Review- Avengers: Infinity War

Avengers: Infinity War may well be the most anticipated movie of all time and as such, it's a very tricky task to tip toe around the expectations, spoilers and everything else that a behemoth like this comes with. With that in mind, the plot is about a big bad dude called Thanos who wants to collect six Infinity Stones that, when combined with his gauntlet, will allow him to snap his fingers and wipe out half of the universe. The Avengers have to come together in various little groups to stop Thanos destroying life as we know it. From this synopsis, you can probably pick up many of the plot beats that it's going to cover and while a few events weren't in the places I thought and some moments really surprised me, it's not exactly going to blow anyone's minds for plot revelations, unless you really do have your head jammed into your arse. That said, the ending is pretty amazing and the people in my screening seemed very impressed by it but it should be noted that there is an Avengers 4 after this so don't expect closure.

Being the mammoth blockbuster that this is, there's also one of the most genuinely impressive cast lists of all time, so vast that I genuinely don't think I can do my usual thing of just listing the cast so I'm going to try and pick out the best performances in my eyes. Robert Downey Jr has always been great as Iron Man but recently, he's had the chance to flesh that character out with much darker stuff. This film is no exception and it's some of his best work in the MCU. Chris Hemsworth gets to carry on the humour he was given in Thor: Ragnarok and when paired with the Guardians of the Galaxy, he's an absolute dream. Equally, after his wonderful performance in last years Spider-Man, Tom Holland returns with the characteristic charm of Spider-Man, although there's some slightly darker work for him to wrestle with too. Comedic highlight is Dave Bautista as Drax who just keeps knocking it out of the park with his delivery. In my screening, his jokes consistently brought out the biggest laughs and frequently too. Making his first big impression though is Josh Brolin as bad dude Thanos. Marvel famously have a problem with villains but Thanos manages to rectify that with an infinitely power bad dude who's been built up since 2012. His motivations can be murky but he gets plenty of great moments and when he's on screen, there's a real powerful. He's not as entertaining or charismatic as Marvel's last villain Killmonger but he's damn good. The cast is bigger than I could possibly explain but if there's a character you like, they'll probably pop up, even if only briefly.

As the cast list and ten years of build up may have made you realise, a movie like this should be a damn nightmare to both make and watch. In fact, within the last year, we had the nightmare that was Justice League, trying to do just that. The Russo Brothers have proven they can deal with large ensembles before with Civil War though, so while there was still doubt about this scale, it shouldn't be so surprising that it works this well. Not everyone gets enough screen time but the genres, characters and settings are just about woven together well enough to keep you inside the film the whole time. That said, for me the film is riding that real wave of superhero fatigue where I'm pretty much done but the film is done well enough that I can't be fed up. Partly, that's because this is what the current superhero trend has been building to and there's lots of hopes pinned on it. For people with hopes, I think they will be happy with how everything is played. With all of this said, I felt there was a little something missing and I think that's because I know how superhero films work. Without getting too deep into spoilers, many of the things that happen seem to have huge consequences but superhero films have been famous for resetting many events that would possibly cripple later movies in their franchise, although admittedly one of the big reset buttons presented is cancelled out. If the events here are adhered to, I will be very impressed but so monumental are the things that happen, I can't really see them not being reset somehow.

Technically, this is a vastly impressive film and fans are going to be delighted. Hell, I went to the midnight screening and had a damn good time. It's just that a lot of the things I like about the film are at risk of being reset in later films and that terrifies me. If these events aren't reset, I will happily change this score in about a year but for now, assuming that a lot of what happens will be cancelled out, I give the film an

If you've made it to the end of this review, I want to say thank you for supporting my blog and (hopefully) coming back week after week. In the spirit of support though, I want to recommend you all go support a film called Beast. It came out last weekend too and I was lucky enough to see it at the London Film Festival where it blew me away. It's better than Infinity War but it's a dark, mysterious love story with ragged edges and bite. If you've seen Infinity War, great, but make Beast your next watch. There may not be a huge audience for it but if you read my blog, just give it a shot. Who knows, it may really blow you away.