who's also part of Thanos' gang, put up a good fight on Wakanda too. But I feel that the fight scene between the female characters was set up so that Black Widow could have more action (she barely did anything in this movie) although it was Scarlet Witch who delivered the final, crushing blow.

There were two major parts of the movie which made me groan. The first was the scene on Titan, when Star-Lord just loses his shit when he finds out that Gamora is dead. Some context: Iron Man, Spider-Man and Dr Strange meet Quill, Drax and Mantis, and at first they attack one another because they don't know that they're fighting on the same side. Quill is all like, "Where's Gamora?" Iron Man says, "Who's Gamora?" And Drax says, "Why is Gamora?" Another LOL moment with Drax. He never fails to disappoint. Anyway, Star-Lord comes up with a plan - and it was a good plan, mind you. It almost succeeded and it was even kind of funny. Dr Strange uses his powers and helps Spider-Man get a few kicks and punches in when Thanos arrives, and there's an epic battle sequence which culminates in Dr Strange using his powers to drop Mantis on top of Thanos. She hangs onto him and gets him to be in this paralysed, semi-conscious state, while the other heroes desperately try to prise the Inifinty Gaunlet off his hand. However, Quill starts to question him about Gamora and Nebula realises that her crazy so-called father had killed her sister. Then Quill has to go all recklessly Gryffindor on him. Instead of controlling his rage and waiting for his buddies to pull of the gauntlet, he has to punch Thanos in the face. Jeez!

The second groan-worthy scene also takes place on Titan, immediately after the first. Dr Strange claimed to have seen over 14 million possibilities and futures and he said that he saw only one in which they won. He puts up a good fight against Thanos and then, when Iron Man seemed to be wounded and on the brink of death, Dr Strange gets Thanos to spare Iron Man in exchange for the Time Stone. Wait, what? Then what was all the fighting for? He tells Iron Man that it was "the only way", whatever that means. If the only way to defeat Thanos was to actually give him the Time Stone, then why did he even fight? Why didn't he just give the stone to Thanos? They better make things clear in the next Avengers movie, because I don't want it to be some lame excuse like "Tony Stark has plot armour." Another thing that was left unexplained was how Bruce Banner was unable to transform into the Hulk. I felt like it was just added in so that there was something else to laugh about, apart from Drax's weird humour.

Another secondary character who became really important in this movie was Vision, mainly because the Mind Stone was stuck in his forehead and the reason why they journeyed to Wakanda in the first place was to seek help from Shuri to get it out. Vision was willing to sacrifice himself but Scarlet Witch and Captain America protested. Although Vision pointed out that Captain America did the same before (i.e. sacrificed himself to save others), Vision was somehow convinced to let them try to extract the Mind Stone so that Scarlet Witch can destroy it and he wouldn't have to die. This was all in vain of course, since Shuri didn't manage to extract the stone in time and Scarlet Witch had to kill her lover. After that, Thanos reversed time and brought Vision back to life, only to smash his skull, grab the Mind Stone, and snap his bloody fingers. Can you imagine watching someone you love die twice? And if Thanos was meant to get the Time Stone (as Dr Strange had foreseen), then this whole battle was also quite pointless!

The main theme in this movie was sacrifice. Should Vision be sacrificed? Should Dr Strange sacrifice Iron Man or the Time Stone? Should Thanos sacrifice Gamora for the Soul Stone? Should Thanos sacrifice half the universe's population for "The Greater Good"? (Quoting Dumbledore and Grindelwald over here) Would all these sacrifices pay off? Was it part of Dr Strange's plan? Ugh, we need to watch the next movie to find out! Loki sacrificed the Space Stone to save Thor. Gamora and Vision asked their lovers to kill them so that Thanos would not get the stone but things didn't go according to plan. Gamora also decided to save Nebula and gave up the location of the Soul Stone to Thanos. Should she have sacrificed Nebula?

The annoying thing is that superhero movies are still marketed the males and boys in general. We have movies that feature Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Captain America, Thor... Spider-Man gets rebooted for the third time! Even Doctor Strange, Ant-Man and Black Panther get movies of their own. Why does Black Widow not get her own movie? Why is she missing from merchandise? Why do people think that superheroes can't be marketed to girls when they have been proven wrong time and time again? Okay, sure, the post-credits scene show that Nick Fury called Captain Marvel for help, and we know that she's going to have her own movie in 2019, but why did we have to wait so long for a female character in the Marvel Cinematic Universe to get her own movie? Come on. (Outside of the Avengers/MCU, we need a Hit Girl movie and also season six of Teen Titans which is centred on Starfire)

I would like to see more of Scarlet Witch and Nebula. My boyfriend did not remember who Scarlet Witch and Vision were even though we clearly watched Avengers: Age of Ultron together. Ugh. Anyway, Scarlet Witch is supposed to be extremely powerful and they even joke about it during the battle. When Scarlet Witch stops watching over Vision and attacks the enemy forces led of the Children of Thanos, someone (I can't remember who, too many characters) wondered aloud and asked why she was kept in the back in the first place! 

There has been speculation that Nebula will feature prominently in the next Avengers film, because she managed to seize the gauntlet from Thanos in the comics and created more chaos or something. As I said, I didn't read the comics, but after watching Guardians and Jumanji, I'm kind of a fan of Karen Gillan and therefore I would love to see more of Nebula. She is so intense!