Instead of the summer movie season starting the first week of May, Hollywood has decided to start it a bit early with the release of "Avengers: Infinity War". While this is not the first time a film based on a comic book has kicked off the summer season, this film is certainly one of the better efforts churned out by Marvel Studios.
As the Avengers, including Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Captain America (Chris Evans), Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), Dr. Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch), Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), Spider-Man (Tom Holland), Star Lord (Chris Pratt), Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman) and their allies have continued to protect the world from threats too large for any one hero to handle, a new danger has emerged from the cosmic shadows: Thanos. A depot of intergalactic infamy, his goal is to collect all six Infinity Stones, artifacts of unimaginable power, and use them to inflict his twisted will on all of reality. Everything the Avengers have fought for has lead up to this moment-- the fate of Earth and existence itself has never been more uncertain.
Others to round out the cast are Don Cheadle as James Rhodes/War Machine, Zoe Saldana as Gamora, Karen Gillan as Nebula, Tom Hiddleston as Loki, Paul Bettany as Vision, Elizabeth Olsen as Wanda Maximoff/Scarlet Witch, Anthony Mackie as Sam Wilson/Falcon, Dave Bautista as Drak and Sebastian Stan as Bucky Barnes/Winter Soldier.
This was excitedly directed by Anthony Russo and Joe Russo ("Pieces" '97, "Welcome to Collinwood" '02, You, Me and Dupree" '06, "Courtroom K" (TV movie) '08, "Captain America: The Winter Soldier" '14, "Captain America: Civil War" '16) plus TV and shorts. It was truly smart to have the same filmmakers who have helmed previous Avenger films to direct this so as to keep the same feel of the character developments in tow. It was like watching all the Marvel films rolled up in the same film with the similar character developments. It you feel this was directed with such familiarity, these guys will be directing the next Avenger film. Yep, shocking as it is, this film leaves us with yet another film to be made. What a shock! It was creatively written by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely based on the Marvel comics by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. Even though the script was creative as it was, there were some aspects in this that really couldn't work such as anyone being in space could possibly survive and when there is a serious fight at night, why didn't it attract any attention from the residents of the city or by police officers or the like?. Hey, you have to have a story and this did have a story that was able to implement all of these different characters of these different franchises. The visual effects predominantly designed by ILM (Industrial, Light & Magic), Weta Digital, Digital Domain, Framestore and Double Negative were as seamless as they were a much needed element to the storyline.
The best thing about this as with all the 'comic book' films is the element of escape. This is the quintessential popcorn film replete with adventure, action, explosiveness and adrenaline all rolled up in a story to allow us to go to a place where there are different eclectic people where we can escape and have fun. And isn't this why we go see films anyway?
Out of 4 Stars: 3.5 Rated: PG-13 149mins.
No comments:
Post a Comment