Friday, April 5, 2019

"Avengers: Infinity War"

It’s finally here. The biggest motion picture in the history of, well, ever. Well, maybe with the exception of Endgame. When Joss Whedon stepped away from the Avengers line, the Russo Brothers stepped in to give us one hell of a ride. I mean, I quite applaud at this one. Despite being 2½ hours, this movie covers some f*cking ground.
The movie opens on the Asgardian refugee ship, Statesmen, being attacked by Thanos and his Dwight Schrute minion. When Loki refuses to give up the Tesseract, Thanos presses the Power Stone, which he stole from Xander, against Thor’s temple. Squeamish, Loki gives in and hands over the Tesseract. Thanos crushes it, releasing the stone inside, and places it on his gauntlet. Thanos orders his “children” to locate the final two Infinity Stones on Earth, which Loki offers to be a guide. I guess from having enough of Loki, Thanos crushes him and tosses him aside. Before all this though, Heimdall conjured up enough black magic to send an injured Hulk to Earth before getting killed. Then Thanos leaves Thor alive for some reason and destroys the ship.
Hulk crashes into Dr. Strange’s sanctum, in New York, just as he and Wong were arguing about getting a sandwich. Bruce, now changed back, travels with Strange and Wong to warn Tony about Thanos. Now, do you remember, Tony half-assed proposed to Pepper? Because now Tony is dreaming about children (wink, wink). But even the discussion of what to do gets cut short when two of Thanos’ goons park their flying doughnut on Bleeker Street. With intent to retrieve the Time Stone from Strange, they engage. Tony flashes his latest suit that has technology similar to Black Panther’s suit though not hidden in a necklace; it’s the ridiculous thing in his chest, which I thought he removed in Iron Man 3. Yeah, I know, it was back in Age of Ultron and Civil War; I’m a little late, sorry. Peter Parker’s spidey senses suddenly work, and he skips a trip to MoMA, driven by Otto Stan Lee, to join the fight. Meanwhile, Bruce is having trouble engaging the Hulk, resulting in a campy Two-Face battle. As Strange becomes captured, Peter attempts to retrieve him but gets caught up in the Star Trek beam pulling Strange up into the ship. Tony follows them with an updated suit for Peter.
The Guardians of the Galaxy finally make their way into the MCU, after two commercial breaks, and answers the Asgardian distress call. They reach what was left of the ship and rescue Thor, somehow alive and floating in space. Thor commandeers a pod, against Star-Lord’s orders, and takes Rocket and Groot with him to Nidavellir to construct a new hammer. Star-Lord, Gamora, Drax, and Mantis travel to Knowhere to apprehend the Reality Stone before Thanos does. Unfortunately, Thanos already had. He takes Gamora prisoner fooling Star-Lord in the process with the bubble gun.
Scarlet Witch and Vision hide out in Stockholm but the Mind Stone in Vision’s head becomes the Harry Potter scar and torments Vis every time Thanos gets a new stone. Two more goons arrive to take it, but Captain Steve Rogers, Natasha Romanoff, and Sam Wilson save Scarlet and Vis. All five return to the Avengers headquarters and discuss how to get rid of the Mind Stone. Bruce, already there, suggests taking Vision to Wakanda to extract it. They arrive to begin the procedure just as Thanos’ army begins formation.
While held prisoner, Gamora struggles to keep strong while Thanos tortures Nebula in order to get the location of the Soul Stone out of Gamora. Also squeamish, Gamora gives in. She and Thanos travel to Vormir to retrieve the Soul Stone, which is guarded by…HOLY SH*T!…the Red Skull! I’ll get back to that. In order to get the stone, a soul must be exchanged; a soul Thanos cared for most…which is Gamora, surprise, surprise.
The flying doughnut carrying Tony, Peter, and Dr. Strange crashes on the ruins of Titan where they encounter Star-Lord, Mantis, Drax in a pissing match about what to do when Thanos arrives, which isn’t long because Thanos shows his purple face. After an epic showdown, they almost shut down Thanos and had the gauntlet taken off, but stupid Star-Lord punched Thanos in the face in anger over the death of Gamora. The epic showdown continues to a point where Dr. Strange offers to give up the Time Stone in exchange for their lives. Thanos agrees and then leaves.
Thor, Groot, and Rocket reach Nidavellir and are greeted by Eitri, who looks like Peter Dinklage ate one of those Super Mario mushrooms that make you grow. Thanos had visited Nidavellir for the creation of the gauntlet and killed all the dwarves except Eitri, leaving his hands melded together with metal. Together, they all work to forge Thor’s new hammer, Stormbreaker. This is the first time Groot got off his twiggy butt and helped as he sacrifices his arm for Stormbreaker’s handle. How, you may ask, was he able to lift Thor’s hammer? Groot has the gentlest soul in the universe. He is balanced. One minute he’s plugging three guys with his thorny finger, and the next he is growing flowers out of his hand for little girls. There, end of discussion.
Thanos joins the fight in Wakanda, where it was already in full swing. T’Challa’s sister, Shuri, worked diligently to remove the Mind Stone from Vision’s head, but the fight had moved indoors forcing her to end the surgery. Wanda/Scarlet Witch was there to blow the stone to hell once removed, and now she joins the fight to decimate Thanos’ children with their own wheelie thingies. Vision joins her as they travel into the wooded area, alongside Dr. Banner, still having trouble hulking, in the Hulkbuster suit, and Captain America. By this time, Thor, Groot, and Rocket have traveled to Earth as well to join the fight. In a final attempt, Wanda kills Vision to destroy the stone, but Thanos, using the Time Stone, reverses the action and kills Vision himself by ripping the stone out. Then Thor throws his new hammer at Thanos and actually gets him…in the chest. Even Thanos’ admitted he should have aimed at the head. Then the ill-fated Snap.
One by one, Bucky Barnes, Falcon, T’Challa, M’Baku, a number of Wakandans, Wanda, Groot, Mantis, Star-Lord, Drax, Dr. Strange, Peter Parker, all of them dissolved into dust. Thanos’ was after the stones because he believed the universe needed saving by wiping out half the population in a mercy kill. And he had done it. That was it.
The post credit scene had Nick Fury and Agent Maria Hill (surprised I actually said her name?) discussing Tony’s disappearance when a car jumped out in front of them. They checked to see if the driver was okay only to find the car empty. A helicopter above them crashed into a building like in the pilot episode of Revolution. People were dissolving on the street; Maria too. Nicky reached for a homemade PDA before dissolving himself. Luckily his message was sent and a red and teal star flashed on the screen. It was a signal to Captain Marvel.
I’m glad a woman is getting her own movie. That should have happened a long time ago with Black Widow. But I’m just mad right now that she hasn’t shown up at all. Like, where were you? On your phone playing Fortnite? Groot put down his video game to help. The world is dissolving and you’re not here to stop it. It’s said that she is the most powerful character ever created. If that is so, is one of her powers Not Giving a Sh*t Unless Called Upon? We’ll have to wait and see with her own movie.
Back to the Red Skull. I’m also bringing up Loki on this too. At the end of The First Avenger, the Tesseract burned the Red Skull to nothing and dropped into a square-shaped hole in the floor of the plane, that it made, and dropped into the ocean. Obviously, it can’t be touched with human-like hands. Since then, it’s been carried in a case and picked up by tongs. When Loki presents the Tesseract to Thanos, he doesn’t get burned up. Neither does Thanos when he crushes the Tesseract to extract the stone from inside. In the first Guardians, the Power Stone could kill you by touching it. So any of them can kill you. Why could Thanos touch the Stones like it’s nothing when he places them on the gauntlet? When Star-Lord touched it, all kinds of sh*t exploded out of it.
This series is really undermining what the Infinity Stones really are. All their powers seem really vague. The only ones with real powers are the Time and Reality Stones. We’ve really seen those two at work, changing time and altering realities. The rest are kind of the same: move sh*t, shove sh*t, blow sh*t up. They are not very exciting. Then together, they are the ultimate killing machine, like the Deathly Hallows. Watch, we’re going to find out that Vision is the Chosen One or something because he sacrificed himself to save others. Thanos is going to be all “Vision…is DEAD!” and his children are going to laugh, and then Banner is going to saying something heartfelt and then Hulk snaps out of it and he will destroy Thanos’ children as Thanos and Vision fight with their stones until Thanos dissolves into dust.
Thanos was this character whom we barely get to know as moviegoers, and now he's finally here. He fulfills what he was meant to be, but in the end, he is another terrible villain with a terrible motive. We don't know why he is really mercy killing. Why is killing the universe the only way to save it? I can only think of Thanos' family being killed in war or famine. Rise to power is one thing. Killing the universe for no damn reason is another.
Now about Loki. Is he really dead? Is Thanos confident enough to ensure that Loki is dead? We’ve seen Loki die twice, and he came back both times. When Thanos says that Loki calls his failure experience, Loki says he calls experience "experience." He’s a master of trickery. Why would he be stupid enough to pledge he allegiance to Thanos and immediately try to kill him? He knows better than to be on that ship like that. He is probably hiding with Chiwetel Ejiofor and he will present himself when the time comes. Yeah, sure, he was there at the end of Ragnarok, but maybe when Thanos attacked, he jumped ship and left a version of himself in his place.
The HISHE review proved a point too. At one point, Dr. Strange fast forwarded to 14,000,025 different possibilities of defeating Thanos and came up with only one victory. When Strange gave up the Stone, I was a little ticked that he was so willing despite saying he would do everything to protect it. but Daniel Baxter mentioned the loyalty and how everyone is considerate of each other, like Captain Rogers telling Vision that they don't trade lives. What if the only possible way to defeat Thanos was to give up the Stone?
When Thor was rescued, he returned to his arrogant self that we saw in, well, literally every Thor movie. He was being all ungrateful for being saved, he took the Guardians' pod against orders, and called Rocket a rabbit. Has he not seen a raccoon before? I know he landed in the New Mexico desert in his first movie, but he's got to have seen a picture a raccoon. Also, I think this was just to have a pissing match over which Chris was the best. Also, I just discovered ScreenCrush and their crash course video on the MCU. It refreshes my memory that Thor had the lightning power all along. Why does Thor need a f*cking hammer if he has the power? Sure he probably can't summon the Bifrost with his fists, but all he has to do to defeat anyone is to punch the ground.
Now, I didn’t cry, but I did get choked up a bit when Peter bit the dust, sorry, because of my stupid theory. Why would Tony care that much about Peter? I’m sure he’s sad that everyone is dying around him, but he took it especially hard when Peter died. Come on, throw me a bone. They have got to be related somehow. Also, this has nothing to do with the Avengers, but is any movie older than 30 "really old" to Peter? In Civil War, he references the "really old movie" The Empire Strikes Back to take down Gi-ant Man. In this movie, he references the "really old movie" Alien to take out Dwight Schrute.
Overall, this was a definite hit. It really changed how everyone saw this franchise going. It makes you wonder if all those silly films before it were to distract us from the magnitude of this movie. I wonder at the very beginning, was this always the plan? Was it meant to build up to this moment? Or did someone, going through the Avengers comics, find this and thought this would be cool to see on screen?
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I hope you liked this. Be sure to subscribe and leave a comment about what you thought or if you want to recommend a movie for me to review. Thank you for reading. I'll return next week with another movie. See you then.

Released On: April 27, 2018
Rating: PG-13
Stars: Robert Downey, Jr., Mark Ruffalo, Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, Chris Pratt, Dave Bautista, Zoe Saldana, Bradley Cooper, Vin Diesel, Chris Hemsworth, Elizabeth Olsen, Paul Bettany, Benedict Cumberbatch, Benedict Wong, Chadwick Boseman, Anthony Mackie, Don Cheadle, Tom Holland, Gwyneth Paltrow, Karen Gillan, Tom Hiddleston, Sebastian Stan, Idris Elba, Danai Gurira, Pom Klementief, Peter Dinklage, Winston Duke, Benicio del Toro, Josh Brolin, Tom Vaughan-Lowler
Director: Anthony Russo, Joe Russo
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