Exhaustingly entertaining, ‘Avengers: Infinity War’ unleashes hell
.ARNOLD WAYNE JONES | Executive Editor
jones@dallasvoice.com
Believe it or not, the thing we now know as the Marvel Cinematic Universe began just 10 years ago this week. But that decade has produced three Iron Mans, three Cappies, three Thors, two Guardianses, two Avengerses assorted Spiders, Ants, Doctors, Hulks and some no-account named Black Panther — in toto, by the end of this summer, we will have been bestowed with 20 MCU features… and that’s not counting X-Men, Deadpool and a series of aborted Fantastic Fours and webslingers. And when you keep adding heroes, sidekicks and villains to this universe, your world — and your posters, and your above-the-line budget — gets unwieldy.
I counted 31 returning “name” actors spread across the two hour and 40 minutes run time of Avengers: Infinity War, from blink-and-you’ll-miss-’em cameos by Gwyneth Paltrow (Pepper Potts), Benicio del Toro (The Collector) and General Ross (William Hurt) to scenery-chewing heroics by the usual slate of Robert Downey Jr., Chris Hemsworth, Chris Evans and company. And eventually it dawns on you: That’s a lot of dialogue to divide, plot to rest upon, action to parcel out and egos to massage. Game of Thrones juggles less over 10 hours a season. Can’t be done.
But directing brothers Anthony and Joe Russo done done it. Well, almost.
They begin with a cold open that requires some familiarity, then instantly kill off — kill! — two major recurring characters; a third will fall late in Act 2 in the film’s mostly cloyingly sentimental yet unbelievable twist; and they aren’t finished then, either. Superhero movies have annoyed me for years in their obsession to “raise the stakes” to ridiculous proportions (turning the mission more manageable in Black Panther was one thing that contributed so powerfully to its wide appeal). Well, Infinity War puts them all to shame: No less than the survival of half the living organisms in the galaxy depends on the outcome.
If you can’t imagine a villain whose goal is trillions of deaths, well, you see the principal failing of the movie: The motivation and endgame of its primary adversary Thanos (Josh Brolin). The second major failing is parsing how a superhero whose skill is moist spider silk competes with the testosterone-fueled id of a Hulk in subduing a god (at least they canned Hawkeye for this one, a hero whose skill-set translates better to the Summer Olympics than world domination). But get beyond those quibbles — you’ll have to if you want to approach anything resembling sanity. Accept, instead, the hyperbolic conceits of the genre and enjoy the ride.
Because the ride is darned enjoyable. The Russos imbue this single film (a closely-related follow-up arrives this time next year) with the balletic skills of a juggler. Although the main plot is pretty linear… and The Lord of the Rings similarities are unmistakable: stop Thanos from acquiring all six infinity stones that hold the power of the universe (Marvel equivalents to the rings of Tolkein), or he will finger-snap most of us into non-existence. Factions form. Sacrifices are made. Friendships are valued over saving the cosmos. Twice. But keeping all those balls in the air? That’s the impressive trick. Now, catching them when they land…
The Russos thread the needle by taking franchises like Guardians, Iron Man and Doctor Strange — all of which have entirely different tones, styles, looks and ethoses — and delivering a unified movie that does justice to them all. (Biggest takeaway: The Guardians are a bunch of ill-mannered dicks who always screw up.) There are many moments that don’t make sense, but virtually none that don’t sweep you away.
In the wake of the cultural phenomenon that was Black Panther, Infinity War could hardly expect to set the bar higher than, or even equal to, its hype. The Captain America series, Panther, Iron Man and Doc S are all better movies, but they didn’t have to play at this level. And when a key battle sees four female superheroes unite to save one of their own against an evil woman, you know that comics, the bastion of male empowerment fantasy, has not only acknowledged that Black Lives Matter, but that the #MeToo generation can stand up for itself. We don’t need Hillary; we have Scarlett.