--Thanos, Avengers: Infinity War
". . . you kill and torture and you call it mercy."
--Gamora, Avengers: Infinity War
Thanos said, "Let there be death." And it was very good.
Infinity War stands as one of the most anticipated films in all of cinema history up to this point, with good reason--more than 15 prior movies have thoroughly prepared the cosmic stage for the villain Thanos to visit the earth with a clear objective, one both benevolent and malevolent all at once. Many of the heroes who rally to fight him have appeared in their own solo films, or more than one in several cases. The Marvel Cinematic Universe has, oftentimes, unfortunately, been a hub for gratuitous jokes, minimal stakes, and emotional shallowness (though there are definitely exceptions, like with The Incredible Hulk, Doctor Strange, and Black Panther). Films like Age of Ultron teased dark drama but then bombarded viewers with generic, out of place jokes, removing the tension from what could have been stories with gravity.
Thankfully, Infinity War finally offers fairly consistent solemnity, despite having some stupid jokes of the typical contemporary MCU kind.
As a movie like this requires in order to effectively convey the story, the visuals and acting generally are at peak quality. The amount of spectacular CGI in this movie allows for the massive scope of the events to be well-realized onscreen. When it comes to the acting, almost the entire (large) cast offers excellent performances. Chris Hemsworth, Elizabeth Olsen, Paul Bettany, Robert Downey Jr., Tom Holland, Zoe Saldana, and Josh Brolin all get scenes with significantly more emotionality than is typical in the MCU. Considering that the MCU has lately devolved, for the most part, into a relentless comedy where almost any character could make the same joke without seeming out of character at all, it was a very good move to emphasize for once that these superheroes do not need to have interchangeable personalities. And it was a relief to find that the great multitude of characters is actually balanced rather well for its size. The magnitude of the story could not have been conveyed as well without the quality acting or the fairly competent juggling of so many protagonists.
Story
Thanos, native of the planet Titan, has finally embarked on his journey to purge half of all life from the universe. Intercepting Thor's ship of Asgardians as they leave the former realm of Asgard, Thanos and his assistants quickly kill almost all of the passengers, ultimately planning to come to the earth to retrieve the infinity stones on the planet. These stones, of which there are six in total, were formed at the Big Bang, each governing an aspect of reality. After his lieutenants arrive on earth, the plethora of heroes soon splits up, with some (Strange, Stark, and Parker) heading to Titan, some (Thor, Rocket Raccoon, and Groot) pursuing their own objectives, and some (Black Widow, Scarlet Witch, the Winter Soldier) protecting Vision in Wakanda so that his infinity stone eludes Thanos' helpers. Thanos reluctantly kills his adopted daughter Gamora on a region (planet?) called Vormir and consequently accesses the soul stone. Vision's stone, though, remains out of his hands, safe for now.
The handful of heroes on Titan succeeds in apprehending Thanos, yet Peter Quill, aka Starlord of the Guardians of the Galaxy (who is a fucking irrational, insecure moron in this movie) accidentally but stupidly ensures that the plan fails. Strange soon gives Thanos his time stone, having already used it to see more than 14 million possible futures--with only one resulting in the thwarting of Thanos. The Titan teleports to Wakanda, where his minions have thus far failed to extract the stone from Vision's forehead, and he easily overpowers multiple Avengers in basic displays of power, which is now beyond the ability of even the collective Avengers to conquer.
Scarlet Witch kills Vision by destroying the stone, yet the effort proves pointless. In possession of the time stone, Thanos is able to simply rewind time and take the last stone from Vision, killing him in the process--and yet Strange tells Tony that there was no other way. It is implied but never stated that only handing over the time stone could lead to the single observed future where Thanos is eventually defeated. Possessing all six infinity stones, Thanos randomly dispenses genocide on half of humanity (and on other species maybe?), including many beloved MCU characters, with Thanos himself retreating back to another planet where the sun rises, a smile on his face. He has succeeded.
Intellectual Content
The MCU has long faced a paucity of villains with either onscreen development or significant ethical motivations. Kaecilius from Doctor Strange has benevolent intentions (fighting the Ancient One's hypocrisy in order to obtain eternal life for humanity), yet he unfortunately only unpacks them in one somewhat brief scene. Erik Killmonger from Black Panther towers above all the preceding villains, with his rightful condemnation of past injustices and yet his fallacious and immoral reaction to them. Thankfully, Thanos receives more opportunities to reveal and explain his motives than Kaecilius, which combine a sort of altruism with a mostly impersonal willingness to massacre half of all life in the universe. The altruism lies in the fact that Thanos only wants to ensure that the finite resources of the universe will not be depleted by galactic overpopulation. On a smaller scale, his past attempts to solve resource issues led to him having half of the dominant species on a planet rounded up and killed at random. Gamora outlived many of her own kind when they were exterminated in this way. Thanos, though, insists that now the inhabitants of the planet have enough food and that the planetary crisis has been averted. The problem Thanos seeks to rectify is massive--yet it may only be a perceived problem, I must say, since we see no evidence at all that all life in the universe truly is at risk because of overpopulation and overall resource scarcity.
One can commit horrendous atrocities with the best of intentions. Motives are morally significant, but they do not dictate the morality of an act all by themselves. A great evil is still a great evil even if engaged in with the most positive motives possible. Thanos exemplifies the extraordinary utilitarian lengths a being might go to in order to achieve a morally catastrophic end with the wellbeing of others in mind, all along the entirety of the road to that end. There has yet to be a Marvel movie since Doctor Strange that has the same intellectual richness, with the film exploring metaphysics, mind-body dualism, the multiverse, epistemological assumptions, and the need for humility when faced with the cosmos. Hopefully one will emerge among the next cycle of MCU movies. Still, Infinity War does provide a layered villain, which certainly can provide something to think about.
Also, Thanos makes a relatively common but absolutely idiotic mistake in reasoning: once he has a good number of the infinity stones, he talks of how he can manipulate reality into whatever he wants it to become. Yet it is utterly, inescapably impossible for logical contradictions to be realized. Logic remains necessary, universal, and inviolable regardless of the will of any being, even any possible deity. But characters in entertainment continue to make asinine claims that ignore or deny this.
Conclusion
Although it does not have as much of a consistently serious tone as The Incredible Hulk, Infinity War certainly contains several scenes of intimacy and legitimate emotional gravity--without which the retarded sort of humor so common in many recent MCU entries could have proven overpowering when it appears. Characters beloved by some viewers actually die. I hope to God that Marvel doesn't try to have its cake and eat it too by portraying the cataclysmic events of Infinity War and then just resurrecting all of the deceased heroes in the sequel. Not only is the MCU extremely crowded as it is, but the stakes would also seem diminished if a simple time rewind or other ability brings all of the dead back to life. Solemnness is what the MCU needs now. May whatever resolution awaits in the next installment not erase or trivialize the seriousness of Infinity War.
The haunting, fitting nature of the last shot need not be undermined.
1. Violence: As one might expect, Infinity War is full of displays of physical force, yet light on actual graphic content. Nothing shown is particularly bloody or brutal.
2. Profanity: Mild profanity gets used throughout.
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