Avengers: Infinity War

The 485th film I have seen in theaters…

I’ve already seen it twice. Spoilers at the end of the post.

The Mad Titan Thanos is making his final grab for all 6 Infinity Stones. The Power Stone is on Zandar. The Space Stone is with Loki. The Reality Stone is with The Collector on Knowhere. The Time Stone is with Doctor Strange. The Mind Stone is in Vision’s forehead. The Soul Stone is a mystery.

As Thanos and his Black Order strike out for the stones, Earth’s mightiest Heroes, The Avengers, Doctor Strange, and the Guardians of the Galaxy team up to stop them.

There are just too many cast members, and all of them did a fine job. Lets look at them in groups.

Doctor Strange, Stark, and Banner all mesh together well. Wong is always awesome. Ruffalo was in a strange spot this time as Hulk, but I liked it. Doctor Strange may have been the most important element of this film, and it’s ending.

Vision and Scarlet Witch are trying to have a romance in the midst of all this. Their story added some emotional weight to the proceedings.

The carefree attitude of the Guardians is shaken a bit by this film. More on that at the end in the spoiler section.

After the destruction of Asgard in Ragnarok, and their hopeful escape to find a new home, this movie takes Thor in an interesting direction…

The Wakanda crew is fantastic as the “Secret Avengers” join them. Evans continues to shine as Captain America. It was great to see Bucky back in action. War Machine and Falcon provide air support as Hulk.. ahem. Nice one Marvel. As “Hulk” joins the ground war led by T’Challa himself. Awesome stuff.

3 characters were the real standouts here. More on them in Spoiler City.

This was everything they billed it to be. The best of the Marvel films. This film also has the distinction of being the best crowd reaction I have ever been a part of. The laughs, the cheers and particularly the cries/howls of anguish as the ending played out. Let’s take a trip to Spoiler City.

DEATH! Thanos wins! Almost everyone is dead!

Robert Downey Jr does some amazing work here. Most of it is due to the terrific emotional bond they have developed between Stark and Peter Parker. Peter’s death served as the emotional bottom of the film as he turns to ash in Tony’s arms, whimpering about not wanting to die and apologizing to Tony for failing. Holy shit.

Josh Brolin stole the movie. His Thanos is completely relatable. I am mildly amazed that they actually WENT THERE. They let Thanos win and kill half the population of the universe.

Now, for fun: