Avengers: Infinity War (2018) — Kate's Corner Blog

I went to see Avengers: Infinity War (2018) twice for no other reason than the fact that I felt very conflicted about this film. Following the conclusion of my first screening, I was just short of furious at the plotline and character developments made in the movie. However, I was pretty certain that a second viewing would ease my disappointment and perhaps clear up some of the disdainful reactions I had throughout the film. I was only partly correct in that assumption. While I still don’t believe the movie is incredible, I now realize that, because of its nature as the setup for the second part of Avengers: Infinity War, certain concessions had to be made in the unfolding of the film’s storyline.

God giveth and God taketh away

One of the first things I noticed from the newest Avengers is that the writers undid all of the heavy lifting from some of Marvel’s previous films. Take, for instance, Thor’s hammer and eye. In Thor: Ragnarok (2017), Thor’s sister, Hela, swiftly removes his right eye almost as fast as she shatters Mjölnir, a fixture of the MCU that has been the undeniable symbol of Thor’s strength since its first appearance in the end-credits scene of Iron Man 2 (2010). However, in Avengers: Infinity War, both are restored without hesitation, which begs the question of why they even took them in Thor: Ragnarok to begin with?

If the writers are going to do away with Thor’s eye and hammer in one film and give them back in another, there doesn’t really seem to be a purpose in removing them in the first place. According to Odin, Mjölnir was simply a channel for Thor’s strength, like the training wheels affixed to any child’s first Schwinn. By destroying it, we saw for the first time Thor’s immense supernatural abilities without restraint. It felt like the lid of a shaken soda can had finally popped and all that remained was sheer power and devastation. And then the writers had to go an renege, thrusting Thor back down a notch to needing yet another tool (in the form of Stormbreaker) in order to rival Thanos. And, of course, let’s not forget the eye Rocket gifts to Thor that similarly defeats the reasoning behind him having lost it only months prior. It was redundant and wholly unnecessary, in my opinion. It made the advancements of his character pointless in the end.

Another instance where we see the writers work backwards on a storyline is when Groot dies, yet again! He was back for a hot minute in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017) and most of Avengers: Infinity War (with little to no contributions made until the creation of Stormbreaker). Why the writers bothered to bring him back in the first place is a complete mystery to me if they were planning on getting rid of him again only a couple movies later, with no real dimension added to the character in between.

Plot hole

Although the absence of certain characters was explained (Hawkeye and Ant-Man took deals to get out of the mess that was created in Captain America: Civil War [2016]), there were some missing pieces that were never explained. For instance, where was Valkyrie in Avengers: Infinity War? We know that she was aboard the same ship as Thor at the end of Thor: Ragnarok so are we to assume that she was one of the many Asgardians murdered by Thanos in the beginning of the film? That was a rather large plot leap considering she is as strong - if not stronger - than Thor himself and I would imagine would be very capable of at least fending off Thanos’ attack.

According to a brief statement made by Joe Russo at a Q&A at the University of Iowa, Valkyrie and a few of the other passengers aboard the Asgardian ship that was destroyed by Thanos supposedly made their escape before the real devastation occurred. Although this is all well and good, there was no video evidence to support this. Avengers: Infinity War started with the Asgardian ship being poked by laser blasts coming from Thanos’ ship as a distress signal was being sent over the radio. Nowhere in that sequence did I see any escape pods being released from the ship.

This also begs the question of why the Valkyrie would abandon ship but not, say, Thor’s weakling brother, Loki, who has proven to have far less of a vested interest in Asgard’s survival over the years. If the best fighters really stayed behind to fend off Thanos, she should have been among them. And yes, the argument could be made that the innocent Asgardian survivors would need someone to lead and protect them as they escaped, but that could have just as easily been Heimdall since that’s what he had been doing for the entirety of Thor: Ragnarok.

I suppose it’s possible that we’ll see a surprise visit from them in the second part of Avengers: Infinity War, if they survived Thanos’ genocide. God knows the Avengers will need all the help they can get.

Big guns, last minute

There was a very hasty reveal made in the end-credits scene of Avengers: Infinity War, introducing Captain Marvel as the “code red” Fury and Hill were talking about before they died. If Captain Marvel (Brie Larson) is the equivalent of a “code red” to Fury, why wasn’t she called in earlier? She must be a special kind of badass to warrant being Fury’s go-to call when he’s fading into oblivion. Pulling her character in at the last minute just defeats the purpose of all the heavy lifting done by the other characters throughout the film if all it takes to remedy half the universe being killed is a call to Captain Marvel.

Marvel has a knack for letting the little guys fight their hardest and then bringing in the big guns, who invariably wipe out the enemy with ease. We see this happen in Iron Man 2 (2010) when Rhodey and Stark are fighting against Ivan’s Hammer Drones and suddenly Iron Man tells War Machine to get down, consequently using his dual laser gloves to destroy the drones in one foul swoop. Rhodey follows with “I think you should lead with that next time.” Yeah, I agree.

Again, in Captain America: Civil War, Ant-Man makes a stint as a giant and changes the game completely. We see Iron Man asking his teammates if any of them are hiding any “shocking and fantastic abilities they’d like to disclose,” which furthers the whole “Why didn’t we start with that?” line of questioning.

Finally, in Avengers: Infinity War, Black Widow and Okoye are about to be crushed under alien donuts (for lack of a better word) when Scarlet Witch not only saves them but decimates enemy forces in a matter of seconds. Rather naturally, Okoye wonders why she wasn’t on the frontlines the entire time. Can’t blame her!

I’m aware a lot of these latent introductions of power players are meant to build suspense, but the last-minute introduction of Captain Marvel seems like a mistake. Undoubtedly, someone must have told Fury about Thanos - the bad guy the Avengers have been waiting years for - coming to Earth. I would imagine that, in addition to making him piss himself, that news would evoke an immediate need for a “code red” from Fury, not the delayed reaction we got after half the universe had already faded into oblivion.

10 WTF Moments

I’m just going to bullet point these because there are honestly too many to delve into:

When Heimdall made it his dying wish to summon the Bifröst using dark magic at the beginning of the movie, why in God’s name would he save Hulk alone? He could have easily saved himself, Thor, Hulk, and Loki (if he was feeling generous). Obviously, the idea was to keep Thor in space and kill Heimdall and Loki in order to inspire a rage in Thor, but the Bifröst literally went straight past Thor. It just didn’t make any sense.
We already knew that Loki was indecisive but, geez, he reached a whole new level at the start of Avengers: Infinity War. One second he’s telling Thanos he’s not even Asgardian and then the next second he’s all “I’m Loki, son of Odin.” I got whiplash from the back-and-forth of it all. I’m aware that Loki’s death was inevitable but I didn’t imagine that it was going to be quite so pathetic. Between his obvious confusion over his heritage and his meager attempt at killing Thanos, the entire scene was drawn out for far too long. And I’m not 100% sold on the idea that Loki is really dead. We saw him tackle Thor to the ground before the fight between Thanos and Hulk but then in the following sequence, he appears rather randomly, as if he had snuck away in the meantime and left a magical clone to take the throat-crushing blow from Thanos. It’s a stretch, sure, but not totally out of character for him. And, after all, Loki made it abundantly clear that he wasn’t Asgardian so the destruction of the ship would have almost certainly killed him, but he may have already known that it wouldn’t have killed Thor.
Elizabeth Olsen needs a dialect coach, stat. Besides being a weak actress in this role overall, the blatant lack in her capacity to keep Scarlet Witch’s Sokovian accent alive is just plain insulting. It borders on Dick Van Dyke’s accent in Mary Poppins (1964). Considering how few lines she has, I really don’t think it’s a stretch to ask that she stick with her character’s dynamics and hold fast to Scarlet Witch’s Sokovian accent.
The Scarlet Witch also needs a new makeup team. We see cuts and scrapes on Wanda’s face after her fight in Scotland with Thanos’ henchmen but then in the following scene where the Avengers return to their facility in upstate New York, her skin is unblemished and faultless. Feels like a rookie mistake.
Spider-Man is incapable of breathing when leaving Earth’s atmosphere aboard Ebony Maw’s ship; however, all is well when he and Iron Man are on Titan, far from the comfortable breathing atmosphere of their home planet. So how can both somehow manage to stay alive without their suits in space when Spider-Man obviously couldn’t exiting Earth’s atmosphere. I get how Quill is able to survive - he’s half celestial - but not Stark and Parker.
When taking fire from the alien force attacking Wakanda, Black Panther decided it best to open the border wall that was the only thing protecting them. In doing so, he focused the brunt of the assault through that small opened gate rather than allowing the “space dogs,” as Rocket put it, to spread out around the city. However, there is an error in his logic. By thinning out the herd, the protective wall over Wakanda would be sustaining smaller hits to various areas rather than one larger hit to a single space. In other words, it would actually be beneficial to let the alien force surround the wall because they are weaker that way and far less capable of breaking through the barrier by sheer force. But for the sake of cinematic decision making, by all means, open the wall!
When the Avengers bring Vision to Wakanda in order to remove the Mind Stone, Shuri disses Banner so bad when she inquires as to why he didn’t use a certain system in Vision’s creation. Although this was humorous, my bullshit radar was going through the roof during this scene. We’re supposed to expect that Shuri, a teenager, knows more about biomechanics than Bruce Banner and Tony Stark combined?! Yeah, I don’t think so.
After Gamora confesses to knowing where the Soul Stone is, she and Thanos retire to Vormir to retrieve it. In the meantime, Thanos’ men were kind enough to rebuild Nebula, which made absolutely zero sense considering she’s a badass fighting machine that was only incapacitated due to the fact that she was torn into a million mechanical pieces on Thanos’ ship. Putting her back together was ridiculous, and showed a blatant lack of creativity on the writers’ part. Obviously, Nebula needed to make it to Titan because she will serve as Stark’s only way home to Earth aboard Quill’s ship but how she got there was a stretch and beyond my ability for suspension of disbelief.
Sure, Thor’s new ax, Stormbreaker, is cool. But let’s do the math here. Stormbreaker was created by a dying star while the Infinity Stones were created by an exploding universe. So how in God’s name was Thor’s puny ax able to cut through the collective power of the Infinity Stones and slice right into Thanos’ chest? It’s. Just. Not. Possible. The only way this could be explained is if the writers figured that both Thor’s ax and Thanos’ gauntlet were created from the same star and therefore are equal in power. The flaw here, however, is that Thanos’ gauntlet is protected by six of the strongest entities in the universe. So there’s really no way in which Thor’s ax would have gotten even remotely close enough to pierce Thanos’ skin.
The Avengers rest their confidence in their plan to destroy the Mind Stone after removing it from Vision’s head. However, that plan quickly goes awry and Scarlet Witch is left little choice but to destroy the stone while it’s still implanted in Vision. Although this was a touching scene and one of the few that has inspired confidence in Elizabeth Olsen’s ability to fulfill this role, it was entirely pointless. All of the Avengers had been briefed on exactly what the stones were and how they functioned. So it stands to reason that anything they did to negate Thanos’ ability to finish his quest could easily be undone by the Time Stone he acquired on Titan. Considering that the movie was already way too long, I think we could have done without the unnecessary martyrdom of Vision at the hands of his lover if Thanos was ultimately going to bring him back anyways.

So there you have it folks. A decisive break down of Avengers: Infinity War. There are other points I could have addressed but, for the sake of saving time, I’ve only highlighted the key parts that stuck out to me throughout the film. Although this was far from my favorite film in the Marvel Universe, I am holding out hope that many of the mistakes made in this movie were simply a means to an end in getting us to a much more fulfilling second half of the story. I guess we’ll see!