Avenger Infnity War Poster

SPOILERS AHEAD

Avengers Infinity War was a great comic book movie with only one flaw in my opinion.  It would easily be a 10 out of 10 if not for this flaw.   First, I’ll talk about what makes this film a solid 9+ out of 10 before we discuss the problem with the storyline.

I remember when the first Avengers came out wondering how it was going to work with so many characters.   After all I remember when Batman Returns came out how they spent so much time telling the origin stories of the two villains that at one point you forget Batman is in the film.   Well that first Avengers under the direction of Joss Whedon was able to find a perfect balance with all the characters.    The interactions between the characters was one of the best parts of the that first Avengers film.    Avengers Infinity War had even more characters to manage and does just as good of a job.   The special effects and action sequences are amazing and epic – but it is the interactions between these Marvel heroes that don’t always interact with each other where the film really succeeds.  When Star Lord and Thor first meet is hilarious.   The conversations between  the arrogant Tony Stark and Dr. Strange are terrific.  The film really does a great job of giving each hero something to do in the story which must have been an extremely difficult task for the writers.  The film has an epic feel about it as it strings together and connects everything we have seen before in the MCU into what feels like a  grand conclusion of so much groundwork that was put downbefore it.   Up until the very end of the film I can’t find a single thing that I didn’t enjoy.

The problem with the Thanos Infinity Gauntlet Storyline is that the shocking deaths at the end of the film have no teeth to them.   When you watch a show like The Walking Dead or Game of Throne which have thrived in popularity –you know that major characters can die at any moment.  No one is safe –so when a character is in peril it creates a lot of tension.  Some could say that in The Walking Dead’s case that although this is part of its popularity a couple of the deaths in recent seasons have caused them to lose viewers that basically have lost hope for their favorite characters.    Because of the Time Stone the deaths of major characters didn’t phase me at all.  We have already seen what the Time Stone can do minutes before as The Scarlet Witch tries to remove the final stone from Visions forehead.    Thanos just hits rewind and then takes the Stone for himself to complete his collection of the Stones.   So we already know that the Time Stone can basically undo what has happened.   So as I watched this popular characters disappear and turn to ash I thought “Well I guess the next Avengers film will be about the remaining Avengers getting the Gauntlet and turning back the clock.”   The Time Stone is too powerful a gem.   Unlike the Walking Dead or Game of Thrones…. These deaths are meaningless because they can be undone.   Do I really believe that Marvel/Disney just killed Black Panther after his solo movie made 1.3 Billion Dollars.    So even if I didn’t know that Guardians and  Spiderman  both have another movie on the way so those deaths would still seem hollow.   A clue within the movie itself is when Dr. Strange gives Thanos the Time Stone.   We already saw Dr. Strange use the stone to look at all the possible outcomes of the upcoming battle with Thanos.   They ask what he saw and he says that there are thousands of different outcomes and they only prevail in one.  So when he gives up the Stone, I assume that he does so in that one possible future that they actually win.