Avengers: Infinity War Discovers the Finite Circumstances of Heroism

Avengers: Infinity War

After the somewhat disappointing but still spectacular Avengers: Age of Ultron director Joss Whedon passed the mantle on to the Russo Brothers (Anthony and Joe) of Captain America: Winter Soldier and Captain America: Civil War. Already tackling the arduous task of managing a group of super ego’s with the Civil War effort they seemed the natural choice for Avengers: Infinity War. For several years now the MCU had been promising the arrival of Thanos, the biggest baddest villain of them all. Well, one of them at least. Avengers: Infinity War delivers on that promise in spades.

Written by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, their story brings together these super egos to stave off a culling. Thanos, played by Josh Brolin is a mad Titan who has decided it is an act of compassion to eliminate half of the universe’s population in order to ensure a more prosperous life for the remaining population. From almost the beginning of the Marvel Cinematic Universe Marvel has slyly introduced Infinity Stones that have served as MacGuffin’s for the various story lines. We are first introduced to the Tesseract (in the comic books originally known as the “Cosmic Cube”) in Captain America: The First Avenger and before that, ever so briefly in Thor.

We are next introduced to the Mind Stone in The Avengers, the first in the series of Avengers films where Loki is gifted by Thanos the Mind Stone to use in finding the Tesseract. The Reality Stone first appears in Thor: the Dark World where it has been transformed into a fluid like substance Asgardians call the aether. We are introduced to the Power Stone in Guardian’s of the Galaxy when Starlord (Chris Pratt) steals the stone on the planet Morag. The Time Stone is first seen in Doctor Strange and finally the Soul Stone introduced in this film.

For nearly two decades Marvel had been carefully setting up this very movie. Thanos (usually seen at the end credits of other MCU films) has been collecting these Infinity Stones, as we now learn, so that he can have the power to eliminate half the population with merely a snap of his finger. While the first two Avenger films were impressive enough in their amassing a number of heroes and then even more so with the civil war chapter of the third Captain America film, Avengers: Infinity War amasses both heroes and villains to the nth degree. A massive undertaking that could have easily collapsed under its own weight winds up becoming one of the MCU’s best films to date.

This film begins where Thor: Ragnarok left off. In the mid-credit scene of Ragnarok we see Thor (Chris Hemsworth) and his crew and the surviving Asgardians aboard one of the Grandmaster;s space ships overshadowed by a much larger spacecraft ominously approaching. Infinity War immediately reveals that this larger spacecraft was Thanos and his lieutenants who are now aboard the defeated Thor and his Asgardians. Thanos makes Thor watch as he easily swats away Hulk and mercilessly kills a few major players of the MCU.

Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) winds up crashing into Doctor Strange’s (Benedict Cumberbatch) sanctum and heralds the news that Thanos is coming. Doctor Strange magics himself and Bruce Banner to a park where Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) and his now wife Pepper Potts (Gwenyth Paltrow) flirt with each other about the possibility of having children. Rudely interrupted by this strange mystic Stephen Strange, it is Bruce (who Tony hasn’t seen since he disappeared in a quinjet at the end of Age of Ultron) who informs of the impending doom in a touching moment between the two’s reunion. Like an experienced painter, the Russo’s brothers in just a few broad strokes begin shaping their canvas in a way that economically pushes the story forward.

This economy is necessary in order to accommodate the number of hero’s assembled in this film and it smartly begins by introducing us to some of the major players first. Doctor Strange not necessarily one of those major players but handily facilitates the reunion between Bruce and Tony. Before they can assemble the rest of the Avengers and only moments after discovering what Thanos is after and that Doctor Strange holds one of the Infinity Stones doom is on their doorstep. Cull Obsidian (Terry Notary) and Ebony Maw (Tom Vaughn-Lawlor), two of Thanos lieutenants arrive in an attempt to get the Time Stone. In confronting these villains Tony and Bruce both learn that the Hulk doesn’t want to play.

The battle between Iron Man, Doctor Strange and Wond (Benedict Wong) but sans Hulk, that ensues, attracts the attention of Peter Parker (Tom Holland) and soon Spiderman is on the scene. The bad guys, unable to get the Time Stone from Doctor Strange simply take the good doctor with them as Spiderman and Iron Man pursue. Meanwhile, over in Scotland, two of Thanos other lieutenants, Corvus Glaive (Micheal James Shaw) and Proxima Midnight (Carrie Coon) attack a vacationing Wanda (Elizabeth Olsen) and Vision (Paul Bettany) for his Mind Stone implanted in his forehead. Fortunately, Bruce Banner managed to call Captain America (Chris Evans) who shows up along with Blackwidow (Scarlett Johansson) to defeat these two henchmen and save Vision and Wanda.

Meanwhile…so much of the film is spent on assembling the team needed to defeat the seemingly undefeatable Thanos that, again it would seem such an effort would just flounder in exposition hell. The Guardian’s of the Galaxy meet Thor who only winds up dividing the Guardian’s. Rocket (Bradley Cooper) and Groot (Vin Diesel) join Thor on a mission to make a new weapon to replace Mjolnir, while Star Lord, Gamora (Zoe Saldana), Drax (Dave Bautista) and Mantis (Pom Klementief) go to a planet called NoWhere where the Collector (Benicio del Toro) is holding the Reality Stone. Thanos kidnaps Gamora who discovers Nebula (Karen Gillian) is being held captive and tortured.

While this is all happening so too is Cap, Blackwidow along with the Falcon (Anthony Mackie) take Wanda and Vision to James Rhoade’s (Don Cheadle) in an attempt to hide them. This kind of large ensemble story telling is most often seen in epic war films. Still, the best of those films tend to find a small group of major players and focus on them with memorable moments from minor characters. Saving Private Ryan has a core group as it’s focus but plenty of big name stars showing up in smaller roles. Conversely, so does A Bridge too Far where that bridge collapsed under the weight of it’s stars.

Avengers: Infinity War never collapses under this colossal weight and remarkably broadens the focus to include much much more than the core group of Avengers we saw in the first two films. What is even more impressive is how it all weaves together to make a satisfying tale of reluctant heroes fighting mightily only to fail. That failure leads to horrible genocide that kills off an incredible amount of Marvel’s heroes. Even though those who follow Marvel’s Cinematic Universe more closely than a casual observer already know that some of those heroes snapped out of existence by Thanos are slated to appear in upcoming movies, which only makes the emotional gut punch of their loss in Infinity War all the more impressive.

Of course, Infinity War is also part one of a two part series so even if you don’t know that some of the dearly departed heroes have upcoming movies to be released, the savvy ones know that it is likely that in part two those comic book heroes will return to fight another day. Just like they do in the comic books. And still, watching some of these hero’s fade away into nothingness is heart wrenching. The Russo Brothers was a great choice to pass the Avengers mantle to and Markus and McFeely have done an excellent job of bringing together a massive amount of players, only to cull them to set up that core group of warriors we can better focus on in Part II.