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For years, Thanos has planned to take control of the universe and all life within it. Determined to collect the six Infinity Stones, which will provide him with unimaginable power, he travels from planet to planet, wreaking havoc and devastation in his wake. Turning his attention to Earth, however, and he comes up against a formidable foe: the Avengers and their allies.
It has, as the extended Marvel logo prefix informs us, been ten years since the beginning of the cinematic MCU. In that time, we've met a plethora of different characters, sat through hours of comic book action and stayed late for numerous post-credit scenes. We all have our favourites (who can forget the Team Tony versus Team Steve situation?), and it's introduced us to the most lovable villain of all time - Loki. In all, it's been a pretty impressive story arch of intertwining threads. Could the long-awaited culmination of all these different strands possibly live up to the expectation? For me, the answer is 'no': remarkably unremarkable in both plot and direction, Avengers: Infinity War is definitely one of the weaker additions to the Marvel catalogue.
The reasons? Well, it appears that the screenwriters abandoned any form of originality in the hope that the audience would simply be dazzled by the union of so many characters on the screen. Indeed, these gatherings do offer a dose of school boy excitement (the meeting of the Guardians and Thor does indeed raise a chuckle or two), but once this awe passes, we are left with clunky dialogue, a ridiculous amount of last-minute saves, and a series of scenes in which the Avengers repeatedly hit Thanos with various items, all with no effect. (Seriously, you'd think they would realise that smacking him wasn't going to work after the first twenty attempts!) With so many characters battling for screen time, some are inevitably pushed to the sidelines, whilst others barely feature at all - if you, like me, have missed some of the Marvel films, you might be left feeling a little bit lost as to who is who and where they came from. That's not to say that some parts of Avengers: Infinity War don't pack an emotional punch - these are personalities that we have come to know over ten years, and Alan Silvestri's score works perfectly to manipulate our connections and responses. It's just all very so-so, though - the Russo brothers fail to bring the grit and authenticity of Captain America: The Winter Soldier to the screen, and the result is a bright and glitzy mess that's high on spectacle but low on substance.
Despite the build up, the characters at stake, the hugely impressive A-list cast and immersive visuals, I can't deny that I was disappointed with this latest chapter in the MCU. Completely lacking in originality, it abandons a coherent plot in favour of quick-witted dialogue between newly-united characters in a fraction of scenes, reverting to big explosions and dramatic saves for the rest of the time. That said, I'll probably still go and see the next one...
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