I wasn’t ready for Avengers: Infinity War. I’ve been watching Marvel movies since 2008, but by the end of this installment, as the credits silently rolled, I just turned to my fellow moviegoer and uttered, “I don’t know how I feel about this.” It took more than a week of processing with others to fully appreciate this moment. Marvel made its latest entry as unpredictable as Game of Thrones and has left fans reeling with theories instead of just basking in pure adulation. We can’t wait to find out what happens next. As someone who watches a lot of movies, it takes a lot to leave me uncertain, which is exciting for a known quantity such as a Marvel movie in the cinematic universe.
Avengers: Infinity War is what the DC Extended Universe wanted to be, unflinchingly and mercilessly searing in its consequences, but DCEU could never achieve while not losing Marvel’s winning and relatable personality. After the dreadful Avengers: Age of Ultron, I am relieved that the Avengers as a collection of characters have resumed being as engaging as the heroes’ standalone movies. This movie was able to seamlessly meld numerous individual worlds without becoming a muddy mess or chaotic. If you haven’t seen the previous installments, I don’t know what you would get out of this movie other than spectacle, which if that is what you’re looking for, come on board, otherwise you will probably just leave confused. I left with a few questions, and I’ve been on board since the beginning. On the other hand, I never read the comics so perhaps some of the answers are there.
The best part of Avengers: Infinity War is the villain, Thanos. Who says that CGI can’t have emotion? Josh Brolin’s voice acting was superb. Christopher Vogler wisely wrote that “Every villain is a hero of his or her own story,” and Thanos is the embodiment of this phrase. The trajectory of the film seems less shocking if you flip your sympathies going in and make the Avengers into the villains in Thanos’ story. They act as obstacles to his ultimate goal and do not share his morals. He seems weary at the slog of fighting and takes no joy in his battle. He suffers loss and wants rest. He respects and empathizes with his opponents. He is not needlessly cruel though his subordinates are. Any one of the Children of Thanos would have made a daunting villain for the Avengers to face, but as always, the biggest enemy is the self.
I think that criticism of Avengers: Infinity War as pure corporate exploitation lies in the fact that the recent standalone movies, specifically Captain America: Civil War, Black Panther and Thor: Ragnarok though to a lesser extent Spider-Man: Homecoming explicitly tackle issues of abuse of power and privilege and how to rectify these abuses as a hero, the ultimate locus of power and privilege whereas this entry feels remarkably free of such concerns, but is filled with quips and action.
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I’m going to address the characters individually then the overall story before tackling the deeper meaning behind Avengers: Infinity War, which is the individual and collective response to past trauma and credible threats.
Thor has developed wonderfully as a character. Other than death, he has experienced the most loss of all the Avengers, but his spirit remains indomitable. Instead of inflicting more pain on others, he empathizes with them, particularly Gamora as he relates to her dysfunctional and abusive family. On a comic book note, he finally seems like a god. His years of experience are finally showing as he traverses different realms and casually shows no surprise or prejudice at encountering different beings. He is respectful and even charmed the usually thorny Rocket by calling him Rabbit. I didn’t completely understand why he needed the ax other than to kill Thanos. We just found out that he never needed the hammer because the power was always inside of him yet he seems to need the ax to survive taking the full blast of a star. Sadly Thor was never a strategic genius and is more impulsive so while he wanted to kill Thanos and had the ability to, he totally missed an opportunity.
I predicted that Loki would be one of the first to die. While he could never make up for what he did in the past, at least he died nobly. Loki was smart enough to realize that he couldn’t take Thanos so he tried to trick him. He lived how he died. Thanos is not some mindless villain. He knows the enemy.
While Hulk completely punked out, who could blame him? He just got his butt handed to him by Thanos. As Mike Tyson said, “Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.” It is the first time that he felt his mortality, and his brute strength is nothing in comparison to the Titan. He was out and about for longer than he should have been anyway so it is Bruce’s turn to shine. Dr. Banner has a lot of will, but I think that Okoye would agree that he should have stayed in the lab until Shuri kicked him out for being at the back of the class. The worst CGI was Bruce in the Iron Man gear. They’re both going to have to retire or at least have a sabbatical because at this point, he has no juice.
Most improved character goes to Doctor Strange. I would have preferred if Avengers: Infinity War was the first time that I met him because when he said that he was a master of the mystical arts, I believed him whereas I barely tolerated his arrogance and presumption in his initial appearance. It didn’t hurt that he kept verbally knocking out Tony. He has his priorities straight, and I am confident that his actions were based on the overall good of all. The only negative: he had the ability to open up a portal and cut off Thanos’ hand, but didn’t take it.
If we’re really honest with ourselves, Avengers: Infinity War could not exist without Tony’s PTSD induced fuckery after the first Avengers movie. He made Vision in Avengers: Age of Ultron. Then because he felt guilty at the beginning of Captain America: Civil War, he sided with a guy that he knew hated his bestie Banner against his friends. Then when he didn’t feel like it, he broke the rules that he made and enforced on his friends, which meant that the team could not unite together sooner against Thanos, and a number of the team, specifically the dads in the group, Hawkeye and Ant-Man, are on house arrest and could not contribute at all. Pepper and Tony shouldn’t have kids. He made a child soldier, Spider-Man. He almost murdered someone who yes, killed his mother, but fit in the one excuse that works-he was brainwashed. Tony may have always understood the overall threat, but his solutions ended up contributing to the problem. Props for surviving a moon strike, but I kind of wanted Thanos to kill him because he is the worst enemy. He lost in his heart before he lost in the real world.
Please note that once Tony leaves Earth, everyone gets along really well with each other, and he brings the acrimonious vibe to Titan. Rhodey was like, “What accords? The reception is really bad. Click.” Steve Rogers is looking good, but other than fight and be grimly noble, he and Black Widow weren’t given much to do. It was cool that he was paralleled with Black Panther in the penultimate battle as both super soldiers, GMO and organic, led the race to battle the Arachnids. I don’t understand how individually, those things could break the forcefield and get in, but not the ships. The fact that Super Soldier Steve got flattened like a pancake in the face off with Thanos means that if they didn’t get caught up in the rapture, the Avenger dads wouldn’t have stood a chance though they would have tried if they got an opportunity. You have to be from Wakanda to fight without powers and survive. Only one section of Wakanda got messed up, but after a good scrub, they can rebuild. I’m glad that Wakambi’s traitorous ass wasn’t there. Hurrah, M’Baku is Black Panther’s new bestie!
I think that Okoye needs to be in charge. “Why was she up there all this time?” I think that given current events, she may have rethought the whole Starbucks thing or maybe just got employees from Wakanda. I have never been invested in Vision. I was more invested in the well being of Doctor Strange’s cloak, which also showed more personality. I would have let him die immediately, and there would be no movie. I didn’t care about Wanda & Vision’s love. Luckily for Black Widow, she teamed up with Okoye because Ayo does not see it for her. In the end, they are shook, which tells you how terrifying Thanos actually is.
I understand that it is irrational and wrong considering how many people died and the scope of the film, but I was mad at how little time we spent in Wakanda, how they were sidelined until the end without a meatier role. I really liked my black majority moment in the Marvel sun, and it was a little hard to go back. Also it felt like all my black people died: Heimdall, Nick Fury, Black Panther. BP finished his sentence with his ancestors, which is awkward because the last time that he was there, he was telling them that they were wrong. “Dude, I came here once. This is your third trip!” We’re left with the rest of the Black Panther crew and Rhodey. (I don’t care about Falcon. He can make himself a sandwich in the soul realm. ) The fact that the death of Spider-Man, which would have occurred wherever he was, has also affected me and others just as deeply and has been the focus of most of the think pieces subsequent to the release of this film hammers home how emotionally resonant this installment was by setting us up for a decade of investment and optimism to suffer devastating loss and thus relate to the characters on a visceral level as viewers and participants in the narrative at encountering an unstoppable apocalypse.
The snap heard around the universe resolution can go one of two ways: they come back, or they don’t. It would be fairly bad ass if they didn’t, and Disney just paid the actors for the contracted subsequent standalone films without actually making them. If they all come back, it may retroactively diminish how stark and game changing Avengers: Infinity War was. I just don’t want it to be like Dallas. There should be definitive consequences to encountering Thanos that last longer than this installment, which is why I left out the Guardians of the Galaxy until now.
Encountering Thanos for them is less an impersonal cataclysmic event with devastating personal consequences like a hurricane, and a part of their intimate personal history invading the present. Gamora is an unbeatable, clear-eyed badass in her daily life, but when faced with childhood trauma, she devolves into an emotional mess of conflict and pain who can’t see clearly to literally save her life. Abuse does not completely negate the fact that she feels a certain amount of love and connection to Thanos and vice versa. Her speeches to him are as much to remind herself of objective reality and to remain resolved against him so she can prevent herself from falling into their old personal dynamic. She came from a fundamentalist, abusive religious family. Once Red Skull explained how to get the Soul Stone, I did know what was going to happen because I saw Once Upon A Time, but the fact that she didn’t shows how emotionally turbulent it was for her just being in the presence of her dad. She and Nebula try to fight, but it is impossible to be soberly strategic when the enemy is family.
Star-Lord definitely messed up the fate of the universe, but considering that he just found out that Thanos killed his girlfriend, and he was never the smartest or most emotionally mature person in his crew, including adolescent Groot, this is in character. Mantis had a lot of heart. She didn’t know those people, but she still got in the fight at great personal risk. It appears that if you are the only one of your species, then you are just gone because your species wasn’t going to exist any way. Damn. They don’t even get to live out one life.
If Avengers: Infinity War has a lesson, it is encapsulated in Thanos’ admonishment, “I know what it is like to be right and lose nonetheless.” It is not enough to have the right idea. One must understand that individually our resolutions are flawed based on our history, our strengths and our weaknesses, especially our reaction to past trauma. Proverbs 27:17, “As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.” Collectively we can raise each other up from our individual trauma and pain. We are stronger together, but our heroes never completely got together though some tried. Even the strongest of them all, Thanos, loses everything as he won.
I think that it is interesting that Thanos likes to use bubbles when he is fighting. Did he play with bubbles as a kid or use them when he played with Gamora? He replicates his childhood trauma to resolve his childhood of trauma of poverty, cataclysm and loss. No wonder Thanos respects Tony. They’re cut from similar cloth. He gets his happy ending, but he is alone in the sun.