The monster movie mega successful hit that is Avengers: Infinity War is directed by Anthony and Joe Russo. By now you have most probably seen the movie, if you haven’t stop reading and go watch it because believe me, you don’t want to be spoiled! This is the latest event in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and it is possibly the undoing of it. If you’ve seen the movie, you know all of the Avengers and Guardians die except for Tony, Steve, Thor, Banner, Okoye, M’Baku, Rocket and Nebula. A LOT of people died and what scares me the most is that the writers have said that Avengers 4 won’t be the movie we think it will be and it won’t undo anything from Infinity War. Is this true or not? I guess we’ll have to wait till May 2019.
I am going to start with the decisive deaths, the ones which a lot of people are sure about. At the beginning we get one of the best openers to a Marvel film yet. It starts straight on Thanos already having killed most of the Asguardians on Thor’s ship, a wounded Thor and Loki on the side of the Black Order. Hulk gets knocked down and Thanos gets his hand on the Tesseract. First one to die is Heimdall which really didn’t mean much, yes he was an intriguing character but with all the Thor movies done, what’s left for him to do? Next is Loki, in my opinion his death was very underwhelming, one of the most important characters in the MCU dies by getting their necks crushed, I think, it’s never really made clear he just puts his hand around his neck and after a few seconds he falls to the ground, dead. Thor watches helplessly as Thanos crushes the Tesseract and puts the space stone onto the gauntlet. As an opening scene this is brilliant. It shows the audience how much of a threat Thanos is and it sets the tone quite well for the movie. When the fanfare started and there was no music, I knew that this movie was not joking around.
The second death which was certain was Gamora’s death. At first when Gamora said she knows something Thanos doesn’t and told Peter to kill her if Thanos gets near her, I thought that somehow the soul stone was inside her. Thanos then uses the oldest trick in the book and forces her to choose between Nebula or giving him the stone. She obviously tells him the location of the soul stone which is on the planet Vormir. There we see Red Skull again and he explains how it’s a trade, a soul for the soul stone but not just any soul, it has to be the soul of a loved one. Here Gamora starts smirking victoriously saying that it’s over for him because he doesn’t love anyone. On the part of Gamora it was really stupid to think Thanos never loved her in any way. She starts mocking him by saying “Really, tears?” to which then Red Skull says “they’re not for him”. From then on it is one of the darkest scenes ever in the history of this franchise. The flashbacks which show young Gamora with Thanos help push the emotional impact more. He grabs her by the hand prepared to throw her and she’s fighting him and he just throws her, his own “daughter” down to her death. It’s disturbing with the music and the acting and even the color scheme used. It’s a perfect scene in every way. What makes it even better is that Thanos doesn’t laugh maniacally like a typical villain, he actually cries and mourns while still thinking he is the hero. It’s truly remarkable what Josh Brolin brings to this character.
Earlier on there is the scene between Gamora, Peter Quill and Thanos on Knowhere. It is an intense scene, where Quill is forced to make one of the toughest decisions of his life, killing Gamora. He eventually does it but it turns out Thanos used the reality stone to mess it up. That was one of the better scenes in the movie and that’s saying something. Later, on Titan when the heroes are just seconds away from getting the Infinity Gauntlet off his hands, Quill finds out about Gamora’s death. This results in one of the most frustrating scenes in the movie. Tony warns him to hold on a bit longer but he had to start letting out his grief immediately which obviously throws everyone out of balance and Thanos regains consciousness. Some people called this move an out of character move for Quill. It’s clearly not, at the end of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 when Ego confesses that he killed Quill’s mom, he just started to blast him nonstop. Some people say that Quill was a complete obstacle, nobody enjoyed his presence and when I discussed the movie with my friends, they agreed. I personally didn’t hate his role in this movie although he did make some odd choices. We all know Star Lord like to joke every now and then but in this movie he only has two sides to him: complete idiot/comic relief and the serious guy who is not playing around because things just got serious. There is no in-between which was a huge mistake to make the audience suddenly start hating on someone who was starting to become a beloved character. In the scene where Gamora is forcing Quill to swear that he will kill her if necessary he starts joking! Why?
The final death which was certain was Vision’s death. We all saw this coming, even before the trailers came out. The movie however plays with his death in the most menacing of ways. Wanda manages to destroy the mind stone along with Vision but then Thanos turn back time with the time stone just so he can eventually kill him again. That is just pure evil.
One thing which I praise the Russo Brothers for doing is realizing Thanos’s power. He is obviously over-powered in every single way. He beat the Hulk with just one stone. At the end he has all six stones and is basically invincible. So how does this not make him seem all too fake and unrealistic? The answer is simple, Thanos may be a mad titan but he isn’t killing or destroying for pleasure, he has no fun killing, he just thinks it’s right. So even though he does have all this power, he doesn’t use it unless necessary, I believe that if he wanted to kill everyone on the Titan battle scene, he would’ve done it. Speaking of the Titan battle scene, the moment where he breaks a moon and hurls it with the gauntlet towards the Avengers is iconic. From the colors to the iconography it will be remembered.
My favorite battle scenes were, the one on Titan, the one with Thor in Wakanda and the one with Ebony Maw in the beginning. They were memorable and a major part of that is because of the characters.
Another thing which the Russo Brothers succeeded at is the tone of the movie. The movie is never just dark and hopeless or funny and hopeful. There is a striking contrast. They did a great job at splitting up the characters. Thor, Rocket and Groot provided the humor along with Star Lord, Drax and Spider-Man. As Thanos would say, there was balance.
I will have one final post dedicated to the ending.
owen is a filmaholic 