Avengers: Infinity War/Endgame (Anthony & Joseph Russo, 2018/2019)

[Professor Wagstaff]

Avengers: Infinity War trailer

[McCrutchy]

Here we go again with this fawning nonsense:

Avengers: Infinity War Already The Best-Selling Superhero Movie In Advance Ticket Sales, Beating Black Panther

Now, weeks of foaming at the mouth over Black Panther, will turn, like the seasons, to weeks (if not months) of foaming at the mouth over Infinity Pool.

[domino harvey]

From what I gather of the ending of Infinity War, I'm so glad I never even bothered trying to keep up with this massive franchise

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How can anything we see in these movies have stakes if 90% of the characters "die" in the finale, yet many of these have already been announced as appearing in sequels, so we know this franchise has no intention of keeping them dead and so what's the point if anything can be reversed? Saying this is how it works in the comics is no defense, that's equally dumb and zero stakes in any format

[tenia]

Everything they're doing in the movies stems from what they're doing on the paper, so I suppose people indeed don't really care about that, very simply, whatever the support.

The only thing I hope is that they'll do a movie version of House of M / Decimation so we can go back to having only a handful of super heroes and not tons of them every year.

[bearcuborg]

For me, that’s why I really enjoyed XMen Last Stand-there were consequences.

That said, I haven’t bothered keeping up all that much with these Avengers movies either, but it’s too early to dismiss the storyline when it hasn’t played out yet. One could make the same argument for Game of Thrones-based on my limited understanding of the series.

[Big Ben]

They can always do a Days of Future Past and just use time travel as an excuse to "rewrite" things. The only way Marvel will stop making these films is when they finally stop giving in returns. I don't see that happening for a while yet. Need a new Captain America or Iron Man? Time travel that shit.

[knives]

Or just hire a replacement (Bucky is almost certainly going to be the new Capt says this guy who hasn't seen about half of these films).

[swo17]

He'd really Gillooly that up though

[Luke M]

Infinity War was pretty good. They handled the ensemble cast better than I expected. The jokes work, the action scenes mostly deliver, and Josh Brolin’s Thanos is surprisingly the best performance in the movie.

[tenia]

Everything I'm reading about Infinity War point towards Thanos being the most interesting character partly because Brolin does a good job at it, but mostly because he’s the only character given more / enough screentime for this (and also because most villains in the MCU movies have been awful so far so Thanos being well-written looks like a refreshing change).

[Luke M]

Yeah pretty much. Aside from Thor and Guardians cast the rest of the Avengers are mostly glorified cameos.

[Ribs]

I think the myth of Marvel villains being uniformly bad are something they got past some time ago, and we're just so used to saying it that we still believe it's true. Of the last five Marvel movies, Guardians 2, Spider-Man, Black Panther, and now this all received some acclaim for having a good villain "for once." (Thor was particularly bad on this front, though).

I enjoyed this a lot, which is something as I've really not cared for any of the big team-up-y movies other than Avengers 2. But this really isn't an Avengers movie, because they don't ever get that hero shot moment of everyone together: they are apart throughout the film, and though some join up over time they never all come together as they presumably will at the climax of the next one.

It's such total bullshit that Feige and the Russo brothers have been going around saying, "oh, we changed our plans, this really isn't "part one," it's got a complete beginning, middle and end, and stands alone," for months if not years now, when it's plainly apparent that just isn't the case. This is an incomplete narrative: the final image it leaves you with is a good stopping point and appropriately concludes this part of this story, but I have a feeling that audiences are going to be really turned off by this. This more than anything left me feeling like the bubble has already burst: this is the first movie of the Marvel universe at all that I feel like they made a decision realizing that audiences might not like it and embracing that (a welcome change, I think). I dunno.

This makes no effort whatsoever to reintroduce any of the characters, which leaves me thinking a good portion of audiences are going to be wondering who the guy in the magic cape is (I adore Dr. Strange as a comics character, he was always my favorite: while I think Cumberbatch is totally fine it's plainly apparent he is not the "new centerpiece of the MCU" Feige talked about back in 2013 when they thought he might be Matthew McConaughey or Joaquin Phoenix (and, somewhat hilariously, got superseded anyway when Spider-Man reentered the fray anyway)). This is probably the first movie where I think they for some strange reason assumed people have seen almost every previous movie; I know from personal, anecdotal experience of several people who never bothered to watch the Guardians of the Galaxy movies or Thor or whatever and a lot of this movie is taking the state of where things ended up there and not even exploring it at all!

I don't really agree with some of the above trepidation about stakes: the entire movie is about a magical glove that can control all aspects of the world, of course people will come back from the dead. But it's an open secret that at least one if not several of the original members of the Marvel universe will actually be bowing out this time next year, and I don't think Marvel will cheat their way out of it by renewing contracts again.

There was a rumor a week or two ago that there genuinely was no post-credits scene at all, which would have delighted me *endlessly*. I think they're dumb and bad for movies and haven't seen a single one in years, but I love the idea of the audience being trained like mice to stay through and appreciate the crew that goes into making a film only to feel like they've wasted ten minutes.

[hearthesilence]

Yeah pretty much. Aside from Thor and Guardians cast the rest of the Avengers are mostly glorified cameos.

Not surprising. I was once very into comics and I still have the entire Infinity Gauntlet and Infinity War comics boxed up and collecting dust in a relative's basement somewhere. I remember those stories very well and this is how they played - packing in all those characters was kind of the marketing draw of those issues, but unless each issue was expanded to something like 100 pages, there was no way most of those characters could amount to anything more than a glorified cameo. (From my recollection, quite a few of them didn't even speak a single word. Even though he was one of the survivors who went after Thanos, I don't think Iron Man really did or say anything except get his head pulled off by Thanos's female companion.) I suppose Adam Warlock's key role in the original story has been severely diminished or done away with?

[Luke M]

Agree with everything you said there, Ribs. There is a kind of finality to it all and for some of the characters it feels like a welcomed relief.

I saw it in a packed theatre with a lot of excited fans. Emotions were so high when the credits rolled I thought people were going to throw stuff at the screen.

[Luke M]

Yeah pretty much. Aside from Thor and Guardians cast the rest of the Avengers are mostly glorified cameos.

Not surprising. I was once very into comics and I still have the entire Infinity Gauntlet and Infinity War comics boxed up and collecting dust in a relative's basement somewhere. I remember those stories very well and this is how they played - packing in all those characters was kind of the marketing draw of those issues, but unless each issue was expanded to something like 100 pages, there was no way most of those characters could amount to anything more than a glorified cameo. (From my recollection, quite a few of them didn't even speak a single word. Even though he was one of the survivors who went after Thanos, I don't think Iron Man really did or say anything except get his head pulled off by Thanos's female companion.) I suppose Adam Warlock's key role in the original story has been severely diminished or done away with?

Adam Warlock isn’t in it. The writers felt they couldn’t bring him in without an origin movie providing backstory. As Ribs pointed out, the movie leans heavily on the audience already knowing these characters.

[black&huge]

What really damaged Marvel movies having any real stakes as far as character deaths is the fact that it's well known and a normal convo about actor's contracts. Why this would or should have ever been something that mattered to the general public in any way other than knowing certain heroes would be getting more movies is beyond me and so that's that. By even announcing there will be sequels Marvel shot themselves in the foot. Who in all honesty aside from the actors and studios actually care about their contracts? But on the other hand if toxic fanbases weren't so pathetically begging and prying with wanting to know and not even ask: "when's the sequel? i can't wait" then it wouldn't be the case. The fanbase are the most responsible for these movies not being able to move on.

That said I have a lot of criticisms towards Marvel movies as a whole but I did like Infinity War a lot. The very awful habit of puncuating scenes with tired humor was super rampant in this but what quelled it just a tiny bit to not bother me as much was that when a dramatic scene would happen they at least pushed it as high as possible even if a handful of those scenes were then killed by an awful try hard attempt at humor.

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like the whole "invisible" Drax thing right after Peter agrees to kill Gamora if Thanos captures her. Just... why?

Oh well.

[Ribs]

I think Marvel's approach to their future has been totally cognizant of that, though - the refusal to confirm any forthcoming movie for sure other than Spider-Man 2 coming in July 2019 is a part of that. The idea being "anyone can die!" really meaning that, theoretically, as we don't know if there will be any more appearances.

SpoilerShow

The end of the movie plays with that, by almost every single person disappearing being somebody we know will be appearing in more sequels that have been unofficially confirmed: the core team that's been around for a long time will be the leads for at least a big chunk of the next movie, where theoretically some of them will have to sacrifice themselves to write them out, whilst others disappear into the sunset. My *guess* which is totally lame that I even would think of this is that Iron Man reconciles with Captain America, then has to kill him to use the gauntlet to restore reality, and then retires happily into anonymity somehow, whereas Chris Hemsworth continues on as Thor and Mark Ruffalo as Hulk appearing only in Avengers movies or in side roles because both of them seem like they're perfectly willing to stick around for some time. Like, yes, in practicality we know that the leads of recent massive success movies that have just started their tenure will not be killed off, but that by having removed them with this cliffhanger we would all know would be reverted anyway it allows us not to be led to think there's no stakes for those characters the next movie.

The humor has always been a problem, especially as a huge chunk of the jokes remains "heroes - they're just like us!" and involves the leads having to do a normal person thing and being inconveniences by it.

[McCrutchy]

I think Marvel's approach to their future has been totally cognizant of that, though - the refusal to confirm any forthcoming movie for sure other than Spider-Man 2 coming in July 2019 is a part of that. The idea being "anyone can die!" really meaning that, theoretically, as we don't know if there will be any more appearances.

Except that

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both T'Challa and Peter were "taken" at the end of the film. I do think that was actually a clever way to (as I think you allude to) shrink the scale a bit, bring the core members together for much of the next film, and give some much-needed screen time to Evans, Johansson and of course, Renner, who (along with Rudd), is strangely absent and given a throwaway one-sentence mention. Of course, Infinity War was made before Black Panther made $1 billion at the box office, and with the way the Black Panther mantle is handed down, it's possible Boseman would have been intended to be dead, but with Spider-Man "dead" in advance of his next film, obviously, this means that there has to be a way to reverse what Thanos has done and bring everyone back. Even if that wasn't the case, eliminating half of Earth's population for good is probably too dark for the MCU, anyway. A bigger question would be if Loki and Gamora are permanently dead, which is probably more likely to be yes, especially in the case of the latter, but even if those two are dead, it's virtually impossible now to rule out dream sequences or flashbacks or whatever other tricks writers can come up with to bring actors/characters back in future films.

Anyway, I have to admit, I really enjoyed Infinity War, just as much, if not even more than Thor: Ragnarok. I do think that these films are intentionally light on characterization, because to have it, you would need a miniseries length, but for an Avengers film, Infinity War is easily the best of the three so far, and Brolin is surprisingly great as Thranos. I was really expecting this to be a hot mess and a hodgepodge of groups of actors in effects sequences, and it is that, but it is constructed in a broadly coherent, exhilarating way that makes the movie really entertaining and just damn fun. I really couldn't believe how much action there was, and given that almost every frame contains some kind of digital effect, it's astonishing that the whole thing comes together as well as it does, especially when WB failed so spectacularly with Justice League, despite having characters that are better-known, and less characters overall. Yes, you probably do have to see most, if not all of the previous MCU films to follow along, because the film really only works if you know and understand the characters, but again, I don't think anyone would or should have expected anything different.

As I've said before, I plan to be done with MCU movies after the concluding part of this film, and my only concern now, is that the conclusion will sour things set up by the first film, quite like what has happened with The Last Jedi and sort of what I recall happening with The Matrix Revolutions. But at least this first part was a blast, so if the conclusion is a dud, I guess I can always pretend that the story was never finsihed.

I also really enjoyed the presentation of the 2D IMAX Xenon showing I saw last night. The new IMAX cameras are quite good for digital, and the image is closer to the brilliance of celluloid for me, even though it still lacks the texture and character of physical film stock. The film is also presented in a constant 1.90:1 aspect ratio, which is pleasing, and something which I hope Disney replicates (in 1.90:1 or 1.78:1) on UHD/3D/2D Blu-ray, as well.

[Ribs]

SpoilerShow

You're just repeating a bit of my point, though - we know everything will be reversed anyway, at least from that ending bit, so why have it be people we think might actually die when they means they would be put back in place at the end of the next one? Like, if Thor disappeared that'd mean he can't appear until everything is set right again which means he can't make a grand sacrifice to get to that point.

I totally forgot that this movie was the first to be shot entirely on IMAX cameras until, like, an hour ago.

[black&huge]

I can't handle much action sequences these days because of how poorly choreographed and edited everything has become, though I do willingly watch a fast and furious or a john wick because I can expect some coherence but oddly enough the action in Infinity War didn't bother me mostly because every single one had an actual reason to happen. However when the Wakanda battle started and you literally just see blurry digital aliens obscuring most of the screen I was struck for a moment with the kind of secondhand awkwardness that makes you want it to be over as quickly as possible.

[Big Ben]

All these films have been planned out for years now. Much like their source material death is meaningless because any number of insane ways to return characters to to life or to fix continuity problems. In 1985 Superboy (Not Marvel but whatever.) fixed continuity by literally punching time.

[black&huge]

All these films have been planned out for years now. Much like their source material death is meaningless because any number of insane ways to return characters to to life or to fix continuity problems. In 1985 Superboy (Not Marvel but whatever.) fixed continuity by literally punching time.

That is incredible. I hope DC doesn't steal that idea.

[moreorless]

All these films have been planned out for years now. Much like their source material death is meaningless because any number of insane ways to return characters to to life or to fix continuity problems. In 1985 Superboy (Not Marvel but whatever.) fixed continuity by literally punching time.

Honestly though with this kind of blockbusters medium I think simply pushing "death" as drama is often the mark of cheap writing, a good writer should be able to get the audience to look past that and make the consequences carry weight for the characters and by that the audience.

With the Marvel films really coming to a peak one interesting idea for me is that in some ways they seem like an update of the old studio system. There films to me seem to push the idea of a star playing a character as the draw further than ever before(well perhaps the various Bond actors), people aren't paying to see Ironman nore are they paying to see Robert Downey Jnr but rather the latter playing the former. This arguably gives Marvel greater control over the draw of film stars than anyone has had for decades but also of course means that it too depends heavily on those stars and must pay them well, hence being able to sign so many names on the rise.

[DarkImbecile]

Pending final totals tomorrow, it looks like Infinty War may have broken The Force Awakens’ first weekend box office record.

[domino harvey]

I just posted about that in the MoviePass thread and it's incredible to me, and a real indication of the sea change these movies have had. I never would have thought they'd be more popular than Star Wars, but then again, I think part of me is still in denial about these comic book movies!