USA TODAY International Edition
Prepare yourself for ‘Infinity War’
Avengers: Infinity War has more Marvel movie superheroes than you can throw a mystical hammer at, and audiences should prepare to navigate just as many emotions.
“You’re paying for a ticket to go see a movie — for some people, it might cost up to $20. You want to be able to laugh and cry, feel happy and sad, get angry, be inspired. A movie should do all of those things,” says Joe Russo, who directed Infinity War, the 19th film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, with brother Anthony. “We like the movie to reflect the world they’re living in as much as possible, and we’re in a complicated world right now.”
The third Avengers movie — which the Russos filmed back-to-back with the fourth, out May 3, 2019 — pits invading cosmic villain Thanos (Josh Brolin) against original Avengers such as Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), Captain America (Chris Evans) and Thor (Chris Hemsworth) as well as newer do-gooders such as Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch), Spider-Man (Tom Holland) and Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman).
“It is so bananas,” Downey teases. “Hunter S. Thompson could not have come up with a more deliciously oddball and strangely meaningful set of circumstances than these characters all wind up in.”
Whether you’ve seen all the Marvel movies or are still catching up, here’s what you need to know going into Infinity War (officially opening Friday, though theaters will show it Thursday night):
The Avengers are still broken up.
The film picks up from the aftermath of Captain America: Civil War, where “the family had been divided,” says Anthony Russo. Iron Man and Captain America had a climactic faceoff for the life of Cap’s best friend Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan), leaving Cap a fugitive of the law and Bucky in the care of Black Panther in Wakanda. They’ll have to get it together with the coming of Thanos, but “the history that these characters have traveled together is very important to us. It’s not something that just washes away.”
Captain America has gone rogue.
Steve Rogers has dealt with a lot of disillusionment from being a World War II supersoldier, losing a sense of home after being encased in ice for 70 years and now having lost the trust and faith he had in his Avengers family at the end of Civil War. “He is a little untethered for the first time in his life, and he’s not answering to anybody,” Evans says. “It’s almost a survival mechanism: Just in order to cope with circumstance, you shut the lights off. He still has the heart of a servant, he still wants to help, and he is a selfless person by nature ... but it’s not for anybody other than himself.”
Iron Man, meet Doctor Strange.
Infinity War brings together a lot of heroes who’ve never shared screen time, including Black Panther’s techsavvy sister Shuri (Letitia Wright) schooling the hulking science mind of Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) and Spider-Man exchanging quips with Doctor Strange. “You come out there, you do a scene with a hero you haven’t worked with before, and people are giddy,” says producer and Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige. He loves the first meeting of the minds between Downey’s Tony Stark and Cumberbatch’s Strange: “That was always something we were anticipating that we’d build the movie around.” Adds Joe Russo: “These are two narcissists, so when you put them together, it’s like two betta fish in a tank. It’s not going to work out so great.” Downey also is a fan of the awesome facial hair bros and just new blood in general. “I keep saying we need fresh reindeer because some of the old mule deer are getting a little ragged,” he quips. “They come in, they start pulling their weight and they start bringing you in new directions, and you go: ‘Oh, wow, that’s right. It’s a team sport.’ ”
Thor has a new weapon!
The thunder god watched in disbelief as his evil long-lost sister Hela (Cate Blanchett) destroyed his magical hammer Mjolnir in Thor: Ragnarok. Now on a mission with the Guardians of the Galaxy in Infinity War, Thor receives a replacement accessory to pound bad guys with, and it’s part of an “epic” makeover taking the character “in a whole other direction,” teases Hemsworth, who remains mum on the weapon’s cool powers and origin. But he does allow that it “really ratcheted up” Thor’s battle techniques. “It changes the physicality of the fighting style, and there’s a different sort of attitude that comes with that.”
Infinity War is a bit of a heist film.
Thanos is an antagonistic figure who connects every part of the Marvel movie universe, Anthony Russo says, and his quest for the Infinity Stones led the directors to structure Infinity War’s story using 1990s crime flicks including Out of Sight and 2 Days in the Valley as inspiration. “Thanos is going after the stones and he’s one step ahead of the heroes, and it’s kind of like a smash-and-grab,” he says. Joe Russo adds that the film takes the “unique choice” of the point of view of Thanos, a Genghis Khan-type conqueror who tests the good guys’ mettle. “The question we’re asking with the movie is, what does it cost to be a hero in a complicated world? And does the value of doing what’s right outweigh the cost? We needed a villain who could extract a heavy price from the heroes to answer that question.”