A parcel from takealot.com was delivered at my doorstep today with new DVDs and blu-ray movies. One of those movie was The Avengers: Infinity War, which is probably the biggest and ultimate superhero movie in cinema history to date. Joss Whedon left the franchise to work on that god awful Justice League film and gave the reigns over to the wondrous Russo brothers, who gave us two of the biggest and grandest entries in the Marvel Cinematic Universe – the incredible Captain America: The Winter Soldier and its spectacular sequel Captain America: Civil War (a great movie which should have been the second Avengers movie rather than Age of Ultron). These two movies also redefined of character of Steve Rogers/Captain America, my personal favorite Avenger.
In the next chapter of Earth’s mightiest heroes, the disbanded Avengers team up with the Guardians of the Galaxy to stop the evil Thanos of using the Infinity Gauntlet from wiping out all life in the universe. The story takes place after the events of the highly successful Black Panther.
Thanos, played phenomenally by Josh Brolin (who also played Cable in Deadpool 2 at the same time), is the most powerful, evil, badass and terrifying villains in the history of superhero movies. This time Thanos takes center stage, as the entire story of the MCU was building up to this, since Iron Man.
This is the biggest and grandest ensemble cast in any superhero movie to date, and possibly the biggest ensemble cast in any movie in the history of cinema. It features all of the incredible superhero actors and actresses that have worked hard and given their all to make the MCU so special and powerful.
The writers, directors and producer Kevin Feige gave all of the characters enough room to balance out their screen time and character development.
Like most Marvel movies, we get powerful performances, lovable characters, feel-good humor, dazzling special effects, and epic action and battle scenes. A colorful, visually stimulating world. Pure cinematic eye-candy.
The majestic Robert Downey Jnr plays the leading man once again, as he teams up with Doctor Strange and Spider-Man to stop Thanos’ “children” from destroying New York. They eventually get pulled into a spaceship when one of Thanos’ men captured Doc Strange.
We get to see Spider-Man become the Iron Spider and become an official member of the Avengers. Iron Man also develops an uneasy relationship with Doc Strange, once again delivering great chemistry between RDJ and the wonderful Benedict Cumberbatch.
The costume design is incredible and Tom Holland nails it as both Spider-Man and Peter Parker. It is so much fun when Spidey makes a lot of pop culture references, which annoys Stark.
As mentioned above, the Guardians of the Galaxy meet and befriend Thor, as the God of Thunder goes on a mission to create a new Miljnor and gain new allies with a teenage Groot (played by Vin Diesel) and Rocket the Racoon (who Thor refers to as a rabbit, which is so funny).
Some character development goes well in play here, as we see Star Lord and Gamora falling in love. There’s also a lot of funny banter between Drax and Star Lord, who comment on Thor’s good looks and muscular physique. Mantis also provides more comic relief. Chris Pratt is as funny as always and is great to to see Pom Klementieff reprise her role as Mantis.
We also see Star Lord, Drax and Mantis go to Thanos’ ruined home planet, where they team up with Doc Strange, Iron Man and Spider-Man fight against Thanos and try and remove the Infinity Gauntlet.
More character development comes up as we see a more humanized version of Vision, who has started a passionate relationship with Scarlet Witch, played beautifully by the incredibly beautiful Elizabeth Olsen, who also delivers a powerful performance in the role she has to play.
We also see the return of a run-down Captain America with longer hair an facial foliage, an ass-kicking Black Widow with grayish white hair and a more rugged Falcon, who save Viz and Wanda from Thanos’ men. Chris Evans as Cap and Scarlett Johannson as Black Widow is always a win.
Cap has formed a respected friendship with Black Panther and reunites with Bucky/Winter Soldier. Seeing Cap and the other Avengers make peace with Rhodey and Bruce Banner added more icing on the cake.
A huge battle takes palce on Wakanda, with Thanos’ generals unleashing an army of monsters upon the land. It’s another epic, hardcore and visually stimulating battle scene with Cap, Bruce Banner, Black Panther, Scarlett Witch, Bucky leading the other Wakandas into a brutal battle against a massive army of creature that resemble Venom.
There’s also a lot of emotionally driven scenes that are heavy and hard to watch, as you realize that Thanos isn’t entirely a monster.
It was so great to have exploration of this iconic Marvel comics villain and the character development for his mission was well-written.
With the Russos in charge, I expect this movie to be heavy on action, with a gritty, heavy atmosphere, although it doesn’t lack from a visually stunning and fun-filled ride you’d expect a MCU movie to be.
It was also great to see that Marvel Studious was celebrating the first 10 years of the MCU movies.
What I love the most was to finally see characters such as Spider-Man, Black Panther, Doc Strange and even the Guardians of the Galaxy fighting alongside the original Avengers, and how the writers made everything together, rather than the violent disbanding from what we saw in Civil War.
This movie is special effects and CGI heavy, which is a first of for the Russo brothers. They made the last two Captain America movies, where they used as little CGI and special effects as they could.
I found some of the CGI and motion capture a tad messy. Especially with the motion capture and animation for Thanos, where in some scenes he looks very real, and in other scenes he looks really CGI-heavy. You can still see that it is Josh Brolin playing him, and I am fine with that. The same goes for Carrie Coon as Proxima Midnight, who was very CGI-heavy, while Zoe Zaldana’s Gamora and Paul Bettany’s Vision both used prothestics and makeup.
This is an epic, visually grand, action-packed and fun-filled addition to the Marvel Cinematic Universe and having such a massive ensemble cast with balanced screen time and character development, and a spectacular villain. With its emotionally-driven, earth-shattering ending, I can’t wait to see the defining chapter in the untitled fourth installment of the Avengers.
Pros:
⦁ Powerful performances.
⦁ Lovable characters.
⦁ Great writing.
⦁ Strong character development.
⦁ Gritty, yet fun-filled atmosphere.
⦁ Great villain.
⦁ Action-packed fun.
⦁ Visually grand special and visual effects.
⦁ Great addition for the MCU.
⦁ Ensemble casting.
⦁ Balanced screen time for every character.
Cons:
⦁ Minor, but noticeable, problems with the CGI and motion-capture animation.
I am going to give The Avengers: Infinity War an A.
RCCollectibles 