Competent directing style creates a strong balancing act that pays off well

Rating: 8/10 (10 June 2018)

I know I'm extremely late to the party, but I waited for a time to sync up and see it with a friend (we both have too many obligations in the education realm), plus I had to see Doctor Strange and Thor: Ragnarok beforehand.
Now before I leave any impressions, know that my experience was dampened by students with a moronic goal of sabotage by deciding to blurt out anything about the film they knew that I wouldn't want to know. I mean... what can I do to them in retaliation? Fail them? Strike them down with the hammer of Thor? Nothing, they're untouchable and they know it. It's sad, and I thought I've taught them to be better than that. Unfortunately, that select few is out there and always will be. I've waited nearly thirty years of my life for a film of this impactful magnitude to come out in its respectful genre, and individuals half of my age decide to play the card of indecency upon me and essentially impede on the level of my viewing experience.
All that being said... it was a very good film, even better than I liked it (the problem was the spoilers). In fact, if I were to list negatives for this film, it would really just be all in one lump-sum bullet point regarding the lack of grounded material: a lot of space related stuff, nanotechnology (and I really don't like the Iron Spider compared to regular ol' Spider-Man), whims of inexplicable magic sources, levels of seemingly unbeatable friends and foes where I don't understand the devastation of a punch or explosion onto the individual taking the blow, and the recurring MCU element of death not necessarily being a finality for characters' ends.
Conversely, there were many things that I really appreciated about the film. The first thing I would like to mention was the balance of everything, starting with the balance of characters and their moments. I thought this was going to be a massive issue going into this film, where it would just be one endless action battle and people wouldn't be able to serve their parts correctly, or they would only serve aspects as a moment of convenience to further the plot. Instead, where everyone was at during any moment seemed very natural to the overall MCU progression of items, and interactions that were had (on top of some that have yet to occur, lying in wait for the fourth Avengers film) were nicely played out. Villain encounters even appeared late in the film, which is kind of nice so that the legend looms larger as the movie goes on instead of playing beats such as: "We need three fights between hero and villain, so let's spread them out." Even characters who are physically inferior weren't just suitably matched up with other characters of that nature, and instead they found a way to possibly hold their own or team up to make things equal enough so that the fights could be anywhere with anyone. None of this works just in script alone; this was done by the hands of great directing. The Russo Bros have found a way to serve this great kind of balance for two straight films, though in Civil War it really felt a little more like: "Let's force the issue and get everyone on screen at once, even in a bit of a friendlier brawl." Admittedly some characters miss the boat of even appearing in the film, but it was few and far between, and they are explained away where frankly it worked just fine.
Another great form of balance was in the light versus dark emotional moments. I have been on Marvel for having too many lighthearted moments in their films, or really too much levity for the sake of entertaining the crowd on their first viewing of a film. They really pushed the envelope with Thor: Ragnarok, and honestly I was not appreciative of it. They needed to find a way to strike the right balance of when to say what and what surface level of comedy they need to inject during the characters given the moments, but most importantly every light moment needs to be balanced with a dark moment for emotions to hit the right heartstrings. Infinity War does exactly that. I wasn't eye-rolling when they injected humor, and only one or two comedic bits were out of place for the moment they were in. That is a fair price to pay for the overall structure. They had enough characters to find those moments with in the 160-minute running time, and for once they didn't have the villain(s) either be demoted to that same level of yuck-yucks nor did they subject them to another character's comedic relief as a way to actually victimize them.
This is a great time to transition to this film's villain: Thanos. I have had my quips with MCU villains being rather underserved in scope compared to that of the larger picture at play, like where they may be more of a pawn so the rest of the chessboard could do its thing. Thanos, however, appears as the king of this universe's chessboard. He was the main character in this film, and probably had the most screen time. He was not just a villain seeking ultimate domination of everything for the sake of it, he has his own goals and purposes in an attempt to restore a harmonious balance (there is that world again) for all species. It was not only believable, but it was also sympathetic. He shows remorse for his (attempted) actions, he shows mercy to those who beg for it so long as they aid in furthering his cause, and he speaks with a level head in a way that if we haven't already had eighteen other MCU films liking our heroes so much that we would actually root for the bad guy here. Definitely the best served comic book villain in a decade, if not right alongside the Joker for 'overall' status. Granted, Heath Ledger has given us the performance of a lifetime, though that character is very one-dimensional (and really good at that dimension, no doubt). Thanos really surprised me that he was more than just a large purple alien wanting "MOAR."
I want to give the directors credit for making an extremely long running time feel extremely short. I don't know if I'm sitting here saying that I'd like to watch a whole 'nother hour of the film, but they hit the right beats and paced it so evenly that they really made time fly by in a manner that other films really can't speak for in the same vein. For all the movies I own on Blu-ray, I sometimes stop short of watching something that runs this long because I tell myself: "This is a long film man, you are going to be devoting a lot of time to this." I don't think I'll be saying that about Infinity War. If I were to show this to a friend who hadn't seen it yet, I wouldn't be warning them about the duration of it nor would I fear they would be looking at their watch every fifteen minutes wondering when it would end. The more you get into the film, the more you lean forward on the edge of your seat. Yes, sometimes they do cut away from characters to get to others because they have to, but you never forget your place where others are at and you aren't dismayed at the next grouping's story line. It all worked so very, very well.
I'll cap this off with one thing that wasn't as strong as I hoped it would be, and it was in the movie's action. There was nothing wrong with it, but outside of some last-act battles I wasn't ever really wowed by anything either. All visual effects were top-notch, though (ehem, Ragarok was not good here too). I do think I'm putting this on a relative scale though, because it's interesting that I say that looking back at the whole picture that I think the moments outside of the action were actually better than the action points themselves, not in terms of entertainment but just in overall value. That's a good thing too, so now you're not just sitting around waiting to be getting your money's worth again. This jumps back to how the film's length is not a concern. No action scene overstays its welcome either, or it has enough dynamic elements and cross-cutting that it fits properly (again, jumping back to Civil War, that airport scene was just way too contrived... this doesn't have that). Age of Ultron was much more of a popcorn flick for me that I really do enjoy, and The Avengers has all of its lasting appeal in the final third of the film when they all assemble together, so I think I can say this one is the most consistently put together.
Overall, I would say that my experience was definitely a great one and it is likely hitting inside my Top 3 of all the MCU films (The Winter Soldier still wins). I'm not ready to officially rank it just yet and I still have a lot of questions about what I saw in this one, but again that's a good thing about this film's natural depth where I'll have to watch it more than once to understand and appreciate those items. I really think the thing that brings this movie down a notch was my experience because of spoilers beforehand, and I didn't want to believe many of them to be true but unfortunately many were. This is a movie that I even avoided watching trailers for. Any knowledge about an event I am already interested in does not help ramp up the hype by me learning more about it. Shame on them for doing that to my theatrical viewing, but thankfully this film did not only rely on its spoiler-bound moments to be as good as it was. It was very ambitious, and I can't wait to see what they come up with next because I really have no idea where they want to go from here.