a farrago of state-of-the-art rescue-and-fighting rough-and-tumble in its most kaleidoscopic register

Rating: 7/10 (6 May 2018)

To commemorate the tenth anniversary of MCU, spearheaded by IRON MAN (2008), the third Avengers assembly vehemently pushes the envelop of the superhero mishmash, now has a plethora of roll call at the creators' disposal, and bang!, it puts half of the entire universe's population at the risk of perdition if the mega-villain Thanos (Brolin under heavy CGI reconstruction) successfully collects all six Infinity Stones (Power, Space, Reality, Soul, Time, Mind) in his gauntlet.
Apparetly this chapter boasts a series of all-out pitched battles across the galaxy as the fans know it, and marshals stimulating pairing-ups (Iron Man, Spidey mingling with Doctor Strange, Thor saved by Guardians of the Galaxy quintet, and the rest are united in Wakanda) through its non-stop action escapades, whether it is on spaceships, Earth, or other forbidding-looking planets, with a teleporting Thanos always getting what he wants (and rubbing out several peripheral characters offhand), whereas the Avengers can only savor a triumphant tang by eliminating his quartet of minions, aka. Children of Thanos (including Carrie Coon's Proxima Midnight) together with innumerable and ferocious cannon fodders.
The stakes are extremely high, and what lends Thanos an upper-hand to lay his hands on the stones is his hellbent resolution, even if it means to sacrifice someone he loves, a crescendo reaches in the midpoint when the irony of Thanos' loveless temperament suddenly altered by his ostensible crocodile's tears, which reveals his most profound feelings under a villain's pedestrian merciless carapace, and believe it or not, it actually grants him legitimacy to attain the Soul Stone, at that point, one can sense the premonition that nothing can stop him. Yet, the writers offers one fat chance to subdue him in the epic battle executed by the pageantry of teamwork on the planet of Titan, only backfires in the hands of Star-Lord (Pratt), owing to his irrational rage of some very bad tidings, well, a one-stone-two-birds coincidence couldn't be more expeditious.
It is sensible to lay down the final battle on the tiny globe called Earth for earthlings' geocentric pride, and in Wakanda no less, riding on the coattail of BLACK PANTHER's phenomenal popularity. After another much-tarried sacrifice seemingly scuttles Thanos' plan in the Avengers' collective, last-ditch bravado, however, in possession of the Time Stone (Doctor Strange, this one is on your relented sentimentality), Thanos is able to revert to a previous moment and fulfills his feat with a plaintive cliff-hanger when a selected bunch of our favorite heroes morphs into dust and vanishes into thin air.
In the mean, INFINITY WAR is a farrago of state-of-the-art rescue-and-fighting rough-and-tumble in its most kaleidoscopic register, punctuated by amusing one-liners and japes notwithstanding (Drax the Destroyer should be re-coined as the Prankster), and astutely trades on audience's accumulative investment of its bloated dramatis personae, prepares us a bottoming-out scenario for the more rousing turnaround in its upcoming next installment. Most major characters are understandably shortchanged due to its enterprising scale, Thor (Hemsworth) arguably gets the most boost by a new eye-ball and a freshly wrought storm-breaker axe, and Gamora (Saldana), predicated on a closer relation with Thanos, is allowed a more heart-felt passage to finish her own precarious journey, elsewhere, INFINITY WAR doesn't outdo a common MCU audience's moderate expectation, but a solid job is something of a merit at this step, although one might detect a trace of too-big-to-fail conceit might stymie any further bold maneuver in this most lucrative cinematic universe that has been entertaining an overpopulated planet for a decade and now orbits right into its red-hot heyday.