10.5.18

Avengers: Infinity War - Review

MASSIVE SPOILER WARNING! THERE WILL BE MASSIVE SPOILERS BECAUSE I GUESS EVERYTHING I COULD SAY IS A SPOILER SO I WON'T EVEN TRY!
 
Good, now that I have this out of my system, I can start to get everything about Infinity War out of my system as well - and obviously, there is a lot.
I assume that everyone reading this knows about the plot and the back story that lead to it so I will do without a summary of the story and jump right into the criticism/thoughts on different stuff. Cool? Cool.

Let's start with the first deaths: Loki and Heimdall. While a big part of me started liking the MCU because of Loki in Avengers (yes, I used to be that kind of basic teenage fangirl, don't judge me), Heimdall hit me a lot more personally. Loki already died before, so it's not something shocking or new to see - that's the problem with having characters die more than once, it makes the audience insensitive to it happening again. Even with the certainty that this time he won't come back - the Russo brothers aka Thanos made that very clear in a not so subtle way - there's still that feeling of "eh, he might come back after a while, he's too popular" that just lingers on. I don't trust Marvel on deaths anymore. Fun fact: The same thing happened to me with Doctor Who during the Moffat era and now I don't get emotional at all when a character dies in the DW universe.

However, rumors are the Russos argued that Loki will stay dead because, and I quote, "Tom Hiddleston is getting too old". Even though I completely agree that it's time for Loki to actually stay dead - are you fucking kidding me? Tom Hiddleston is 37. He is a lot younger than, say, Robert Downey junior, or Samuel L. Jackson, he is younger than Chadwick Boseman who is handled as "a fresh new face" - and besides, he did not change at all! When you compare Loki now to Loki in Thor 1, he still looks the same - if anything, just a bit worn down by all the things all of them have gone through. I don't know about you but Loki did have some very stressful years - if anything, he looks tired, and it makes perfect sense! Tom getting "old" is not even close to a good point of why Loki has to stay dead. Tom maybe not being willing anymore to play that role, letting go of him so he can turn to do other movies, Lokis character arc being pushed to the fullest, those are decent reasons. Get your shit together, please.

Another thing that starts right here is why I think that with Infinity War the MCU has outdone itself: The overall story is a story of failure. All those superheroes are doing their best to fight and stop Thanos, and a lot of times they did everything right, and they still fail. This makes Infinity War as frustrating as it is great because of this. It's something we all have to remember all the time, no matter how good we are doing and even if we do everything right there is potential to fail. Sure, in our personal lives failure rarely means the death of half the universe, but still - important to keep in mind. What's even more frustrating is all the times when you think they did it and then they didn't: Sure, it was clear that Loki wouldn't kill Thanos because then the movie would have been over within minutes (even though that could have been an interesting plot twist - originally assigned bad guy for the movie gets killed within minutes, unsuspected new bad guy never mentioned in a trailer or anything takes over. Or even one of the guys who are supposed to be the good guys. I'll be back in a bit, just writing a genius script to sell to Hollywood for a shitload of money.). I was a bit tricked as well of the illusion Thanos made up on Knowhere where Gamora killed him, but that would have been too soon as well. I would have loved the retrieval of the soul stone to be the last obstacle on Thanos' way, though, because I wished Gamora would have been right: Thanos' love for her is not exactly real love so she would have still died there, but it wouldn't have given him the stone. It would have been for nothing. He maybe would have brought her back from death by using the time stone then, but ultimately, his quest for all the stones would have ended there. That would have been a good end. However, I understand why it couldn't be that and that for the love to count it doesn't have to be real love in everyones perception - it was enough that Thanos, despite his really shitty behaviour given that, loved Gamora to his own understanding. But, I don't know, I would have liked this as an alternative ending as well. Just a thought on how the story could have proceeded.
That it worked was a very frustrating point as well though, mostly because Gamora pointed out how it couldn't work and we all believed it. Then there were Iron Man, Spider-Man, Dr. Strange, Starlord, Drax and Manthis who did an incredible job on Titan until Starlord fucked it up - they were so close to actually stopping Thanos, damnit! Peter, you fucking idiot! (Quill, not Parker, obvs.) That was the point where it got really frustrating, especially since Peter could have done better, they didn't do everything right and still failed, he just fucked. Up.

I think it was obvious that Shuri wouldn't quite make it removing the mind stone from Vision, however, when Wanda destroyed it, I was so, so sure it was over - and then Thanos used the time stone on her just to kill Vision again (which was ouch). Which personally, I didn't think of but when it happened it seemed so obvious as well. Of course, since he now has the power to play with time, he's going to use it for exactly that.

And then there's Thor. While I was really, really hoping for him to finally stop this nightmare, I am so glad that he didn't. I feel like "Thor coming in last second to save the day (when no one expects him anymore)" was a 'plot twist' a bit overdone in the past and I am so so glad that this wasn't the solution to the problem this time again even though that meant that now Thanos has all the stones and does his thing.

To be honest, I completely forgot there was going to be an Infinity War II so when people started dissolving and the credits started rolling without that being fixed I was a bit... dead inside because I thought for a second that with this the MCU was finished and over and done. Then I remembered that a) at least Ant-Man and the Wasp was on its way and b) there was way too many arcs not finished yet for it to end right here. And then I remembered there was a part 2 coming. Oh sweet relieve! Thank god!

Speaking of characters dissolving: I am still impressed by how little I felt sad. Peter Parker dissolving actually made me tear up a bit because him reacting so much to it and being so scared really hurt (and he's my son and I love him!), but for everyone else, I just took over their lethargy and hopelessness. After that, I just felt really dead and empty inside, but not really sad. For me, that's pretty unusual - I tend to have a lot of feelings both for movies and in general. I cry a lot during movies. Not even just when it's sad, I tend to even sob like a baby when something is just really beautiful. I am very emotional. So I guess, feeling only empty is... something? I'm not sure what but something.
So actually I wanted to write this review a week ago already. I watched it on English first as I tend to do, but then I couldn't quite gather my thoughts on it into something that even closely resembles a coherent text (I know that this one isn't that coherent either). Thus, I had to rewatch it - in German this time. And unlike for all the other movies I reviewed on here so far, I have to make a remark on the translation: Why on earth would you translate "Wakanda forever" to "Wakanda über alles" (=Wakanda above everything else)? Not only does it change the overall tone of the phrase from "Wakanda forever - we just want this country and culture to last" to "Wakanda above everything else - we are much better than you" which plays into alt-rights hands dragging the idea of a sovereign advanced African country - how can you do this in Germany where we had "Deutschland über alles" (=Germany above everything else) in the national anthem during the NS era and thus it also has a very foul additional taste to it? Especially when it comes from black people? Who said this was an okay translation? Who waved that through? Now I completely understand that sometimes due to lip movement things can't be translated directly without it looking weird when the character says it in the synchronization. But not in this case, no, "Wakanda für immer" would have worked perfectly fine - instead, they chose a translation with that connotation and a syllable more to even fuck up the lip movement thing along with it. Please stop putting nazi sentences into black peoples mouths.
I just really needed to address this now that I noticed it, and along with it, I noticed I didn't watch Black Panther in German yet - I think I won't at all now if I can help it because I think I may cringe every time I hear this translation.

Now for a more positive ending, I want to tell you about the overall stuff I liked about Infinity War:
Thanos' (Josh Brolins) expressions are gold. That man was cast very well and I am glad that with this story we got to enjoy the full range of what he can do with his face.
Young Gamora was A+ casting as well - Ariana Greenblatt does look a lot like a child version of Zoe Saldana. Under the green makeup, that is. But it works so well!

I love how they mashed up all the different musical styles the separate movies (Avengers, Guardians of the Galaxy, Black Panther) have. It helped to make it not too much about one person or one group.
I love the Hulk side plot where the Hulk has ego issues due to Thanos beating him up without even using the infinity stones - I love seeing Bruce on its own still getting shit done without being green. It's what Mark Ruffalo and Bruce Banner as a character deserve.

And last but not least, I love the ethical problems coming up all throughout the movie: Thanos' reason to want to wipe out half of the population of the universe does make sense and is somewhat understandable (but yes, I am still wondering as well if he couldn't just have doubled resources) and both Peter Quill promising to kill Gamora and Wanda promising to kill Vision by destroying the stone was basically the trolley problem (killing one person you love to save multiple others, classic utilitarism), so Chidi Anagonye (The Good Place, anyone?) would have had a big philosophy boner over this one - and really bad stomach cramps.

I'm really looking forward to Infinity War II. I have no idea how all of this could be fixed and I am thrilled to see how it gets done. I am curious if the Hulk issue will be resolved and how. I am curious about who will come back and if people come back in the first place. I am kinda hoping for Tonys and Peppers wedding to be the finishing point for the original Avengers and the MCU being pursued with the newer characters like Spidey, Black Panther, Ant-Man etc., the ones we haven't seen as much from yet. I think it's been a while since I was that hyped about the MCU.