Epic thrills with great action and comedy throughout

Rating: 10/10 (27 April 2018)

The Russo brothers did a great job with The Winter Soldier and Civil War and they've outdone themselves with the 3rd and by far most ambitious and successful Avengers movie.
As my brother put it, this movie has all the best qualities of Marvel superhero movies but with few or none of the weaknesses. That's pretty accurate. There's a lot of humour in this one and it works really, really well. I laughed out loud many times, more than for many good comedies. What makes it great is that it's all character and situation based. They aren't just stupid gags or forced jokes but natural humour based on how the characters really would react to the many crazy things which happen. The Guardians of the Galaxy practically steal the show although the chemistry between many of the other characters is great as well, with a lot of funny one-liners and one-upmanship.
This focus on characters also applies to the action. Every superhero gets to show off their skills in cool, impressive ways. The integration of the airport scene from Civil War is used all the way throughout this movie. We often cut between different parts of the action, seeing the other events clearly in the background. It all comes together really well. Infinity War outdoes the solo movies for most characters, meaning Spider-man is way cooler in this than in Homecoming and the same goes for Dr. Strange and many others.
Thanos is a great villain and very intimidating. I really like Josh Brolin's performance. He's calm and confident with a clear goal in mind. And we get some insight into his motives showing that he's not purely evil. However, his justifications are stupid - I feel like he could be stopped if people just explained some basic economics to him and showed him some Thomas Sowell videos. The Malthusian trap and other similar theories about impending over-population have been common since 1798 and have never come true. Consider densely populated places like Japan and Hong Kong which have high standards of living and some sparsely populated African countries like Namibia which are dirt poor. The Nazis wanted Lebensraum but prosperity has nothing to do with living space and everything to do with free trade. But anyway...
The music is better than average for these superhero movies but NOTHING compared to the days when movie themes were actually memorable. I could recognise the Avengers theme but little else. It's completely pathetic compared to Superman (1978), Batman (1989), Spider-man (2002) and other John Williams series like Star Wars and Harry Potter. Those movies have multiple recognisable and hummable themes, often a main theme, love theme and themes for major good guys and villains. But Infinity War is great in other areas. I just reminisce about when movie music swept you away rather than being the same kind of generic mish-mash of Hans Zimmer-esque action music for every movie...
The bad guys who support Thanos were awesome. Ebony Maw was especially cool with all kinds of insane powers that he casually brings out. I liked the look of them, not really like anything I've seen before. It reminds of how the image of little green aliens is so pervasive and common in TV shows and movie. For example, Independence Day, Signs and War of the Worlds all have fairly typical alien creatures. But the grey guys in Infinity War are very cool and memorable.
The CGI is very good overall, but I still wish they'd include more real elements. It doesn't compare to Nolan's movies which are often more gripping because they are largely done for real. His movies will last a long time whereas CGI effects are destined to date rapidly.
The story is ambitious and doesn't really hold back. The stakes are high and some parts of the movie are quite heavy. I'm really excited to see where they're planning on going for the next movie. The girl next to me was on the edge-of-her-seat, often covering her mouth and gasping or swearing as various beloved characters have their lives threatened. The stakes are higher I suppose because so much time has already been invested into these characters. I had similar emotional reactions seeing battles in the 7th season of Game of Thrones, not knowing if main characters would make it out alive or not.
This is a one-of-a-kind superhero movie event. It's a great action/comedy spectacle made by the best directors of Marvel movies so far. All the characters are at their physical/comedic peak and are mostly used to full effect (with a few exceptions). I'm not surprised that Infinity War has reached #10 on the top 250. It's just too amazing in its strengths for its weaknesses to hold it back. Apart from Nolan's more serious films, this is the new standard for epic, fun superhero movies.