Avengers Infinity War SPOILER review: Debriefing Marvel’s all-out epic

WARNING: MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD – Do not read on if you have yet to see Avengers: Infinity War.

One last warning: this is NOT a spoiler-free review.

So, there had been lots of speculation over recent weeks, months, years that a couple of major Marvel characters could be killed off in Infinity War. So we expected one or two A-listers to bite the dust, along with maybe a small handful of supporting stars .

But only a couple of internet theorists had predicted that the list of the deceased would be so extensive that only a small handful DIDN’T meet their maker.

It almost goes without saying that a big chunk of the fatalities will be reversed. Doesn’t it? If only from a business standpoint: we’ve only just had yet another Spider-Man reset, so there’s no sense in getting rid of Tom Holland’s Peter Parker just yet; and with Black Panther breaking so many records, it stands to reason that T’Challa can’t be wiped out forever.

Plus Guardians of the Galaxy is coming back for a third movie, so killing that movie’s entire cast (except for Rocket and Nebula) seems a bit of a stretch also.

But still, even if the longevity of these deaths is questionable, there’s no denying that Infinity War delivered.

Those unfamiliar with the MCU will have struggled with a lot of it to begin with (and the significance of Red Skull’s appearance would have been lost altogether), but it’s safe to say most moviegoers would have had just about enough knowledge to get by – or at least, enough willingness to go along with it.

The Russo Brothers should be applauded for managing to take such a huge collection of characters (even if one or two were missing) and crafting an epic story with them, mostly with success. Inevitably, some were underused (Captain America and Bucky spring to mind), but it was great to see some less obvious stars like Rocket get their time in the sun.

It’s not a great one for character development, admittedly – Thanos is really the only one we get properly under the skin of – but taken as the culmination of the last few years’ worth of movies, that doesn’t especially matter. Those fight sequences really are spectacular – the monsters in the final Wakanda battle being especially fearsome for a 12A-certified romp.

As for the humour? Most of it landed, some of it didn’t. The ongoing pop culture references jarred just a little bit after a while, as did the self-aware one-liners about the potential poe-facedness of certain elements, but Drax and Rocket were great value as ever, and Okoye generated the biggest laughs – once with a withering look at a fallen Avenger, and once with a great quip about Scarlet Witch helping on the battlefield.

Because of the huge emphasis on action set-pieces and little focus on emotion or character development, it wasn’t really an actors’ movie – but if we’re going to deep-dive into the performances, it’s Josh Brolin (Thanos) and Zoe Saldana (Gamora) who arguably do the best work; with honourable mentions for Chris Hemsworth (Thor), Elizabeth Olsen (Scarlet Witch) and Tom Holland (Spider-Man).

Gamora’s arc across all of her MCU movies has proven a little divisive (there’s debate over just how well her character has been handled, most of which is very valid) but Saldana’s pitch-perfect performance made Gamora’s death all the more heartbreaking; and the fact Brolin managed to give us such a three-dimensional antagonist from the confines of CGI get-up was also worthy of applause.

Various people involved with the movie have said that the film works perfectly well as a stand-alone, and doesn’t necessarily need to be treated as one giant lead-up to next year’s Avengers 4. That, frankly, is ludicrous – but it doesn’t really matter. There are enough intergalactic thrills here to satisfy the audience for now, and leave them drooling for a full twelve months over what’s to come.

Oh, and assuming the job of that end-credits sequence was to properly launch the hype for Captain Marvel‘s arrival, it worked. Brie Larson is coming…

Avengers: Infinity War is out now.