When a patch-eyed Samuel L Jackson snuck his way into Iron Man’s end credits to introduce Tony Stark to the Avengers Initiative, we had little idea, a decade or so later, we’d be slap-bang in the middle of a Marvel renaissance: nineteen movies and ten TV series – and counting.
Avengers Infinity War is the culmination of everything the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been building towards over its first ten years: the creation of the biggest, loudest, brightest, most jam-packed-with-superheroes superhero movie ever made.
Mission accomplished.
Infinity War is good, or at least it’s a good way to spend a few fun, forgettable hours smiling goofily, chuckling heartily, gasping loudly and revelling in the multi-million-pound whizz-bang-a-boom spectacle of it all. It’s a movie of what-ifs and thrilling fan service, the chance to watch your favourite kooks and crooks come together to trade punches and wise-cracks amid savage battles, dying stars and falling planets.
As a Scotsman raised on big budget American movies featuring fights in exotic locations like LA and New York, it was a genuine joy for me to see Edinburgh up on the big screen, and witness a kung-fu ass-kicking unfolding in Waverley train station. PS: thanks for the deep-fried kebab gag, you bastards. It took about twenty years for the English to stop banging on about deep-fried Mars Bars. You’ve just re-set the clock…
The sheer wealth of characters in Infinity War is both a blessing and a curse: a curse because there isn’t time to provide any one character – save for Thanos – with anything but the most cursory of character development; a blessing because being able to flick between characters – or groups of characters – every ten or fifteen minutes allows the movie to feel much shorter than its titanic run-time. Kudos to Drax, who made me guffaw like a loon each time he opened his mouth.
Every good superhero story needs a good villain – something not every Marvel movie has managed to get right – but in Thanos the MCU has found arguably its greatest baddie. Physically, Thanos is imposing and powerful, even before he starts loading up his gauntlet with gemstones. Indeed, in the opening minutes of Infinity War he gives the Hulk such a decisive battering that Bruce Banner spends the remainder of the movie suffering from Hulk-related performance anxiety. The phrase ‘We have a Hulk’ is usually a pre-victory rallying cry. Infinity War establishes from the outset that even the mighty Hulk is but a greenfly buzzing around Thanos’ head. The only thing that can defeat Thanos is teamwork, something that doesn’t always come naturally to the assemblage of lone wolves who find themselves united in opposition to the big purple space-fister.
As well as being the MCU’s mightiest and best villain, Thanos is also its most rounded and sympathetic. He’s much more complex than your usual twisted genius or big angry entity who just wants to destroy everything for the sake of ticking the right boxes on the ‘So You Think You’re Evil?’ checklist.
Thanos is plagued by guilt over the demise of his once-mighty people, who Easter Island-ed themselves out of existence through complacency, decadence and overpopulation. Despite his ego and cold narcissism he appears to be capable of feeling shame, fear, pain and even – just maybe – love.
Although Thanos seeks ultimate power over time, space, reality and the universe, he only wants to wield it insofar as it aids him in his mission to arbitrarily half the total inhabitants of the universe, thereby breaking the curse that killed his own people, and giving the gift of survival to every species in existence. In his own calmly-crazy, genocidal mind he thinks he’s the good guy, which only serves to make him more dangerous.
Psychological shading not-with-standing, this is still a popcorn movie, so even during Thanos’ most affecting, introspective moments you’re forced to fill in the emotional gaps yourself by bringing your own experience of those feelings and dynamics to bear. The love Thanos professes for Gamora (feelings that will undoubtedly spill over into and propel the sequel) and the weight of his sacrifice, feel rather too thinly-sketched, contrived and convenient to have much of a genuine emotional impact. Plus, in a franchise where resurrection is more common than the cold, what weight can any death really have?
This issue with low-stakes – common to all MCU properties – also diminishes the impact of the ending. While it’s certainly bold and refreshing to see the villain win for a change, this is only part one of the story, and anyone who genuinely believes that the heroes who frittered out of existence like so much burnt toast in the wind at the end of Infinity War won’t be ‘reassembled’ in the second installment must have missed the last eighteen movies, or else have never encountered a cliffhanger before. Save your tears, people (although if Tom Holland made you shed them, fair enough; his farewell was heartwrenchingly conveyed). It’s all going to be okay. You might not get Vision back, but I’m sure you’ll be able to soldier on.
The ending would have been immeasurably bolder had Infinity War been the MCU’s final movie: if Thanos had been allowed his victory, and left at peace to watch an eternity of bittersweet sunsets, like a Professor Soran who’d made it to the Nexus, or an ultra-conservative group who’d managed to pull off the conspiracy behind Channel 4’s Utopia.
Or bolder still if this hadn’t been the final movie, but the consequences couldn’t be undone, and every subsequent movie in the series became like a superhero version of The Leftovers, dealing with grief and heartache and loss, forcing a generation of children to contemplate the injustice and futility at the core of existence. But this is Disney – and existential angst doesn’t sell very well.
As it stands, it’s possible to see the ending as a sort-of meta-commentary on the MCU itself. Perhaps we, the audience – the consumers – are Thanos, and each of the previous eighteen movie instalments are a different infinity stone for our gauntlet. Now that our gauntlet is full, we’ve succeeded in winking out half of the world’s superheroes. We’re bloody sick of them. Do we even want them to come back?
Here’s to part two, and to a multitude of explosions, jokes and fist-fights.
I’ll be there.
