Avoided the first day screenings, as i'd been burned after the disaster of watching back-to-back The Farce Awakens+The Last Jedi in a 7 hours double feature... I went in to Infinity War ... EXTREMELY hesitant that they'd butcher Infinity War or make it mediocre, that Disney would have stepped in to ruin the franchise. It was a very real feeling of disgust i still have.
To be fair, I thought TLJ was mediocre, but in my defense, it was 3am and i gave it a 6/10. How do you rate a movie that kills the franchise and any desire to see another Star Wars film... And Disney's Lucasfilm is part of the same team behind Marvel's juggernaut of success.
So ... Yeah. I didn't give Avengers much of a chance. I just turned up to the cinema, no Hype, no preorders or popcorn, just get it over with. Seeing this on my birthday, I didn't get wholly attached to the characters, but I heard people gasp out loud. More than once at the ending. Subverted Expectations, and everything.
It is hard to think that this movie is going to be compared to Justice League. It's "technically" similar. In as much as Infinity War is similar to Empire Strikes Back's merging of separate character arcs into a 3 act structure , the stretching of a heroic character to facing not horrors beyond imagining, instead, it's epic heroism, facing aliens that are all-too-human, with the powers of Gods. It isn't a realistic or fantastic setting, it's a penultimate fantasy setting. of putting "batman" i.e. the mirror/analogue of an ideal mortal man (which is the platonic or basic hero archetype of batman/iron man/random guy in a cape/suit) against a literal Wizard. or a Literal God. and a God Killer. and holding their own. It's FUN to believe in superheroes, it lifts the bar for EPIC again.
Bravo. You've made me enjoy Epic fantasy stories again, despite how mutilated or deconstructed they've become in other franchises.
I actually missed something in the movie because i turned my head to look at who was crying. (no spoilers, but you can probably guess)
Now, there's flaws in the storytelling, they hit some character HARD with the Nerf-Bat (Strange, Vision, Hulk, Thor), and some characters Spent big on their LootBox upgrades (Iron Man, Scarlet Witch, Black Widow) etc. It didn't ruin the movie, but it left a lot of What-If/Why-Didn't-They questions lingering where the Jokes begin. I can logically understand why, it was necessary, i.e. they needed the Hawkeye "balance" pass (to borrow from PvP games, where they scale a 'boring' or 'bad' character to be massively overpowered for social reasons or to stop the roster from being too narrow), but also because Hawkeye, and Black Widow are just regular people with SKILLS.
I get that it's not perfect. They had to make a movie with ... 30 heroes in it ? And they had a few on the Bench, Ant-Man, Hawkeye, etc.
So,
I kind of regret not seeing it more than once now. Mostly because it's way too crammed with vignettes and moments, the 2 1/2 hours isn't punishing, (except to the collective bladders, sic. )
but, it was just enthralling from start to finish, like all the Marvel movies. It's not perfect, but it is a Master Work in cinema, this is a kind of benchmark for superhero movies for the next 30 years. For me, this comes up to Fight Club or The Matrix, in sheer spectacle and WOW... It's really that good. It's going to get up there with Dark Night and the Nolan Batman Trilogy.
You can put this back to back with Avengers which just comes up to the 9 out of 10, this goes beyond the 9/10 rating and makes other 9/10 movies look pale by comparison. There are very few PERFECT movies that deliver the essential 10/10 experience. Just as it's hard to go below 5/10, it's hard to go above 9.9/10. It's somewhat similar to the arc for a movie like Empire Strikes back as well,
So yeah, I've thought about it, and changed the 8 to a 10. This is the sort of movie that is the culmination of 10+ years and 6 to 7 seasons of TV, 20+ movies, And I just can't think of any movie that is going to surpass this, apart from Part 2, when they try to turn it around, and bring in --SuperGirl-- Captain Marvel, then, explain the ending, and the aftermath(s) in the next 2 Movies, and the TV shows.
Review by TolimanVIP 10BlockedParent2018-04-30T06:21:30Z
Avoided the first day screenings, as i'd been burned after the disaster of watching back-to-back The Farce Awakens+The Last Jedi in a 7 hours double feature... I went in to Infinity War ... EXTREMELY hesitant that they'd butcher Infinity War or make it mediocre, that Disney would have stepped in to ruin the franchise. It was a very real feeling of disgust i still have.
To be fair, I thought TLJ was mediocre, but in my defense, it was 3am and i gave it a 6/10. How do you rate a movie that kills the franchise and any desire to see another Star Wars film... And Disney's Lucasfilm is part of the same team behind Marvel's juggernaut of success.
So ... Yeah. I didn't give Avengers much of a chance. I just turned up to the cinema, no Hype, no preorders or popcorn, just get it over with. Seeing this on my birthday, I didn't get wholly attached to the characters, but I heard people gasp out loud. More than once at the ending. Subverted Expectations, and everything.
It is hard to think that this movie is going to be compared to Justice League. It's "technically" similar. In as much as Infinity War is similar to Empire Strikes Back's merging of separate character arcs into a 3 act structure , the stretching of a heroic character to facing not horrors beyond imagining, instead, it's epic heroism, facing aliens that are all-too-human, with the powers of Gods. It isn't a realistic or fantastic setting, it's a penultimate fantasy setting. of putting "batman" i.e. the mirror/analogue of an ideal mortal man (which is the platonic or basic hero archetype of batman/iron man/random guy in a cape/suit) against a literal Wizard. or a Literal God. and a God Killer. and holding their own. It's FUN to believe in superheroes, it lifts the bar for EPIC again.
Bravo. You've made me enjoy Epic fantasy stories again, despite how mutilated or deconstructed they've become in other franchises.
I actually missed something in the movie because i turned my head to look at who was crying. (no spoilers, but you can probably guess)
Now, there's flaws in the storytelling, they hit some character HARD with the Nerf-Bat (Strange, Vision, Hulk, Thor), and some characters Spent big on their LootBox upgrades (Iron Man, Scarlet Witch, Black Widow) etc. It didn't ruin the movie, but it left a lot of What-If/Why-Didn't-They questions lingering where the Jokes begin. I can logically understand why, it was necessary, i.e. they needed the Hawkeye "balance" pass (to borrow from PvP games, where they scale a 'boring' or 'bad' character to be massively overpowered for social reasons or to stop the roster from being too narrow), but also because Hawkeye, and Black Widow are just regular people with SKILLS.
I get that it's not perfect. They had to make a movie with ... 30 heroes in it ? And they had a few on the Bench, Ant-Man, Hawkeye, etc.
So,
I kind of regret not seeing it more than once now. Mostly because it's way too crammed with vignettes and moments, the 2 1/2 hours isn't punishing, (except to the collective bladders, sic. )
but, it was just enthralling from start to finish, like all the Marvel movies. It's not perfect, but it is a Master Work in cinema, this is a kind of benchmark for superhero movies for the next 30 years. For me, this comes up to Fight Club or The Matrix, in sheer spectacle and WOW... It's really that good. It's going to get up there with Dark Night and the Nolan Batman Trilogy.
You can put this back to back with Avengers which just comes up to the 9 out of 10, this goes beyond the 9/10 rating and makes other 9/10 movies look pale by comparison. There are very few PERFECT movies that deliver the essential 10/10 experience. Just as it's hard to go below 5/10, it's hard to go above 9.9/10. It's somewhat similar to the arc for a movie like Empire Strikes back as well,
So yeah, I've thought about it, and changed the 8 to a 10. This is the sort of movie that is the culmination of 10+ years and 6 to 7 seasons of TV, 20+ movies, And I just can't think of any movie that is going to surpass this, apart from Part 2, when they try to turn it around, and bring in --SuperGirl-- Captain Marvel, then, explain the ending, and the aftermath(s) in the next 2 Movies, and the TV shows.