TO INFINITY . .. AND BEYOND!
With its Herculean line-up of superheroes, the new Avengers blockbuster is a long, wild ride
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 £215 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 Kendal Mint 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 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 evening’s preview screening, a man from Disney threatened to set Thanos himself on us if we leaked any spoilers.
Let’s just say that this unlikely father-daughter relationship yields some evidence that the brute has a heart.
BUT,ON the whole, he’s not very nice at all. And in a simple plot as old as storytelling 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. 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 Cumber - batch), 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 W itch (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 A vengers 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 T uesday’s screening, as did that of Thor (Chris Hemsworth). Unfortunately, the latter has mislaid his hammer, while Bruce Banner ( Mark r uffalo) 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 P eter 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 SpiderMan’s gauche alter ego, P eter Parker, might end up being just as irritating.
Happily, the Guardians of The Galaxy are a genuine hoot, especially a scene -stealing 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. Here, 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 disap - pointingly little screen time for Black Widow (Scarlett Johans - son, who might as well have been cast as Scarlett ‘which’), a greenfaced Gamora (Zoe Saldana) amply fills the void.
She’s terrific, and so, with the caveat that you might need a super - hero’s bladder , is the movie.