Avengers: Infinity War
This starts bringing together all the other Marvel franchises; almost everyone is back from the previous eighteen movies that span ten years (the Marvel Studios logo even highlights the “I-O” as “10”.) The film does jump around a lot, since it’s picking up and weaving a bunch of different storylines, to get everyone together. Spoilers will not be marked because I figure most everyone has seen this movie by now. It opens with a distress call from the Asgardian refugee ship [voiced by Thor director, Kenneth Branagh], which is being attacked by Thanos, picking up from the end of Ragnarök. Heimdall is injured, most of the people are dead, which one of the henchmen says they should be glad to be part of the titan’s plan. We see Thanos already has one of the Infinity Stones, the purple Power stone, placed in a glove as he grabs Thor. He then speaks to Loki and bargains, the Tesseract, or his brother’s head. Loki initially tells the titan “kill away,” but after a minute he cannot stand his brother’s screams and shouts “all right, stop!” Thor says they don’t have the Tesseract, but Loki had actually managed to sneak it out of the vault before Asgard was destroyed. As Loki hands Thanos the Tesseract, he tells Thor, “I assure you brother, the sun will shine on us again.” He then tells Thanos, “we have a Hulk” [a callback to the first Avengers movie]. Hulk takes on Thanos, but Thanos is able to get strikes in and knock the Hulk to the ground. Heimdall then calls upon his powers one last time to call the Bifrost and send Hulk away. He’s stabbed for his actions, which upsets Thor, who is then bound in metal.
Thanos adds the blue Space stone to his gauntlet and Loki offers to be a guide to Earth, to retrieve two more stones. He calls himself a prince of Asgard, and Odinson (looking right at Thor) as he pledges his undying fidelity to Thanos. Then tries to stab the titan. Thanos grabs the god of mischief by his neck and slowly crushes it, though Loki gets out “you will never be a god,” before his neck is broken and he’s thrown to the ground; “no resurrections this time (reference to the two times we had thought Loki had died in previous Thor films, only to still be alive due to tricks).” Thor has been gagged, so we cannot fully hear his cries (though we are crying [but never fear, Loki returns in his own show, with the second season coming soon]…not that we knew that when our hearts are stomped on). Thanos uses the two stones to vanish, leaving Thor to cry over his brother.
Heimdall had sent Hulk to New York City; where he crashes into the Sanctum and transforms back into Bruce Banner in order to warn Dr. Stephen Strange of Thanos’ arrival. Tony is also in New York, with Pepper, mentioning he had a dream that they had a child. He’s interrupted by Strange and Bruce, then taken to the Sanctum, where Wong summarizes the Infinity Stones for Tony. Tony and Strange argue about the Time Stone, but they also have to find Vision and the Mind Stone. Tony has to admit to Bruce that the Avengers split up and Tony and Steve Rogers are not speaking at the moment. Bruce insists that Tony call Steve, and he goes to, but picks up on trouble outside.
One of the ships has descended, intent on acquiring the Time Stone. Strange and Wong are ready to fight and Tony’s jogging suit can transform into an Iron Man suit (he has retained an arc reactor, even though he’s had surgery…a slight point of contention with Pepper we saw earlier), but Bruce is unable to transform into the Hulk. Tony sends him out of the fight. At the same time, Peter Parker is on a field trip and senses danger. Ned’s idea of a distraction is to simply yell “we’re all gonna die!” to a bus of kids (driven by Stan Lee), but it allows Peter a chance to slide out a window. He swings into action and Tony summarizes the problem as the bad guy is from space and “he came here to steal a necklace from a wizard.” Tony then sends Peter after Strange once he’s been captured; his cape tries to save him, but Strange is still taken aboard the spaceship (his buddy is abandoned somewhere by Wong). Peter hangs on, and Tony zips after the ship, sending the Iron Spider suit to catch Peter. Tony then tries to send Peter home, but the little spider hangs on and sneaks aboard the ship. Tony is able to tell Pepper that he’s on the ship and he may not be home real quick. Bruce picks up the phone to call Steve.
The Guardians of the Galaxy are the ones to respond to the Asgardian distress signal. Thor drops onto their ship and he’s not dead yet. (Drax and Gamora admire his muscles, which makes Quill self-conscious and it’s embarrassing to watch him attempt to imitate Thor). Thor figures that Thanos will be heading to Knowhere to retrieve the red Reality stone from the Collector, where he had it hidden after the events of Dark World. But Thor also needs to go to Nidavellir [which in Norse mythology, the realm of the Dwarves, and in the MCU, is one of the Nine Realms], to retrieve a Thanos-killing weapon. Rocket decides to go with Thor, taking Groot with them; while Drax, Gamora, and Mantis will go with Quill to Knowhere, trying to beat Thanos there.
Meanwhile (because a lot of this is happening simultaneously in the timeline), Wanda and Vision are in Scotland, trying to get time together. But they see the attack on New York on the news, and Tony’s disappearance and Vision wants to go help. But they’re attacked by more of Thanos’ henchmen, intent on getting the Mind Stone. One manages to stab Vision and weaken him and Wanda does her best to hold them off. Luckily, Steve shows up, along with Sam and Natasha, who help beat off the alien team. Steve tells them to go home.
Gamora has a flashback to the day Thanos came to her planet, killing half the population, but he adopted Gamora during the fray, showing her how to balance a knife and hiding the violence from her. She still has the dagger and goes to Quill, asking him to promise to kill her if Thanos gets ahold of her. She has information that Thanos wants, but he doesn’t know she has. She extracts the promise from Quill and they share a kissed, watched by Drax. At first, they think Knowhere is abandoned and witness Thanos threaten the Collector. Gamora attacks Thanos, even going so far as to stab him. But turns out, Thanos now has the Reality stone and it was all an illusion. Thanos is touched by Gamora’s emotions, since she cried after supposedly killing him, and he captures her. Gamora reminds Quill of his promise and it takes a minute, but he is prepared to shoot her. But Thanos turns the shot into bubbles and disappears with Gamora.
“Home” is still the Avengers compound for Steve, where Rhodey is dealing with Secretary Ross. Ross is not impressed with Steve’s appearance, but Captain America is not looking for forgiveness and he’s way past asking for permission. “Earth has just lost its best defender [referring to Tony],” and they’re here to fight. Ross wants Rhodey to arrest Steve and his fugitive buddies, but Rhodey shuts down the call and begins planning with the team. Vision suggests they destroy the Mind stone and feels that Wanda’s powers can do it, but she refuses and Steve won’t trade lives. Bruce suggests that there may be a way to separate the stone from Vision and keep Vision alive, but he can’t do it. Steve knows somewhere.
Wakanda is preparing for a fight and T’Challa goes to Bucky; the White Wolf has rested long enough. Bucky asks “where’s the fight?” when he sees a new vibranium arm. “On its way,” T’Challa responds.
Tony is not pleased to discover that Peter is still on the spaceship, but they come up with a plan to rescue Strange, sucking the henchman out into space. Then Tony and Strange argue (again) whether they should return to Earth or not [faceoff between two Sherlocks, oh boy], Tony suggesting that going towards Thanos buys them an element of surprise. Strange warns Tony that if it comes between saving the Time Stone, or saving Tony or Peter, he will let them die. Tony quickly dubs Peter an official Avenger [and I’m not sure how happy Peter is about that at the moment; he knows that everything going on is dangerous right now, but there’s still pride there, that Tony trusts him.]
Thanos has brought Gamora back to his ship, commenting that Gamora used to help Thanos with his vision. She retorts that she has always hated him; she was his prisoner. She insists that she does not know where the orange Soul stone is. But Thanos reveals he’s torturing Nebula and knows, from Nebula’s memory files, that Gamora found the Soul stone and burnt the map. Gamora eventually can’t take her screams any longer and admits that she found the Soul stone; it’s on Vormir.
Thor, along with Rocket and Groot arrive at Nidavellir, only to find that the forge has gone cold. There is one dwarf left, Eitri (played by Peter Dinklage, whom we know as Tyrion Lannister from Game of Thrones, Trask from Days of Future Past and Trumpkin in Prince Caspian), who made the gauntlet for Thanos in order to hopefully spare the other dwarves (and angry that Asgard did not protect them). Thanos killed them anyway and hobbled Eitri’s hands. But Thor offers to help Eitri; they need a weapon. There’s one mold left, for an axe Eitri will name Stormbreaker, which in theory can summon Bifrost.
At the same time, Nebula escapes Thanos’ ship and calls for the Guardians to meet on Titan. Strange, Peter, and Tony have landed there and meet the Guardians, who attack, thinking they are servants of Thanos. Quill is ready to shoot Peter and Tony is ready to shoot Drax; Quill demanding “where is Gamora?” while Tony retorts “who is Gamora?” They roundabout figure out they’re all from Earth and all against Thanos (though Quill’s not sure who the Avengers are), and hey, they all know Thor. Tony wants to make a plan, focusing on getting the gauntlet off Thanos and Strange uses the Time stone to examine possible futures. He sees over fourteen million; sadly, they only win one.
Gamora takes Thanos to Vormir, where they encounter the Red Skull (not played by Hugo Weaving, but the actor does an excellent mimicry of his voice), who was banished to guide others to a treasure he cannot possess. He informs them of the sacrifice that is required to acquire the Soul stone; a soul for a soul. Meaning Thanos must sacrifice that which he loves in order to gain the stone. Gamora laughs at first, thinking Thanos is sunk; he loves nothing. But he is crying, because he knows he must kill Gamora and he actually cared for her a little. She struggles, trying to stab herself first, but Thanos throws her over the edge and gains the Soul stone. All that are left are the Mind stone and the Time stone.
Part of the Avengers have arrived in Wakanda, where Shuri can begin to extract the Mind stone (and proving that she is smarter than Bruce and Tony). Wanda will guard them, then destroy the stone once it is out. The arrival of the Avengers is not what Okoye expected when T’Challa was going to open Wakanda; she thought of the Olympics, or at least a Starbucks. But Steve is happy to see Bucky. When the army arrives and strikes the dome, T’Challa orders someone to get Steve a shield. Bruce wears the Hulkbuster suit since Hulk continues to refuse to come out.
Thor enlists Rocket’s help (whom he keeps calling a rabbit) in order to restart the rings and awaken the heart of a dying star so the metal will melt. They succeed with the rings, but the iris is broken and won’t remain open. Thor offers to hold the iris open. Eitri warns him that it will kill him. “Only if I die,” Thor retorts. He manages to withstand the star’s light long enough, but collapses from the burns. He needs the axe, or he’ll dye, Eitri realizes and Groot grows a handle for the axe from his arm. Thor is restored (and proves he’s a god, because who else could do all that?).
The battle in Wakanda begins and the heroes soon realize they have to open the dome a little in order to keep the battle focused on them and away from Vision. [And it is great to see M’Baku next to T’Challa and the chants get everyone pumped up.] It may be the end of Wakanda, but it will be a noble end. With a cry of “Wakanda forever!” our heroes charge, T’Challa and Steve soon in the lead. They make a great effort, but numbers are against them. They soon are overpowered, but Thor arrives in a flash, bringing lightning (and the theme music). “Bring me Thanos!” he cries and crashes into the fray.
Meanwhile, Thanos is on Titan and discusses matters with Strange, which is really a distraction for the team to get into place. Nebula arrives and gets a few shots at Thanos. They manage to get ahold of Thanos and Mantis puts him under, while Tony and Peter work on getting the glove off. But Quill demands to know where Gamora is, Tony urging him to not engage. They realize that Gamora is dead and Quill punches Thanos, which wakes him up. Peter almost has the gauntlet off, but Thanos regains it and Peter has to go catch the Guardians as they’re flung away. Thanos drops a moon on Tony, then faces off against Strange, powers versus powers. He grabs the necklace off Strange, but breaking only reveals that it is a fake. He throws Strange aside and Tony flies back into the fight. Thanos actually respects Tony (not enough to keep him from stabbing the man) and comments that when half the people of the world survive, he hopes they will remember Tony. Strange asks Thanos to stop. He’ll give him the stone in order to spare Tony. Tony shakes his head, but Thanos gains the green Time stone. Quill attacks, and Thanos leaves. “We’re in the endgame now,” Strange remarks.
Bucky and Rocket team up briefly, Rocket remarking he either wants Bucky’s gun, or arm. Steve and Thor manage to greet each other, but the machines eventually break the dome. Wanda flies down to help, allowing one of the henchmen the chance to attack Shuri. She defends herself, but Vision has to join the fight and is taken out the window. There is a wonderful team up between Natasha, Wanda, and Okoye [and all the ladies cheer, because girl power!] There’s a bit of hope. Until…Thanos arrives in Wakanda and uses the stones against the Avengers’ attack. Vision realizes they have to destroy the Mind stone and begs Wanda until she agrees. She manages to do so, and even hold off Thanos. But he uses the Time stone to bring Vision back and rip the stone from his head. Steve even gets in to keep Thanos’ hand apart, but he’s thrown to the side. Thor brings his axe down into Thanos’ chest, remarking, “I told you you’d die for that,” vengeance for Heimdall, Loki, and his people. Well, Thanos’ responds, “you should have gone for the head,” and snaps his fingers. His hand is charred, but he disappears.
Bucky is the first to disintegrate, then T’Challa, Groot, Wanda, then Sam. On Titan, Mantia, Drax, and Quill all disintegrate. Strange tells Tony “there was no other way.” Peter stumbles to Tony, commenting “I don’t feel so good,” (his spidey-sense warning him). Tony catches him as the teen mumbles “I don’t want to go.” And his parting words to his mentor are “I’m sorry.” [And the Russos crush our hearts!]
Maria Hill and Fury are the last we see disappear in the stinger, while they’re starting to react to the battle in Wakanda. Fury manages to send something on a pager and all we see is a star symbol appear.
A big deal is made through the bonus features that Infinity War and Endgame were filmed back-to-back over one year. Which is admittedly a lot of work, not discounting that, but you’re also speaking to people who have watched Lord of the Rings and Hobbit and those took longer to film and had extensive pick-up shooting (we’ll get more into that when I cover those films). So, we’re impressed, but not blown away.
They also mentioned that the conflict between heroes can be entertaining; and they have a point at times. Like when Tony and his group face off with Quill and the Guardians; we the audience know they’re all good guys, but they’ve never met, until they realize they all know Thor. But like in Civil War, we honestly just want all our favorite heroes to get along. So many times, the heroes were so close to a solution. So many times, if they had just executed a plan earlier, they would have succeeded. And they would have, if they were together.
And I get that was the directors’ idea; separate them so that they’re at their lowest point when their greatest threat comes along and it makes an interesting story, but if they had communicated better, then some heartache would have been saved (like the audience’s…cause now we don’t trust you).
We’ll delve more into the results of this film when the story picks back up in Endgame.
Up Next: Ant-Man and Wasp (which, I have to admit, I have never watched before)
Dreamer in the Mirror 