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why-this-kolaveri-machi · 6 years

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avengers: infinity war

um. SPOILERS.

so i finally watched spiderman: infinity war avengers: infinity war yesterday with the inimitably awesome aakanksha ( @franklyineedcoffee). it was great! very cgi and very Epic.

like. mcu movies were never terribly remarkable to me, but then they got Spiderman involved (and made him great!) and the ensuing trifecta of extremely enjoyable films (homecoming, ragnarok and black panther) finally made a fangirl out of me. which basically primed me perfectly to enjoy the shit out of infinity war.

a few thoughts! a second reminder for SPOILERS because i discuss about basically everything.

1. the film did a great job juggling so many characters and so many plot threads? of course some parts were under-served (the whole wakanda stretch was a bit meh to me), but at no point was i just waiting for the film to get back to the Interesting Bit. almost all of it was equally engaging.

2. i’d heard a lot about thanos going into this film but what i wasn’t expecting was to be reminded of two villains that the mcu had done really, really well recently: adrian toomes/the vulture from homecoming, and erik killmonger from black panther. thanos isn’t nearly as compelling as either of them and certainly doesn’t deserve a fraction of the sympathy we can reasonably afford to either toomes/killmonger, but the kind of sad, single-minded conviction that he used to justify murdering trillions of people? yeah, that was all-too-familiar. far from the cackling, evil villain trope, both toomes and killmonger were shaped and scarred by unforgiving circumstances; you didn’t approve of the stuff they did but their pathos was palpable. thanos plays this part of the villain arc very well--he doesn’t visibly delight in death and destruction, but does it because he is burdened with it. and isn’t that how it usually goes in the real world? the worst people in the world never believe in their own evil--just their own status as a Special Person Who Knows Something Better Than Everyone Else. a special destiny, a special responsibility with all that power. sometimes the line between superhero and villain is so, so thin.

2.5. because looking at it objectively, his motivation was some malthusian bullshit, yeah? and in a way recalls some of the most harrowing repercussions of bullshit science from the early twentieth century. so if i read one more thinkpiece about ‘errrrr guys maybe thanos had a point’ i’m going to lose it. both the writing and performance for thanos was fantastic--he practically dripped with gravitas, even under all the layers of cgi and chaotic fight scenes--but let’s not confuse that with actual sense/decency, yeah?

3. the groupings were great--so great that i could’ve readily watched an entire film based on any one of them. my favourite had to be thor with rocket/groot. i would’ve never guessed it, but it turned out to be the most poignant dynamic of them all. that little conversation that rocket had with thor was a little oasis in the middle of a terribly chaotic movie and neatly tied in and mirrored the incredible character development both the characters had undergone in their last movies--GotG vol 2 and ragnarok. this scene for me was an example of the ultimate reward of getting a film like infinity war--a moment of truly resonant emotional connection between two wildly differing characters and genres.

3.5. and, btw, the genres! can we talk about that a bit? it was a really cool mix of generic superhero stuff with sci-fi, a touch of horror, magic, swords-and-sorcery, opposites-meet comedy, a bit of romance, and just good old-fashioned family drama.

3.75. and speaking of drama, the whole arc with gamora was gutting and inspired more tears from me than the much-talked-about snap. the sheer range of emotions she went through right before and after she realised that thanos was going to kill her and why! zoe saldana is fucking amazing.

4. aagh i just wished we had more time but all of the groups played really well off each other: i enjoyed iron man and company in particular because duh, spiderman, and watching three gigantic egos clash in the form of tony stark, dr strange, and peter quill was entertaining as all hell. and i know tumblr fandom in particular likes to give tony a hard time but i was impressed not just by his quick thinking, his surely-impossible technology, and his raw physical strength, but also his ability to lead, well, any team. he had spiderman covered (summoning the iron spider suit! appointing him an avenger! collaborative flying of an alien spaceship!), had dr strange figured out pretty quickly, and tried his best to steady peter quill.

4.5. the group on wakanda wasn’t nearly as compelling, but much of their screen time was filled with fighting cannon fodder and that’s literally the least interesting part of any mcu movie, so. i guess i was also annoyed by rhodey basically throwing away the principled position he took in civil war--the narrative had to essentially make the regulatory body a one-dimensional super-villain. and, like. whatever. the avengers have to reform, etc. but it still stinks. i kind of dozed through the parts of civil war that didn’t involve spiderman but some of the issues that it raised were compelling. but then those issues were just used as an excuse to get a slugfest between iron man and captain america and now somehow an agreement signed by 150+ countries is all about oh no! will steve and tony ever make up?? like, fuck that shit.

4.85. i didn’t expect to be as moved as i was by vision and wanda, though. unlike the nat/bruce thing that also kind of came out of the blue in ultron, these two were weirdly compelling. (although wanda’s missing accent is bothering me.)

5. there was so much cgi in this movie! some of it was truly breathtaking but more often than not it felt suffocating. i feel like tony stark and co. were especially ill-served: the deep blues of the doughnut spaceship and the flashy, dusty oranges on titan just made it more difficult to see the characters and, idk. i’m not a fan of the effect.

5.5. everything involving thor was great, tho. couldn’t possibly match the climactic bridge scene in ragnarok in terms of pure Epicness but came close several times.

6. mmm, what else? i really liked that this film undercut a lot of the truly dramatic scenes with humour--it just lent a dreadful sense of finality to the scenes that left us with death rather than a punchline.

6.5. another note: i realise that thor continually calling rocket and groot ‘rabbit and tree’ was supposed to be funny, but why would he do that? the ‘captain’ has a name. and he speaks groot’s language! why would he call him something as reductive as ‘tree’? (unless groot’s actual name is tree) it’s just a little niggling thing but it’s starting to bother me a lot now.

6.55. but i do find it a little endearing that prideful, extremely sensitive rocket never once bothered to correct thor.

7. ultimately the Epicness that made this movie possible is also one of the things that repeatedly threatens to bring it down. i just don’t want this film to fall down the rabbit hole that SPN finds itself in--expand its scope exponentially and find itself unable to remotely do it the justice that it deserves. what do you do with a character who could kill half the universe with a snap of his fingers? what do you do with characters who, in their individual movies, have expressed powers and resources that are seriously large-scale?

we see the film sputter in this respect a couple of times: i never understood why thanos didn’t just use the reality stone to, say, turn tony’s tech into cheesecake or something. out of respect at the man’s sheer tenacity? idk. and loki going out by trying to stab thanos was weird to me. was he deliberately sacrificing himself? is there something else going on? doesn’t he have much better weapons in his arsenal? at least he was aiming for the head

and the consequences of the final snap where more than half of the heroes disintegrated in front of their friends’ eyes should’ve felt more devastating, but the neatness of the old avengers being spared so that they could save (avenge if you will) their next generation in a final hurrah in the next movie seemed way too obvious. that’s not to say it wasn’t impactful. watching peter parker disintegrate in tony’s arms, fighting till the very last minute to stay he was so scared oh god he just wanted to stay and for mr stark to make it all right was gutting, no matter how much i’d prepared myself for it. i may have whimpered.

8. i’m sure i have a lot more to say but it’s getting late and i’m tired, so. another post in the near future maybe.

but before i go, how could i not talk about spiderman?? i screamed my throat raw at the first sight of peter parker, and although he doesn’t actually get all that much screen time he made every second count. the awe-inspiring appearance of the iron spider. “have you ever seen that old movie, aliens?” the sheer range of emotions that passed his face when tony stark officially made him an avenger. flying spaceships along with tony. fun with magic portals! almost getting the gauntlet off because he is Just That Strong. saving mantis and drax. and clinging to life till the very last second even as the edges of his body were starting to wisp away. this boy. god. how mcu hit the perfect formula to represent my all-time favourite superhero on screen is a mystery, but i’m so so glad it happened.

#mcu #avengers #infinity war #infinity war spoilers #spoilers #meta #thanos

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boombangbing · 6 years

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so what did you think of infinity war??

I’M GLAD YOU ASKED

To start with, it was hands down the best Avengers movie, though that isn’t hard for me, since I tolerated Avengers 1 and hated Age of Ultron. I thought the film did surprisingly well in balancing all the characters - I’d expected a hot mess, but the decision to mix the characters up and split them off was a good one and everyone got a chance to do something. Obviously we know that the majority of the characters aren’t going to stay dead, since they’ve got sequels coming up, so the emotional impact of the snap deaths wasn’t huge but they did a good job of showing the impact in-universe.

Thoughts:

- The early scenes with Tony and Strange (still haven’t seen Dr Strange) were great and made me kind of like Strange

- Thor’s big hero entrance in Wakanda was a serious fuck yeah moment

- I thought Loki had a good death and I wouldn’t mind him staying dead. He finally chose his side and died protecting his home and being the man Thor believed he could be. That’s not a bad ending for him, and honestly bring him back from the dead a third time is just going to be silly

- Red Skull!!! I was seriously shocked to see him, since Weaving had put paid to any thoughts of Red Skull ever returning. It was nice to see that forgotten question of what happened to Skull at the end of TFA answered and I thought he was good choice in that scene - Skull was a seriously evil motherfucker, so if HE’S like, ‘this was a mistake’, then you know it’s serious. I don’t think most of the people in my showing knew who he was, because there was no reaction to him

- I thought Nebula was great, especially for the reasonably small part she played. That torture scene was just painful to watch

- I was also really impressed with Gamora. I haven’t thought too much to Saldana’s acting in the two GotG, but IW really gave her something to work with. I thought the girl playing her as a child was really well cast, as well

- Thanos was a really good villain. He was sympathetic and compassionate in parts, which made him even scarier. How do you stop someone who truly believes they’re doing the morally right thing and has the power to make it happen. I see a parallel with Steve there, both in being an ideologue who can’t be swayed from what he believes is right, and in losing everything to make it happen. Hopefully they’ll draw some sort of comparison in A4

- I loved Bruce in this! I loved that they gave him a chance to shine and be a hero without Hulk and I loved that they kept his new weird personality from Ragnarok. I do wish they’d acknowledged his feelings about Ross in the scene with Rhodey on the holographic conference call, but I’ve come to expect that they’ve wiped Betty’s existence from the MCU (and not in the Thanos way)

- Wanda/Vision did absolutely nothing for me. I didn’t find it compelling, I don’t particularly like Vision as a character, and I’m not into the standard young woman/much older man pairing (visually, rather than character wise)

- Quill was The Worst, and pissed me off so much in that gauntlet scene. Of course, if they had got the gauntlet off, Thanos would have easily got it back, but damnit, Quill, that was your plan and it was actually sort of working! I felt similarly about Strange and the time stone - Tony was clearly right that it had to be destroyed

- Spidey was The Worst for an entirely different reason, that being that he made me cry at the end. Any character saying they don’t want to go while dying = immediate waterworks for me

- WHY WAS BUCKY THE FIRST TO GO. WTAF

- Also Sam disintegrating without anyone around to see it ;_;

- I think (I hope) Cap’s going to get a happy ending in A4 if Evans does retire from the films. People at my work tease me about how Cap’s going to die, but I really don’t think he will, and not just because I’m a fangirl. Out of all the title characters, Cap’s been subjected to the most misery, pretty much constantly since midway through TFA, and I don’t think his story’s going to have a downer ending. MCU just isn’t really that type of franchise. I was joking with a friend before IW that Steve should go back in time to the 40s and live out his life with Peggy, but since I think time travel’s a given for A4 now, I kind of hope that actually happens

- The only two things that I didn’t like weren’t story-related things: the first was all the wigs, especially that awful one on Wanda, and the second that dodgy CGI at the end with Bruce in the Hulkbuster.

- I can’t figure out how they’re going to deal with this in Agents of SHIELD. They established in the last episode that the initial attack in NYC is on the news and I don’t see how they’re going to avoid having half the cast disintegrate without just completely contradicting canon

I’m sure I’ve forgotten a bunch of stuff out from this, but these are my initial thoughts. I liked it - 9/10!

#avengers: infinity war #infinity war #infinity war spoilers #nsanchezfw

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