TO INFINITY . . . AND BEYOND!
The latest Avengers adventure movie is certainly a long haul, but it’s one heck of a wild ride
Avengers: Infinity War (12A) Verdict: Mostly Marvellous
WHEN a new Marvel movie has ‘infinity’ in the title, and is furthermore one of the most expensive films ever made with a reported budget of around $300 million, it’s best to be prepared for the long haul.
Before heading to the cinema, you should pack a change of clothes and let your loved ones know where you’re going. Take some cake and a cushion. It’s tough in there.
And yet, just at the point when you’re wondering whether anyone would notice if you slip into your pyjamas, it’s all over. After two-and-a-half eventful hours, Avengers: Infinity War — directed by brothers Anthony and Joe Russo — stops as unexpectedly and dramatically as a train on which somebody has pulled the emergency cord.
It is thundering along, gathering momentum, when suddenly there’s a great squeal of brakes and the credits are rolling. The reason being that, to switch the metaphor to Champions League football, this is only the first leg.
A similarly lavish sequel follows next year. But for now, as they trudge off for what is, in effect, half-time, the superheroes are losing.
This is as disturbing for us, the fans, as it is for them, the players.
For they have a heck of a team — almost every Marvel superhero you can think of, basically — and they have banded together against a mighty common foe. His name is Thanos and he is splendidly played by a digitally-enhanced Josh Brolin.
Thanos has a vast slab of corrugated jaw the size of Mount Rushmore and an unappealing habit of slaughtering half the populations of random planets. He is a genocidal maniac. But intriguingly, he doesn’t believe in evil for evil’s sake. Like so many deluded tyrants everywhere, he thinks he’s doing the cosmos a favour.
On one of his planetary wrecking jobs, he plucked a little girl from the mayhem and made her his ward. I won’t tell you who she grows up to be because, at Tuesday’s preview screening, a man from Disney threats ened to set Thanos himself on us if we leaked any spoilers. Let’s just say this unlikely fatherhip daughter relationship yields some evidence that the brute has a heart. But, on the whole, he’s not very nice. And in a simple plot as old as storyomething telling itself, he wants something that he really shouldn’t be allowed to have. The
writers are Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, who made their screenwriting debut in 2004 with The Life And Death Of Peter Sellers.
Now, having also written Marvel’s three Captain America films, they have moved on to a bigger theme: the life and death of the entire universe. That’s what hangs in the balance here, as Thanos seeks the six magical glowing crystals known as infinity stones, which will enable him to wreak even greater intergalactic havoc than he has already.
Every time he gets one he fixes it, as if in some demented TV reality show, into a corresponding slot on the back of his enormous gauntlet.
But to complete the set he needs to ransack Earth, first sending his lieutenant — a creepy-looking cove who appears to have styled himself on Harry Potter’s nemesis, Lord Voldemort.
New York City (naturally) is the initial target for his ire. I’ve lost count of the number of hostile alien spaceships to have settled over Manhattan in the movies, but this one at least meets some worthwhile opposition.
However, not even Iron Man (Robert Downey Jnr), Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch), and Spider-Man (Tom Holland) quite constitute an immovable object in the face of Thanos’s irresistible force. They need help, and it duly arrives, oddly enough from Edinburgh.
There, Vision (Paul Bettany) and Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen) are having a lovely romantic time until their superpowers are called upon in the otherwise prosaic surroundings of Waverley Station. Mind you, that’s where I once vaulted the barrier in successful pursuit of a late-night train to Dundee. Miracles can happen anywhere.
Gradually, the team of Avengers assembles, integrating with the Guardians Of The Galaxy crew, and it’s huge fun seeing them all manoeuvred — some effortlessly, others somewhat by crowbar — into the action.
The arrival of an out-of-uniform Captain America (Chris Evans) got a cheer at Tuesday’s screening, as did that of Thor (Chris Hemsworth).
Unfortunately, the latter has mislaid his hammer, while Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) has lost the knack of turning into Hulk.
Just as Achilles had his heel, so these comic-book characters all have areas of vulnerability that the script neatly exploits.
Much of this is slickly written and played for laughs, and there is a nice visual in-joke: Game Of Thrones actor Peter Dinklage, who suffers from dwarfism, playing Thor’s weapons consultant as a giant.
OCCASIONALLY, however, the comedy trips over itself with a clunk. I don’t suppose I’m the only visitor to the Marvel Cinematic Universe who is tiring a little of the glib wisecracks delivered relentlessly by Iron Man’s humanoid incarnation, Tony Stark.
Moreover, this film hints slightly troublingly that Spider-Man’s gauche alter ego, Peter Parker, might end up being just as irritating.
Happily, the Guardians Of The Galaxy are a genuine hoot, especially a scenestealing Drax the Destroyer (Dave Bautista), who gets all the best one-liners.
Besides, whether the wit fizzes or flops, a Marvel movie will always live or die by its action set-pieces. And in this latest adventure, they are truly spectacular, notably a battle in the African kingdom of Wakanda, where Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman) leads his warriors against an invading army of snarling demons.
The film has proper poignancy, too, and while there’s disappointingly little screen time for Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson, who might as well have been cast as Scarlett ‘which’), a green-faced Gamora (Zoe Saldana) amply fills the void.
She’s terrific and so is the movie. My only caveat is that you might need a super-hero’s bladder to last until the end of this film without a break.