If you thought the first Avengers movie was one of the biggest crossovers in film history, Avengers Infinity War comes right out of nowhere and goes even bigger with not only having the main players like Iron Man, Thor and Captain America present in the movie but also having other recognizable MCU characters like the Guardians of the Galaxy, Doctor Strange, Spider-Man, Black Panther and so many more to all fight for the common goal of stopping the mad titan Thanos from killing off half the population of the universe. The culmination of ten years of filmmaking has led to this point for the MCU, and lets just say it was definitely worth even sitting through the weak entries of the ever growing franchise to witness possibly their most dramatic and groundbreaking film yet.
Thanos (Josh Brolin) is on a mission to collect all six infinity stones to snap his fingers and wipe out half the population of the universe. After stealing the space stone from Thor (Chris Hemsworth) and Loki (Tom Hiddleston), Thanos sends his minions to earth to gather the other infinity stones which captures the attention of Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr) Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) and Spider-Man (Tom Holland) after The Hulk (Mark Ruffulo) comes back to earth to warn them about Thanos’s plans. Soon many other heroes get roped up in the mix including Captain America, (Chris Evans) Vision, (Paul Bettany) Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen) Black Panther, (Chadwick Boseman) and The Guardians of the Galaxy lead by Star-Lord (Chris Pratt). Now it's an all out brawl for all Marvel superheroes to stop Thanos from Accomplishing his goal of mass destruction.
There are so many storylines going on from so many characters coming from their own separate movies that have to all be balanced. Luckily for the MCU, they balance each character for the right time they are needed and each of them get their moments of character development without sacrificing the talent to any other character on screen. Much like the first avengers movie though, it's one thing to put so many characters from separate movies together to satisfy MCU fans, it's a whole other thing to create one epic story that ties all the characters together, and surprisingly even for MCU standards, it goes pretty dark and dramatic with its storytelling as this film possibly has some of the most depressing and shocking moments you’ll ever see in a superhero film. Thankfully this movie isn’t all sad though as you’ll still get to see great action and one liners but dang, this movie definitely has set a new bar for the MCU and superhero movies in general in terms of its operatic storytelling.
The characters on screen have different things going on at the same time but stopping Thanos is what seems to be the main plot point that drives every character's journey forward. We are already so used to seeing Iron Man and Captain America in the same movie for years so it's great that we get to see many others joining up with the main avengers team such as Doctor Strange, Star-Lord or Spider-Man who all work great off our main leaders. The real star of the show though is none other than Thanos who has been built up years upon end since the first Avengers movie. All I can say is man did all that waiting pay off as his character may have just overthrown Loki’s as the best Villain of the MCU who is completely mad but somewhat understandable in a way. Infinity War could be considered as Thanos’s movie and his journey to “save the universe” is so good from a development point of view that It can be easy to somewhat route for his doings even when they're wrong.
You can bet the Cinematography would be amped up due to how many locations we get to visit. We mainly start out on earth visiting places like Doctor Strange's sanctum or the african setting of Wakanda, but then you might find yourself in the vastness of space visiting planets some of which have never been explored in the MCU beforehand. The action scenes are some of the most tense and gripping from the MCU and some of the highlights include battling Thanos on Titan or the war raging of Aliens against the Wakandas led by Black Panther. Never since Captain America Civil War have I been so invested in what was gonna happen to our main heroes and these well staged action packed moments are at the juicy center of the entire visuals for the movie.
The Music is done by Alan Silverstri who has scored the first Avengers movie and like always he brings his A-material with all things considered when delivering on scoring a superhero movie that is different in tone from other offerings. The main theme for the Avengers Assembling is still just as chilling and amazing as ever but the rest of the score is also very good at taking you on a roller coaster of emotions.
After coming off the good but not great movie Age of Ultron, Avengers Infinity War brings the franchise back to the epic action-packed groundbreaker that it is while also adding upon new elements that further push the storytelling in new directions. Even if you’ve never seen the other MCU movies, I’d still recommend this movie for it’s dramatic and operatic storyline, great characters that are all balanced perfectly, amazing visuals that take full advantage of their respective settings and an awesome music score that ties everything together perfectly. Any problems I do have with this movie are mainly nitpicks because this movie truly is a spectacle of filmmaking and it seems like there is no stopping for the MCU here as there is plenty more to come for the ever growing phenomenon.
(Final Grade: A)