a review of 复仇者联盟3：无限战争

Can we just take a second to appreciate the sheer scale of this movie? Infinity War wastes no time getting started as the opening moments show Thanos having already begun his assault on the MCU. I wonder if this was actually the best move. I love how the movie goes nonstop, but the way the initial slaughter is handled cheapens the death of some of the MCU's more memorable side-characters. These moments are meant to establish Thanos as the baddest dude in the galaxy right off the bat, but we already knew that going into the movie. A brief bit of buildup would have gone a long way as the beginning of the film just feels like shock value. Things get better from there though. I love how Marvel brought together all these moving pieces from their catalog of films without sacrificing the unique feeling each of them has in their own standalone entries. Almost every hero they have made it into the movie. They're not all onscreen at once. Instead Infinity War splits them up in several different teams of cross-overs that effectively make the fight feel so incredibly large. It really sells the desperation inherent to the conflict at hand when everybody is going to such great lengths of finding their own ways to combat Thanos from so many different angles. You get a pretty nice picture of just how big the MCU currently is. The action is phenomenal. The battles are huge and intense. Even the henchmen of Thanos provide a nice challenge for these veteran superheroes. As cool as it is to see the big bad's help prove to be a threat as well, it's a little disappointing that they are involved in so much of what's going on. With Thanos off collecting the last of the infinity stones, these guys (and gal) are who The Avengers spend most of their time fighting. These are some knock down, drag out fights that are cool to watch, but these are also some lame side-villains. They're so faceless that the movie itself only bothers to tell us one of their names. As for Thanos himself the big question is whether or not he fixes Marvel's villain problem. The answer is only partially. For the first time in the MCU we are given a villain that proves to be a real danger to these characters. There are actual stakes this time around and we know that some of these heroes might never come back. This imbues the movie with a sense of tension no superhero film has ever had before. Infinity War tries to make Thanos deeper than any of the foes before him as well. That's where the disappointment sets in. The scenes where they try to show him as a more conflicted villain with an emotional center fall flat as this is the first time we've ever really spent time with him. His socioeconomic motives are interesting, but we still aren't able to feel his motivations on a personal level. So really what makes him so memorable isn't what's going on in his head or heart. It's literally just that he's a powerhouse who spills the blood of those we've come to care about. In the end is he one of the better Marvel villains? Most definitely. The best? Not at all. That long teased Infinity War has finally begun and is remarkable due to how huge it is. This might just be the most ambitious thing to ever hit the big-screen in terms of scope. The way it juggles all these different characters and places them all onscreen in one film while keeping their distinctive qualities intact is it's greatest achievement. The characters we love have finally come face to face with an antagonist that can and does do some real damage to their lives and universe. While Thanos is ultimately kind of bland it's nice to know that he can at least shake things up in surprising ways that keep us on our toes and have us dying to know what is coming next for the MCU. The ending is the most bold thing Marvel has done with their cinematic universe thus far. It's only slightly cheapened by the fact that we know things will likely be reversed in the way we expect, but until then things are looking pretty bleak for the world's mightiest heroes. This is a must watch for anyone who has ever followed the stories up to this point. There are just some issues that have kept it from reaching it's fullest potential.