TO INFINITY... AND BEYOND
AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR (12A) ★★★ ★★
WAR demands sacrifices: morality, compassion and, ultimately, flesh and innocent blood. There are many heart-breaking sacrifices – far more than expected – in Avengers: Infinity War, a battle royale choreographed at dizzying pace by directors Joe and Anthony Russo to unite characters from across the sprawling Marvel franchises.
The head-on collision of The Avengers with protagonists from Black Panther, Captain America, Doctor Strange, Guardians Of The Galaxy, The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man, Spider-Man and Thor promises an eye-popping spectacle.
A small army of special effects wizards conjure some truly jaw-dropping set pieces and bring to life a hulking supervillain in the shape of Thanos ( Josh Brolin).
Action sequences are peppered with snarky humour and pop culture references.It’s a crude but effective mix, propelling the narrative to a point of supposed no return. An end credits scene, teases the identity of one superhero who may yet shift the balance of power before the sun sets on the superhero dream team.
It has been two years since Steve Rogers, aka Captain America (Chris Evans) went toe-to-toe with billionaire inventor Tony Stark, aka Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr).
Supervillain Thanos ( Josh Brolin) exploits these divisions to hunt the missing Infinity Stones – which will allow him to exterminate half of all living organisms in the universe – including the Mind Stone embedded in Vision (Paul Bettany), the Time Stone concealed within an amulet worn by Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) and the Space Stone inside the Tesseract stolen by Loki (Tom Hiddleston). To defeat Thanos, Stark and Rogers must put their differences aside and pool resources with the Wakandan king T’Challa, aka Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman) and Peter Quill (Chris Pratt) and his wise-cracking posse.
Avengers: Infinity War would be an exhausting assault on the senses without welcome pauses for pithy banter, replete with knowing winks to Alien and Footloose. Brolin’s arch-nemesis could be truly formidable if he weren’t fashioned almost entirely from CGI. The character’s lack of emotion in close-up diminishes the film’s most shocking sequence.
A spry script affords the biggest personalities to scene-steal, relegating others to the occasional line of dialogue from the sidelines.
Perhaps their time to shine will come in the final chapter, in 2019.