The movie is a classic action film, filled with explosions, fight scenes, and snarky comedic wordplay.
By Sean David Hartman
If you are like most people who saw Avengers: Infinity War, the only thing you are talking about and remembering is that ending. And it was certainly…something.
The problem is, we as a fanbase have been so caught up with the ending, we don’t stop to think—wait, how was the rest of it?
Can you even recite the basic plot points by rote memory? Do you remember what happened during the movie? Was the movie even good?
I think it was a wise decision for the MCU to end Avengers: Infinity War the way it did. It hides from the fact that the remaining plot is in many ways a virtual rehash of its predecessors.
Just the very beginning of Infinity War I recognized an almost frame-by-frame repetition of the first movie. And from there, an almost identical rehash of the predictable tropes expected from an Avengers movie.
The movie begins where Thor: Ragnarok left off, and it felt virtually identical with the beginning of The Avengers, with Loki coming to retrieve the Tesseract and destroying a major base. In this case, Loki is replaced by Thanos, and S.H.I.E.L.D. Headquarters is replaced by the Asgardian refugees.
The movie follows a similar template you’ve seen quite a bit in the MCU, just repeated in multiple storylines slowly evolving from each other. It is certainly still enjoyable, but simultaneously quite predictable.
Even some simple imagery repeated itself. Hulk falling from the sky and landing in random locations is an example of this.
The movie goes along with three separate storylines, in many ways reflecting the three separate phases that led up to this. Phase I revolved primarily around Iron Man, going after Thanos on a foreign planet alongside Spider-Man and Doctor Strange, eventually being joined with the Guardians of the Galaxy, minus a few key characters.
This storyline was potentially the most entertaining, with a snarky triumvirate of Strange, Stark, and Quill combatting each other in a war of wits and words. Combine that with Drax’s literal humor and Spider-Man’s childlike whimsy, it is certainly the one with the most laughs.
Meanwhile, Thor has united with Groot and Rocket Rabbit to rebuild his hammer. In all honesty, this storyline seemed relatively forced, with only one notable exception: GIANT. PETER. DINKLAGE!!!
Finally, in Wakanda, Captain America and Black Panther must find a way to remove the Mind Stone from Vision to destroy it safely, all while simultaneously protecting him from Thanos’ coming horde of mutant soldiers. This felt like a classic battle scene that you see quite often in science fiction and fantasy.
The movie does allow a unique perspective, with diverse characters acting off diverse characters, and with an ensemble cast they are certainly able to pull it off.
In addition, Thanos’ neo-Malthusian motivations make me feel that this movie is less a superhero movie and more a billion-dollar adaptation of Jonathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal.
But the movie is a classic action film, filled with explosions, fight scenes, and snarky comedic wordplay. It is, at least until its finality, a very predictable cliched movie.
Enjoyable, but not special. At least until the end…
Sean David Hartman is a reporter for the Central Florida Post, covering both politics and entertainment issues. He is a political operative who describes himself as a “bleeding-heart libertarian”. Hartman is autistic and bipolar and supports the neurodiversity movement and protecting the constitutional rights of those with mental health conditions.
