We’ve been Marvel fans for a while.
Last Saturday we took the family to see Avengers: Infinity War. Excited doesn’t begin to cover it. My daughter texted the following when we told her.
We really started loving the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) with the first Thor and Captain America movies. They were well written, acted and directed. We liked the moral compass Steve Rogers possessed, and how Thor learned to honor his responsibilities protect people and stop believing his own accolades. He became worthy of Mjolnir. We saw Iron Man after we saw Thor and Captain America: The First Avenger. I personally love all the work the actors, and particularly Robert Downey Jr. do with kids. It was amazing to see how excited the boy who got a bionic arm was when Robert Downey Jr. gave him the arm dressed and acting as Tony Stark.
Some of the franchises we’ve been bigger fans of than others. Don’t hate me, but we don’t really care for the vulgarity that often permeates the Guardians of the Galaxy movies. We rented the first Guardians movie, and borrowed the second. We may just read about the third (which we didn’t know about when we saw Infinity War) to keep up with plot lines.
Black Panther was a huge hit for our family, as was Thor: Ragnarok. Given how much we enjoyed these latest two installments in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and how much we enjoyed the first Avengers movie, we were really excited to see Avengers: Infinity War.
What we knew, and/or expected going in:
Knew:
Infinity War is essentially split into two parts. Part I comes out April 27, 2018. Part II comes out sometime in 2019, as does Captain Marvel. Ant-Man and the Wasp comes out this summer.
Expectations:
We expected it to be dark, like Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back. In Empire Strikes Back, not long after the movie begins, the rebels have to abandon a base, and barely manage to do it. It ends with things looking pretty dire for our heroes. Han Solo was frozen in carbonite and taken by Boba Fett. Luke just learned Darth Vader is his father, and is recovering amputation with an artificial/bionic hand. Before Cloud City, he had rushed off from his training with Yoda before it was completed, so we had no idea if he could finish what he had started. Leia had come to the realization she loved Han, only to lose him to the carbonite and bounty hunter.
WARNING!!! Spoilers ahead
We also guessed things about Infinity War from following: The end credit scene of Thor: Ragnarok-the Asgardian ship met up with a much bigger, and seemingly more powerful ship; trailers and clips showing human carnage and of Loki offering the Tesseract (in the same lighting); and an interview with Tom Hiddleston where he said he was part of the MCU (not “I’ve been”); and a clip of Thor landing on the “windshield” of the Guardians of the Galaxy ship. We guessed the Asgardian ship was destroyed and Loki might die. We were correct.
Before the movie, we watched every single trailer over and over, and even watched compilation videos where people put the clips together in the order they thought they might appear in the movies. What we didn’t know was some of the trailer clips were not actually in the film (like Hulk running through the woods).
Our impressions (Major Spoilers ahead)
The clips and trailers worked their magic and filled us with excitement. We loved as each new group met up. Bruce Banner crashing into the Sanctum Sanctorum brought us Wong and Doctor Strange, Tony Stark and Banner. Banner warned everyone what was going on.
We cheered as Thor was rescued by the Guardians, Steve Rogers came to the aid of Vision and Wanda, and how everyone, including War Machine, went to Wakanda. We laughed at the line about opening Wakanda to a fight was not what Okoye envisioned, but maybe the Olympics or a Starbucks. We cheered again when Thor created a new hammer and showed up to the fight in Wakanda. I loved when we saw the Scarlett Witch almost losing to Proxima Midnight, she was backed up by Black Widow and Okoye (Girl Power!) I loved how Peter Parker’s constant pop culture references gave them ideas, and Iron Man and Spider-Man managed to rescue Doctor Strange (this last was earlier in the the film).
When Iron Man, Spider-man and Doctor Strange met up with part of the Guardians (Quill, Mantis, Drax) on Titan, there was some mistaken identities and fighting at first. When Doctor Strange asks the Guardians who their master is, Peter Quill quips, “Oh, what master do I serve? What am I supposed to say, Jesus?” The line was left hanging as if they expected laughter at that. My friend felt it was a unique reference to earth to quickly relay they were all on the same side. DearHusband and I felt the timing felt a little too joke-like and wished they would have left the line out. (DearHusband was actually quite a bit upset and didn’t calm down for a long time because he really felt they were mocking being a Christian). That was one big strike against the movie for us.
Another strike–(and if I’m wrong because I missed something while running one of the children to the bathroom for the second time, please forgive me). I truly realize how incredibly complicated writing a script that utilizes so many people effectively must be. Yet, I really felt Shuri was highly under-utilized. We didn’t even really see her use her panther gauntlets like in the trailer. She’s one of the smartest characters in the Marvel universe, who intimately knows the workings of vibranium, and she got a few lines. Most of her lines were being said in response to being told what to do. Shuri kicks butt and needed to have a small moment to shine.
Did not expect to lose Gamora.
Biggest strike–the fading away/death of so many characters at the very end. I had suspected we might lose Stark or Rogers, but not practically everyone else except them. I was upset. Seriously upset. I felt like I had been punched in the gut. The audience I was sitting in was dead-silent as we took in what all this meant. We had to wrap our heads around it. I was particularly upset at losing Black Panther. It was one of the strongest Marvel films to date, and then they went and killed King T’Challa?
This movie ended dark. Very. Very. Dark. Darker than “Empire Strikes Back” IMHO.
Pondering More–
It’s been a week since the movie came out, and I’ve had time to process. I’ve also been able to look online and see movies have been confirmed for Spider-man, Guardians of the Galaxy, Black Widow, and Black Panther 2. Doctor Strange 2 has not yet been green lit, but they are working on script ideas. Things will have to be changed in part II to rectify the ending of Infinity War (part I). Maybe the heroes will have to use the time stone, or maybe Captain Marvel will have some power up her sleeve I don’t know about. There are no new movies if they don’t fix the “deaths” of so many heroes, so we already know a lot of favorite characters will get a reprieve. It’s just not guaranteed who will survive in the end.
From my High-Functioning Autism Kids-
From Acroboy, “I really liked the movie until the end. I hated the end. They have to fix it.”
Firstborn opted not to see it until much closer to part II based upon what he heard.
From Lawboy, “I can appreciate it took guts to make the tough choices they did. I don’t like that they made them.” And, “In a weird way I can appreciate Thanos thought he was merciful by ending lives quickly. I don’t agree. He shouldn’t kill anyone.”
From: Whirlwind, “Killing all those character was just stupid. Thanos sounds like a zero-population advocate, like one of those people who wants to wipe out half the population with a disease. They’re going to fix it. They’re (meaning studio) dumb if they don’t.”
Conclusion:
In the end, it was a mixed review from us. There were many moments we really enjoyed quite a bit, and some not-so-much. The ending was pretty dark. If we didn’t know that most of the characters who died will have to come back to appear in their next movies, we’d still be downright depressed. I’m kind of amazed the filmmakers were so willing to go so dark.
Do you agree or disagree? Let me know in the comments, or on the Facebook group: