A disappointment for a casual fan

Rating: 5/10 (2 May 2018)

Every once in a while you walk out of the theatres after seeing the New Big Thing and disappointingly conclude: "This wasn't made for me". Which is fine. I don't follow the hype, I don't watch the trailers and don't bother keeping up much with continuity. I generally watch these movies and my reactions tend to fall somewhere in between "technically competent but flawed" (e.g. Doctor Strange) to the rarer "pretty damn good" (e.g. Black Panther). Because technical competency is never lacking - the writing is generally sharp, casting and acting as well.
Infinity War is technically competent. From what I gather from the more avid watchers of these movies, continuity and fan-service is on top. It's really quite funny - I especially enjoy the Guardians team. But I don't think it's particularly fun, especially not after the first third. The pacing gets bogged down majorly in the second act and you can feel the plot structure bursting at the seems as it tries to force a dozen separate stories and half-hearted arcs into something resembling a traditional movie structure. And it still feels like an hour of character development was roughly cut. Somewhere in the middle of the movie two characters bizarrely meet after one has been missing and presumed dead - which is awkward - but the tension between them is never addressed after this point and I don't even think they share any more dialogue. Here is where the weaknesses in directing seem to become apparent to the point of harmfulness. The Russos directed the last two Captain America movies well enough (the last one being a better Avengers 2 than the actual Avengers 2) but Infinity War seems to be too big of a challenge. Maybe it was too big of a challenge for any director.
A large amount of the focus on character-driven story-telling has fallen to Thanos, who until now has only appeared at the margins of the rest of the universe. And it kind of works. Many directors seem to struggle with relatable antagonists with clear and understandable motivations. That's what makes Killmonger so great. He's frightening because he just may be right. And the angle of antagonist-who-sees-himself-as-hero almost works in Infinity War. Except Thanos' motivations are so ridiculously - and I try to avoid using this word in general - stupid that I couldn't possibly take them seriously. Admittedly, a lot of people can and I'm not going to judge anyone for that. But Thor could have handed Thanos a book on basic political theory and obliterated his entire worldview.
Half the audience was in loud glee and half was in loud anger when the credits rolled. And I have to say I was in the latter camp. But I'm not sure it's fair to get as angry as I initially was. Maybe I'll warm up to it on a second watching. For now, I feel cheated. If the movie was called "Avengers: Infinity War - Part One" I probably wouldn't have minded. Or if I kept up with the hype. Which brings me back to my original point. This movie wasn't made for me. I expected it to be something else. Most of the time I just wished the Black Panther universe had more to do with it. Or I just want another Black Panther movie. Infinity War has me exhausted on Marvel. It isn't bad or offensive or really any other strong adjective. It's just bland, poorly structured and disappointing.