Avengers: Infinity War

"Infinity is the end. End without infinity is but a new beginning."
-Dejan Stojanovic

I'll state upfront just how much I despised The Avengers and Avengers: Age of Ultron. I found them to be overly ambitious, preposterous, overcrowded, and stupid. (These often are the problems found in many of the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies.) My skepticism of this newest film, the nineteenth of the series in the past decade, called Avengers: Infinity War, I think is therefore understandable. Virtually every protagonist who has appeared in the MCU so far is back, including the interesting ones (Spider-Man, Black Panther, and the Guardians of the Galaxy) and the dull ones (Vision, Scarlet Witch, and the Winter Soldier). Whether you want them or not, the band is back together, and they have a rather formidable foe to face.

That foe is one of the parts I was most skeptical of: Thanos, played by Josh Brolin. Despite Brolin having proved himself to be one of the great actors of our time, what little we could see of his Thanos in the marketing material looked weak, like computer game animation from the 1990s. However, Brolin as Thanos is undoubtedly remarkable in every scene, and the motion-capture technology used is stunning. He is a giant of a villain, with menacing eyes and a very peculiar chin. They may not be his most well-known work, but Brolin has appeared in a variety of comic book adaptions of all sorts over the years, from Men in Black III to Sin City: Dame to Kill For to Jonah Hex. And of course, he played Marvel villain Cable in Deadpool 2 (outside the MCU) just after Infinity War was released. But this is his best comic book performance. Thanos' only goal is to wipe out half of the entire universe, and he needs six Infinity Stones (magical rocks or something that have been appearing in different MCU movies) to achieve that aim.

Based largely on the 1991 comic Avengers: Infinity Gauntlet and the 2013 Infinity comic, the film basically starts right where last fall's Thor: Ragnarok finished; the Asgardian refugees are Thanos' first target. Thanos and his crew are on their way to Earth, and only the Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) can warn other superheros. Barely escaping to Earth, he finds Tony Stark/Iron Man (Robert Downey, Jr.), Dr. Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch), and Spider-Man (Tom Holland), but in some respects, they're too late. Slowly but surely, Thanos hops around the galaxy, successfully adding to his collection, and Earth (specifically a certain country in Africa) is last on his stop. Dr. Strange has one stone (the Time Stone), while Vision (Paul Bettany) has one on his head (for some reason). Both are on Earth.

More and more of these famous characters trickle in, and it seems that what has frequently been a problem in Marvel movies -- that of crowdedness -- actually turns out to be an advantage in Infinity War. Thanos kidnaps his adopted daughter Gamora (Zoe Saldana), and the gang basically all split up: Iron Man, Spider-Man, and Dr. Strange chase after some villains in a freighter; Star-Lord (Chris Pratt), Drax (Dave Bautista), and Mantis (Pom Klementieff) chase after Thanos; Rocket Raccoon (Bradley Cooper) and Groot (Vin Diesel) join Thor (Chris Hemsworth) to attempt to rebuild his hammer (because why not?); and Captain America (Chris Evans), Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), Falcon (Anthony Mackie), and others make their way to Wakanda to help King T'challa (Chadwick Bosemon) fend off Thanos' army.

The movie certainly feels like it goes on for infinity, with a whopping run time of almost three hours. And the climactic battle on Wakanda is almost as boring as it was in Black Panther. But other than that, there surprisingly isn't too much to complain about. There's fortunately a lot of humor, particularly thanks to the duo of Rocket and Groot (now a bratty teenager), and Thor is more like how we saw him last time as opposed to the old-fashioned nobleman of before. And since Cap and Stark aren't on speaking terms anymore, Pratt's Quill serves as a nice stand-in for the bickering and banter. In addition to all these returning characters, some of the new ones are quite interesting; the best new addition is Tom Vaughan-Lawlor as Thanos' henchman, Ebony Maw. He's a particularly frightening villain, and an efficient one, taking delight in locking up Thor or slowly penetrating Dr. Strange's face with sharp knives.

The next Avengers movie comes out next year, and if that is too long for you, you're in luck: there are more Marvel movies on the way. In addition to the Marvel Comics character Deadpool making his return this year (again, outside of the MCU), other upcoming MCU movies will be Ant-Man and the Wasp this year and Captain Marvel next year before the next Avengers movie. Additionally, Sony will release a standalone Venom movie (and while it's not in the MCU, either, who knows if Holland's Spidey will show up). We're in for a very long ride.