Avengers: Infinity War

***Avengers: Infinity War*** is a 2018 American superhero science-fiction drama film based on the Marvel Comics superhero team the Avengers, produced by Marvel Studios and distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures. It is the sequel to *The Avengers* (2012) and *Avengers: Age of Ultron* (2015), and the 19th film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). The film was directed by Anthony and Joe Russo, written by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, and features an ensemble cast including 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. In the film, the Avengers and the Guardians of the Galaxy attempt to prevent Thanos from collecting the six all-powerful Infinity Stones as part of his quest to kill half of all life in the universe. *Avengers: Infinity War* held its world premiere on April 23, 2018, in Los Angeles, and was released in the United States on April 27, as part of Phase Three of the MCU.

## Plot

Having acquired the Power Stone–one of six Infinity Stones–from the planet Xandar, Thanos and his lieutenants—Ebony Maw, Cull Obsidian, Proxima Midnight, and Corvus Glaive—intercept the spaceship carrying the survivors of Asgard's destruction. After subduing Thor, Thanos extracts the Space Stone from the Tesseract, overpowers the Hulk, and kills Loki. Thanos also kills Heimdall after he sends Hulk to Earth using the Bifröst. Thanos and his lieutenants leave, destroying the ship.

Hulk crash-lands in the Sanctum Sanctorum in New York City, reverting to the form of Bruce Banner. He warns Stephen Strange and Wong about Thanos's plan to destroy half of all life in the universe, and they recruit Tony Stark. Maw and Obsidian arrive to retrieve the Time Stone from Strange, drawing Peter Parker's attention. Maw, unable to take the Time Stone due to Strange's enchantment, captures him. Stark and Parker sneak aboard Maw's spaceship while Wong stays behind to guard the Sanctum.

The Guardians of the Galaxy respond to the Asgardian ship's distress call and rescue Thor. Thor surmises that Thanos is after the Reality Stone, which Taneleer Tivan possesses on Knowhere. He travels with Rocket and Groot to Nidavellir to enlist the dwarf king Eitri's aid in creating the battle-axe Stormbreaker. Peter Quill, Gamora, Drax, and Mantis travel to Knowhere, finding Thanos already has the Reality Stone. Thanos kidnaps Gamora, who discloses the Soul Stone's location to save Nebula from torture. On Vormir, the Stone's keeper, Red Skull, tells Thanos that he can only acquire it by sacrificing someone he loves. Thanos sacrifices Gamora, earning the Stone.

In Edinburgh, Midnight and Glaive ambush Wanda Maximoff and Vision to retrieve the Mind Stone in Vision's forehead. Steve Rogers, Natasha Romanoff, and Sam Wilson rescue them and they take shelter with James Rhodes and Banner at the Avengers Compound. Vision asks Wanda to destroy him and the Mind Stone to keep it from Thanos, but Wanda refuses. Rogers suggests they travel to Wakanda, which he believes has the resources to remove the Stone without killing Vision.

Nebula escapes captivity and asks the remaining Guardians to meet her on Thanos's destroyed homeworld, Titan. Stark and Parker kill Maw and rescue Strange. The trio crash-lands on Titan, where they meet Quill, Drax, and Mantis. Using the Time Stone, Strange views millions of possible futures, seeing only one in which the Avengers win. The group formulates a plan to subdue Thanos and remove the Infinity Gauntlet, with which he safely houses and wields the Stones. Thanos appears, justifying his plans as necessary to guarantee the survival of an overpopulated universe. Nebula arrives soon after and helps the others subdue Thanos, but then deduces that Thanos has killed Gamora. Enraged, Quill attacks Thanos, inadvertently allowing him to break the group's hold and overpower them. Thanos grievously wounds Stark, but Strange offers the Time Stone in exchange for sparing Stark's life.

In Wakanda, Rogers reunites with Bucky Barnes before Thanos' army invades. The Avengers, along with T'Challa and the Wakandan forces, mount a defense while Shuri works to extract the Mind Stone from Vision. Unable to summon the Hulk after losing to Thanos, Banner fights in Stark's Hulkbuster armor. Thor, Rocket, and Groot arrive to reinforce the Avengers. Together they kill Midnight, Obsidian, and Glaive, and rout Thanos's army. Shuri cannot complete the extraction before Thanos himself arrives on the field, slowed only briefly by Banner, Rogers, T'Challa, Wilson, Rhodes, Barnes, Okoye, Romanoff, and Groot. Vision convinces a reluctant Wanda to destroy him and the Mind Stone, but Thanos uses the Time Stone to reverse her actions, rip the stone from Vision's forehead, and complete the Gauntlet. Although Thor severely wounds Thanos with Stormbreaker, Thanos activates the completed Gauntlet by snapping his fingers before teleporting away.

Half of all life across the universe disintegrates, including Barnes, T'Challa, Groot, Wanda, Wilson, Mantis, Drax, Quill, Strange, Parker, Maria Hill, and Nick Fury, the last of whom sends an emergency signal on a modified pager before disintegrating. Stark and Nebula remain stranded on Titan while Banner, M'Baku, Okoye, Rhodes, Rocket, Rogers, Romanoff, and Thor are left on the Wakandan battlefield. Meanwhile, Thanos watches a sunrise on a remote planet.

## Why They Collect Infinity Stones

1. Its the ultimate culmination of everything that has happened in all the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies, all coming together to this one movie, which properly rewards the viewer for having watched all the other movies.
2. The film included almost every single one of the Marvel Cinematic Universe Superheroes so far, except for Ant-Man, the Wasp, Valkyrie, Hawkeye, and the heroes that only appear in the TV shows. The movie manages to properly balance the screen-time every hero gets without coming off as over-bloated runtime by having the heroes separated into different groups throughout the movie.
3. Phenomenal fight scenes. They're high speed, high stakes, action-packed, and make clever usage of all the individual characters' unique abilities.
4. Excellent special effects, for the most part.
	* Thanos was explicitly designed for this film to be the most realistic, physics-abiding CG creation in MCU history and it shows. His movements have genuine weight to them and as shown in close-ups, the little details come out — his arteries pulse slightly over the exposed muscles in his arms, and his purple skin is even slightly marred with scars, freckles, and age spots!
	* On the scenery side, there's plenty of beautiful shots in the movie, but the Forge of Nidavellir stands out, especially when Thor and Rocket restart the Forge and by spinning the gigantic wheels around the Forge itself. The scenes where the star turns bright again and where Thor opens the focusing lens of the forge are just stunning to watch.
	* The victims of Thanos's fingersnap disintegrating into ash looks stunning and the ash seamlessly interacts with the environment and the actors very well. For how prevalent the meme is, none of the variants have managed to replicate the original effect.
5. Incredible soundtrack, composed by Alan Silvestri, who returns to composed the score.
	* The Avengers' title theme carries the grandeur of the first Avengers title card theme, only with bigger and grander trumpets accompanying the horns and cymbals to signify the skyrocketing stakes Thanos brings and set the stage for the film.
	* "Travel Delays", which is played at the very beginning and, together with the distress signal, substitutes the fanfare that is normally played over Marvel Studios' Vanity Plate, and continues to play over Ebony Maw's preaching of Thanos. The ominous sounds set the tone for the whole movie and immediately lets you know that it will be different.
	* "Undying Fidelity", which plays at the opening scene of the movie. It starts out ominous and unsettling as Thanos obtains the Stone, and gets heartbreaking the moment Thanos kills Loki.
	* The song that introduces the Guardians of the Galaxy is the Spinners' "Rubberband Man". It's a perfect mix that encapsulates the carefree attitude of the crew and is a worthy inclusion for their continuing Awesome Mix playlist.
	* "Help Arrives" is a truly fantastic rendition of the Avengers theme that plays when Steve, Natasha and Sam arrive to rescue Wanda and Vision from the Black Order ambush in Scotland. The scene itself uses Mickey Mousing to great dramatic effect, syncing the musical beats with the heroes emerging out of the shadows.
	* Hearing the triumphant theme from *Black Panther* when the heroes arrive at Wakanda perfectly captures the feeling of hope and safety that we saw T'Challa strive for in his solo outing. The audience knows how grand Wakanda is and hearing Marvel Studios reuse a memorable theme works well.
	* The score that plays when Thanos sacrifices Gamora for the Soul Stone, titled Even For You, is slow, somber music that starts picking up once Gamora realizes what Thanos is about to do, then reaches into heart-wrenching strings that build up to a grandiose and terrifying, but tragic climax. Cue Manly Tears from both you and Thanos.
	* While Doctor Strange is battling Thanos, he turns himself into dozens of duplicates. At this moment, a cue from Michael Giacchino's score from his solo film plays in Silvestri's track A Lot to Figure Out (Extended). Its spine-tingling.
	* "Charge!", which plays when Black Panther leads the charge against the Outriders, complete with him and Captain America displaying their Super Soldier speed before literally jumping into the battlefield. "Awesome" is an understatement in this case.
	* "Forge" which plays when Thor takes the power of a dying star, and recreates Stormbreaker, all set to an epic theme, reaching its climax as Thor arrives in Wakanda in a Triumphant Reprise of the crescendo from the first film's "Assemble", which was a pretty fucking triumphant track to begin with. The scene before that (reigniting the dying star) is set to "More Power", which is a decent and fun piece of music, with some Guardians cues, but special credit goes to the brief moment when the star actually reignites, which is accompanied by a short, beautiful cue, especially powerful after the frantic action music up to that point.
	* "Get That Arm", the two-ish minutes of score that plays immediately before "I Feel You". There's a beginning of battle music that gives way to silence as those on Earth assemble around the Vision, which is suddenly interrupted as a bluish cloud forms. Thanos steps onto Earth, and just stands there. The music becomes even lower as Thanos begins stomping heroes left and right without even exerting himself.
	* "I Feel You", Playing The Heartstrings at its finest, perfectly captures the emotion of Vision's Heroic Sacrifice at a tearful Wanda's hands, all while the remaining Avengers Hold the Line to stop Thanos.
	* The awesome and soul-crushing lack of music during the Snapture. Slowly, we see each of the heroes we've come to know and love dissolve into nothing or helplessly watch it happen to their loved ones, all in dead silence.
	* "Porch", the last soundtrack before the credits. A bittersweet track that captures both the loss that the audience just witnessed and Thanos's solemn satisfaction at having accomplished his goal at the cost of losing everything as he watches the sunset.
	* The tragic titular "Infinity War" plays over the closing credits, hammering home how soundly defeated our heroes are and the sadness thereof. And then, there's the title being shown disintegrating to ashes as a lone piano plays a slower, somber rendition of the normally heroic main theme, serving as a cruel final reminder of this soul-crushing loss.
6. Lots of well-written drama involving lots of different characters, such as Thanos being pitted up against Iron Man, Star-Lord, Spider-Man, Dr. Strange and soon Mantis. This moment also makes clever use of the unique abilities from characters, as explained in WTCIS #3.
7. Amazing pacing that's not too fast and not too slow. Everything flows perfectly being at 149 minutes without getting boring.
8. It addresses some of the largest criticisms that MCU movies keep getting:
	1. **Formulaic plots:** It follows a very different structure from other Marvel movies as the plot follows the different hero groups while the narrative is driven by Thanos' actions to get the Infinity Stones by exploring the universe.
	2. **Forgettable villains:** Thanos is a very threatening villain, one of the few truly fantastic villains in the MCU and debatably the best of them. His goal actually makes sense (he wants to get all six Infinity Stones to wipe out half of all living creatures in the universe due to overpopulation and lack of resources by snapping his finger on the Infinity Gauntlet) and, despite not being very likable, he isn't completely despicable either.
		* In addition to Thanos, the Black Order are creepy and threatening side villains, despite being painfully underutilized.
	3. **No stakes for heroes:** Thanos' menacing presence makes it genuinely hard to know if the heroes will win or not and there are several who die and don't return in Endgame (2018 Loki, 2018 Gamora, Vision).
9. Spectacular acting by every single actor and actress in the film, especially Josh Brolin as Thanos.
10. Like many of the other films, this one manages to perfectly blend together drama and character moments with comedy.
11. The film perfectly celebrated the 10 year anniversary for the MCU. (The Marvel Studios logo says MARVEL STUD**10**S)
12. Very suspenseful moments where it seems like very important characters are about to die... and half of them actually die.
	* Spider-Man's death is one of the more dramatic and emotional moments in the MCU and one of the most iconic scenes in the entire movie. In fact, it is so good that it becomes the internet online, like memes.
13. The ending is fantastic. It's emotional, shocking and has an intense unexpected cliffhanger that actually works.
14. **Thanos wins.** While there have been other villains that were partially successful in their schemes before such as Killmonger from *Black Panther*, Thanos is one of the first villain who outright defeats the heroes by snapping his finger on the Infinity Glove... for half of them, and then he just sit down to do calmly.
15. The post-credits scene where Nick Fury calls someone is an excellent tease for ***Captain Marvel*** and her solo film in 2019, although it ends up being disappointment and weaker.
16. Awesome sound effects.
	* A theme music power-up is utilized fist-pumpingly well when Steve and friends enter the movie to save Wanda and Vision. As Steve strides out of shadow, the Avengers theme starts playing.
	* The Jabari Tribe's signature chant from Black Panther can be heard when T'Challa's party arrives at the battlefield, M'Baku pumping up his men (and the audience) for the imminent war. Later, when the Wakandans are on the verge of triumphing over Thanos' army, M'Baku begins leading the Jabari in another round of their chant.
	* T'Challa also leads the entire army in a war chant of "Yibambe" note before charging into battle.
	* Likewise, the long-awaited arrival of Thor, Rocket, and Groot is set to the Avengers theme.
	* In a movie that's dark and ominous almost the whole way through, the cheerful '70s bounce of "The Rubberband Man" by The Spinners as the Guardians make their first appearance fits this bill.
17. It is arguably one of the darkest superhero movies to date, yet it doesn't forget to have humor and positivity that doesn't feel forced to do right unlike many previous superhero movies that tried too hard to be dark & gritty.
18. Peter Dinklage has a cool cameo as Eitri, the dwarf who forges Thor's new hammer, Stormbreaker.
19. Awesome and gorgeous cinematography for MCU films.
20. There are amazing filming locations.
21. There's a very strong theme throughout the movie: *"Is it worth sacrificing lives for the greater good? And if so, how many lives are you willing to sacrifice?*"
22. Hilarious moments where Tony makes a Squidward joke at the beginning and where Star-Lord flips the bird.
23. The Russo Brothers' directing is excellent, for the most part.
24. Red Skull makes his first reappearance since *Captain America: The First Avenger*, aside of the performance, which Hugo Weaving does not returned and instead was replaced with the new one.
25. Many memorable dialogues, like:
	* "*Perfectly balanced, as all things should be.*"
	* "*Dread it. Run from it. Destiny arrives all the same. Legs turn to jelly, the end is near. Or you should say: I am."*
	* "*Does this chattering animal speak for you?*"
		+ Doctor Strange: "*Certainly not, I speak myself.*"
		+ Iron Man: "*He means get lost, Squidward!*"
	* "*Where is Gamora?*"
		+ Iron Man: "*I'll do you one better: Who is Gamora?*"
		+ Drax: "*I'll do you one better: Why is Gamora?*"
	* "*I'm not from Earth, I'm from the Missouri.*"
		+ "*Yeah, that's on Earth, dipshit.*"
	* " ***BRING ME THANOS!***"
	* "*You... should have... You should have gone for the head!*"
26. The cast thanked the fans for the support for over 10 years.

## Bad Qualities

1. Because of the huge cast, some of the characters don't get to shine as well as they could. This is especially the case with Spider-Man, Black Panther, Captain America, and Black Widow, with the former serving more as a comic relief than an actual major character like Tony Stark, Stephen Strange, Peter Quill, Gamora, Thor, Wanda Maximoff, Vision, and obviously Thanos (Because they're the ones who have an impact in the story). While this also happened in *Captain America: Civil War*, it worked there because it was his first MCU appearence, while here, though understandable because of the huge list of characters, it can feel very off here for major Spider-Man fans who expected him to have a significant role, especially after *Spider-Man: Homecoming*.
	* Captain America's and Black Widow's relatively small screentime and dialogue also feels very off and wrong, considering they were the **main protagonists, alongside Iron Man, Thor, Hulk and Hawkeye** in first two movies (speaking of which, Barton's absence is also a bif off for the same reason). Thankfully, that was fixed in *Endgame*.
2. The Black Order were painfully underutilized in the movie. Plus, one of the members from the comics, Supergiant, wasn't even in the movie.
3. While the visual effects are great, some of them can be outdated and obnoxious like Banner's floating head in the Hulkbuster.
4. There are some logical errors in the film here and there, like why its daytime in New York City when Nick Fury disintegrates if its daytime in Wakanda also.
5. **False advertising:** Despite the Hulk being majorly featured in many of the posters and trailers **(**especially in that epic last shot from the teaser trailer, **which also wasn't in the movie)**, he only appears in the opening scene as through the rest of the movie Banner is unable to summon it.
	* It was later confirmed in the deleted scene that Hulk would've had an arc where he became Professor Hulk during the third act of the movie, but it was scrapped in favor of a separate movie, while Professor Hulk was introduced in the sequel.
6. Much of the impact that the ending had when it first came out is ruined by the fact that a number of characters that were wiped out by Thanos' snap (in particular, Spider-Man) were going to be the main characters of Marvel Studios projects that were already announced before the film's release, thus making the Snap being undone a foregone conclusion.