Review: #AvengersInfinityWar Leaves You Guessing and Speculating Wrongly all Through

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Avengers

There is no better movie than that in which the audience is totally at a loss as regards the twists and turns of the story. It is, in fact, in the sheer helplessness of having no idea, that the script achieves its desired victory.

Related: #WakandaForever: In my Opinion, #BlackPanther Is Nothing but Much Media Hype!

‘Avengers: Infinity War’ leaves you guessing and speculating wrongly all through the duration of the movie. Like every good script, it draws you in; not just with the astonishing stunts and actions for which the visual effects team must be lauded, but with the power of the story in which philosophy meets science at the threshold of human vulnerability.

In putting together this battle which, even the greatest of superheroes will dread to partake of, Marvel Studios raised the bar on the boundaries of thought, merging effortlessly the chitin walls of fiction and reality.

If you have not carefully followed the 2012 Avengers or the 2015 ‘Avengers: Age of Ultron’’,then you might find it hard to grapple the substance of this groundbreaking motion picture. This sequel and the stories before it have been religiously linked that in seeing how they play into each other, you cannot but fall in love with Marvel’s latest offering in the series.

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As a critic, the first thing that comes to mind when one sees a movie with such an association of cast that includes Robert Downey Jr., Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, Benedict Cumberbatch, Don Cheadle, Tom Holland, Chadwick Boseman, Paul Bettany, Elizabeth Olsen, Anthony Mackie, Sebastian Stan, Danai Gurira, Letitia Wright, Dave Bautista, Zoe Saldana, Josh Brolin, and Chris Pratt, is that too many good hands will most likely ruin the soup. However, many of us who operate on this premise would have been disappointed.

In producing this movie in question, directors – Anthony and Joe Russo, alongside the writers Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, went through the ritual of ensuring that every member of the cast that appeared had an extra spice he/she brought to the table, executing their roles to the latter.

The plot is very simple; a tyrant (Thanos) sets out on a self-righteous campaign to acquire the infinity stones, all in a bid to destroy half the universe’s population to create a world fit for himself and able to perfectly support the remnants of the world.

Driven by love and infatuated by death, Thanos obtains the Power Stone from the planet Xandar, then he and his lieutenants—Ebony Maw, Cull Obsidian, Proxima Midnight, and Corvus Glaive—intercept the spaceship carrying the survivors of Asgard’s destruction. They extract the Space Stone from the Tesseract, subdue Thor, and over overpower Hulk and kill Loki.

The quest for the other stones takes a very different turn even as the blockbuster shifts from traditional storytelling to making Thanos the central character, such that he gains all six stones, even as the united force of the Avengers and Guardians of the Galaxy fail in their attempt to stop the son of Mentor and Sui-San from executing his rather pacifist and nihilistic ideology.

The movie comes to a climax with what seems like a random annihilation of half the earth, suggesting that our superheroes had failed us, and indeed, Thanos had won.

There are so many questions left unanswered, like every movie that will have a sequel, the writers leave those who will not exit the cinema in a hurry, a clue as to what possibilities exist.

However, we are left wondering what Captain Marvel will do when he gets the radio message from the pager of Nick Fury.

  • We also want to know what truly becomes of Gomora; is there a possibility of getting her revived in Avengers 4?
  • What was Doctor Strange’s plan; what did he mean when he said that out of 14 million outcomes, there was only one chance to win?
  • Will Loki ever live again after so many deaths, of which this was pronounced his last?

The guessing game would have to go on for a while, maybe we can begin to pick up the pieces when Ant-Man and the Wasp hit our screens later in 2018, or later next year when Captain Marvel comes to the cinemas nearest us.

We can talk so much about how wonderfully-edited this blockbuster was, we can speak of the cast, visual effects, choreography, action scenes and the mind games the writers and directors tried to play.

However, it is the emotions that this movie elicited from fans that have seen it gross well over $1.1 billion worldwide, making it the second highest-grossing film of 2018 as well as the 15th highest-grossing film of all time.

It is the ‘emotional weight of the story’ that makes it a must watch, spoiler or no spoiler, for none can perfectly capture the events and emotions of this movie by merely telling it. How can you explain the love between Thanos and Gomora, the situation that made the villain shed tears?

How can you explain that the Wakanda king was lost, did your heart not break when you saw Spiderman plead with Ironman fruitlessly to be saved? For me, these were the highpoints at which the writers and directors took us captive and held us spellbound, leaving us almost without redemption for our souls.

In the end, ‘Avengers: Infinity War’ takes us through a rare cinematographic experience, making us rethink what a movie should be and what a film can do.

For those who believe that some superhero or a group of superheroes will always deliver anytime our collective peace is threatened, we have been brought back to reality, one that would make us appreciate better the sacrifices of our heroes on all fronts of existence.

‘Avengers: Infinity War’ is one battle which even your greatest superhero is afraid to fight, they will rather stay away from the fray; if you doubt this, then you might want to ask Hulk what it feels like for a giant to wet his pants and shrink in the face of greater opposition.  We are better off, we who watch the war from the sidelines. Whatever you do at the cinema, do not get into the story, for there is no coming back.


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