Nitpicking: Avengers Infinity War

***SPOILERS FOR ‘AVENGERS INFINITY WAY***

It has been some weeks since I initially watched ‘Avengers: Infinity War’ and I have seen it a total of 4 times. I maintain it is the best Super Hero and Marvel movie made to date.  But like all things it is not a perfect film and here is a list of some nitpicking things I found with Avengers Infinity War:

-         “Get this man a shield”. So all film I was waiting for that moment because it was in the trailer. In ‘Captain America: Civil War’ Cap left his shield with Tony. It was made with vibranium and since Wakanda is full of vibranium and the King did say to get Cap a shield I assumed it would be as cool if not better than the original…nope. Instead he has 2 cocktail trays attached to his arms. So disappointed. I would have loved to see Cap using a triangle shield (from WW2) or his energy shield.

 

-         What’s up Hulk?:

So Banner can’t get it up? Performance issues? By ‘it’ I mean the Hulk. Why would the Hulk cower in a fight? Maybe it is leading into the Banner/Hulk for Avengers 4? I just didn’t buy it that the Hulk would shy away from a fight.

-         Why not throw a bone to the MCU Television series?

When shit was going down in NYC why didn’t they take the opportunity to have Luke Cage show up? Daredevil is still MIA, Iron Fist, Jessica Jones, Agents of Shield and Punisher didn’t have to be there but why not include Luke Cage? It would have kicked ass when Banner is having his initial performance issues if Luke Cage would have come running in and taken on the brute bad guy. And he could have went with Banner to join up with the Avengers…just saying they have these Netflix shows tied in with the MCU so why not use a character from them to help legitimize the Netflix series? And Luke Cage would have been the perfect addition.

-         What happened to Valkyrie?

So they established this kick ass African American /Asgardian character in ‘Thor: Ragnorok” and she is nowhere to be seen in this film.  It is assumed she escaped with half of the Asgardians before Thanos destroyed their ship but it would have been nice to see her. Or Lady Sif…

Just a few nitpicks but as I said in my review of this film: it is as perfect as any MCU film has got to date.

The Dark Knight: 10 years later.

I never understood all the hype and praise placed on this movie; some of it yes but not all. When I hear people say “The Dark Knight is the best comic book movie ever made!” my response is always “What?” There are far better comic book movies than that one. Now don’t get me wrong I do think it is a good movie, but is it the best comic book movie? No it is not and here is why:

-         The Joker: Heath Ledger was mesmerizing as the Joker and some have said he was the best person to have taken that role. Unfortunately I think the same people are caught up in his performance knowing it was his last before his unfortunate death prior to the release of the film. Jack Nicholson in Tim Burton’s 1989 ‘Batman’ film is so much better than Ledger. Nicholson brought the Joker to life in a way that had never been done before. He truly captured the essence of the comic book’s clown prince of crime. Ledger played up the Joker in a way that was not what comic book fans expected from that character. He was good but not as good as Nicholson.

 

 

-         Two-Face: I love this character and I was excited he was introduced in this film. But no sooner do they introduce him they kill him off and somehow Batman is the bad guy at the end of the day…WHAT??? Two-Face would have made for a great villain in his own Batman film and was completely wasted here.

 

 

-         People having to decide who lives and dies: The whole Joker rigging the two boats to blow up and leaving it to the people and prisoners on the boats to decide who dies was just dumb and very un-Joker like. Joker is an agent of chaos and does not care about what people will decide…he kills for fun and laughs and to get under Batman’s skin. The whole ship sequence was an attempt of Director Christopher Nolan to make this film deeper than it really is.

-         Batman the bad guy: So Commissioner Gordon and Batman its best for everyone that they do not find out the truth about Harvey Dent/Two-Face so Batman takes the wrap for killing Dent and everyone Dent killed prior to his death…WHAT?? It was such a stupid plot twist and again an attempt to give the film a deeper meaning than it really had.  

 

So what comic book films are better than ‘The Dark Knight’? Here’s a few:

-         Iron Man

-         Avengers

-         Avengers Infinity War

-         Every Captain America film

-         Spiderman (2002)

 

‘The Dark Knight’ was a great comic book movie, but definitely not the best.

Nuff said.

-Chris

Avengers Infinity War Review

 

***SPOILERS***

I have to spoil some things so if you have not seen the film yet then maybe wait to read this. Now that I have said that I must say that this is (in my opinion) the best super hero movie ever made. This film may even slide into my Top 5 favorite movies of all time (still debating that list).

The lead up to this film has been 10 years and 18 films in the making. Marvel studios has made some really great choices during that time and everything paid off for this film.  There could be some nitpicking stuff I could throw out there (Where’s Lady Sif? Why would Odin have a replica of the Infinity Gauntlet in his collection if it hadn’t been made yet for real? Maybe Thanos got his idea to build a gauntlet with the infinity stones from Odin?) but I’m not going to nit-pick. This film had a lot of great characters, the story was amazing, the villain was the real star of the film and he was outstanding, the ending was both shocking and heart breaking. This film had all the ingredients for a great film.

Josh Brolin as Thanos was so well cast. Thano’s motivations in some weird way made some sense and made him an interesting antagonist to watch. Robert Downey Jr, Chris Evans, Chris Pratt and all the other cast members brought their A-game and delivered on so many levels. The Russo brothers (directors of the last 2 Captain America movies) did their best directorial work for this film and delivered the impossible to the world. This film is what ‘The Empire Strikes Back’ is to Star Wars fans: Simply the best.

 

5 Stars out of 5 *****

 

Can't wait for 'Ant Man & The Wasp' and 'Captain Marvel'. But it does suck having to wait for the conclusion to 'Infinity War' which will not be until May 2019.... :(