FINALLY, IT'S here, has already broken records, and has the chance to be the highest grossing blockbuster of all time, finally surpassing 1997's Titanic. This is a movie that is easy to take for granted, but the scale of the story telling is a lot more impressive than any of the CGI.
This is a story that started 10 years ago and spans 20 films. When Marvel Studios released Iron Man in 2007, the final shot of that film revealed it was going to be part of the Marvel cinematic universe. Marvel was going to make films about all the key characters it had rights too. The movies would have self contained stories but at the same time belong to one large, over-arching story, culminating in the Infinity War.
It was ambitious. It is one thing to make the films, it is quite another to make them (mostly ) good, and Marvel actually managed to do that. When we catch up with our heroes they are already in a bad way. Thor is missing an eye, his home world is destroyed, and his people have been taken captive by the villain of the film and all around jerk, Thanos, destroyer of worlds. Captain America is on the run and Tony Stark is married to Gweneth Palthrow. I cannot imagine which of those three scenarios I would hate the most.
Thanos’s goal is to find the seven infinity stones to make him the most powerful being in the universe, and so the Avengers must stop him. The collection of actors here is probably the best cast ever assembled for a single film, but the directors are canny enough to lean in on two of the more underrated actors and certainly not the biggest names. The emotional depth of the film comes from Chris Hemsworth’s Thor and Zoe Saldana’s Gamora - not even in the top five of most loved or biggest name actors, it was a bold choice that really pays off.While I'm sure there are many plot holes, it all genuinely seems to fit together, and I cannot overstate how impressive that is. The selflessness of the actors, and even the directors, is really clear. Not one actor takes up over 25 per cent of the screen time and Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn wrote all the dialogue for his characters. That in particular was a brilliant touch. His unique voice really suits those characters so to have the dialogue for them, written by Gunn, was a stroke of genius and I’m sure cost the studio and the Russo brothers.
Considering the disappointment of a lot of blockbusters in the last few months, this is probably the best experience I have had in a cinema this year.
