The 'Not-So-Critical' Critic:
on AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR (2018, 149 minutes, PG-13)
The Quick of It -
So, if you haven’t heard… there is this film. It’s breaking records. There are reasons.
Why? Because they
finally have a worthy adversary. Because
there has been a storm brewing for years and the moment is here. Because the screen is only sharing the most
interesting moments with the cleverest dialogue available. Oh, I should mention again, there is finally
a bad ass villain.
The culmination for all these Marvel movies after the past
decade has come… and went (wink, wink). The
long list of notable heroes now face the mastermind that has plagued them since
long before they, and we, realized he was pulling the strings. Known as the Mad Titan, Thanos finally has
his eyes set on retrieving the Infinity Stones.
These immensely powerful stones are the answer to his desire to cleanse
the universe of ‘overpopulation’. You
must understand, this is the core tenant that grounds his murderous design, not
just blaming it on ‘evil’. You can
relate for the briefest moment.
Iron Man was released in 2008, which was followed by the introductions
of the core crew – Thor, Captain America, Hulk, and the other peripheral heroes. As I have always proclaimed, villains in the
Marvel universe have been soft. For some
reason, Marvel feels the need to make the bad guy seem evil, without any human
connection remaining. The truth is, they
should reside in the gray area. That is
why DC villains reign supreme. Trust me,
this is not coming from any Marvel-hate agenda.
It is just when you compare them across the universes, Marvel’s model of
storytelling heightens the sense of good vs. evil, which will often miss the
mark by playing it safe.
Now we have Thanos, and he commanded the screen. Even his generals stood out. They were simple caricatures of highly-skilled
villains, but they handled things within their brief appearances to make it
exciting. The end result, a decent story
with pure action and drama. To prove
they had the right formula, this is a movie well over two hours and you don’t even
notice. Not at all. The
pacing was phenomenal, even for this large of a cast. In fact, I wanted to slap the lady next to me
for bringing in her own food and making a ton of crinkly noise. If I only had the gauntlet...
As you have seen everyone demanding on social media, lips
are sealed. No spoilers. Just take a night and see this on the big screen. You won’t be sorry… maybe sad, but not sorry.
Grade: A
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