Review | Avengers: Infinity War film review – Marvel’s superhero extravaganza is one of the great blockbusters of our time
Full of death, destruction and sacrifice, Avengers: Infinity War is easily the best Marvel movie ever made, pulling off a remarkable juggling act with close to two dozen heroes and delivering on an epic scale
5/5 stars
“We’re in the endgame now,” remarks Benedict Cumberbatch’s Dr Strange in the final act of Avengers: Infinity War. Marvel’s own endgame starts right here.
The first of a two-part movie, this gargantuan comic-book blockbuster is the culmination of a decade’s worth of superhero films. Drawing together characters from disparate universes – The Avengers, Black Panther, Spider-Man and the Guardians of the Galaxy among them – it is a beautifully woven tapestry by directors Anthony and Joe Russo.
These sibling filmmakers are already well-versed in weaving in new heroes after their last Marvel outing, Captain America: Civil War, introduced Chadwick Boseman’s Black Panther and Tom Holland’s Spider-Man. But this is on another level.
Avengers: Infinity War: Everything you need to know about Thanos and the Infinity Stones to watch the Marvel movie
Somehow, the Russos and their screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely have pulled off a remarkable juggling act with close to two dozen heroes (each of whom would merit their own stand-alone film) joining together to save the universe from the intergalactic Genghis Khan that is Thanos.
Teased since 2012’s The Avengers, Thanos is a purple-faced warrior and conqueror of worlds. When we first see him, he is crushing the head of Thor (Chris Hemsworth) and pounding on the Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) like he was a punch bag.
Played superbly by Josh Brolin using motion capture techniques, Thanos is on a mission to collect all six “infinity stones”: time, reality, soul, mind, power and space. Once they are in place, he will be able to destroy planets with a click of his fingers.
One of the main faults of large-scale comic-book films is that the villains never quite match the heroes; perhaps this is inevitable, for narrative convention demands that they be defeated. But here Thanos is wonderfully drawn; his impulses towards genocide are not simply megalomania, but part of a much grander plan.