One Spoiler Review of Avengers: Infinity War

Folks, I have to warn you, my geek cred is in serious jeopardy. I just saw Infinity War and it’s been out for over 3 weeks. I really wanted to watch it before, but I’m working hard to get the girls’ room finished so they can move in and between that, church business meeting, dev work, additional client projects, and end of the year concerts for my kids, I’ve been unable to see it till now.

Sadly, there are people out there who just want to ruin the movie. My oldest now has friends who are working ago and one works at the theater. She told me that her friend said people were leaving the theater in tears because there is a very emotional scene near the end of the movie. Unfortunately I worked out exactly what happened based on passing comments people made. They didn’t think it would “spoil” the movie … like it wasn’t an inside joke people who didn’t see the movie wouldn’t possibly be able to understand.

Well, that might be true of some people, but my daughter and I both tend to predict major plot points in the movie, even without hints. I remember when Sixth Sense came out, and this was way back before everyone was online. I didn’t watch it right away because I wasn’t really that interested. Everyone kept telling me it was “so good” and there was a “OMG BIGGEST PLOT TWIST EVER!!!!!” and that I’d never see it coming. After a few times I got kind of tired of how people who had seen it seemed to feel they knew something I didn’t and just wanted to dangle this big plot twist in front of me so the next time someone tried to goad me to go watch the movie because of the plot twist I looked right at them and said, “Bruce Willis dies at the beginning of the movie but you don’t realize it till the end and he didn’t think he was dead but the boy knew and talked to him.” They asked if I had seen it and I told them all I ever saw was the preview. When they asked who spoiled it I simply said it was them and everyone else who went on and one about the plot twist. That was enough to spoil the movie for me so I never got to experience that plot twist.

Though to be honest, when I finally did watch the movie I couldn’t comprehend how anyone didn’t figure that out in the very beginning. It was pretty blatant.

Anyway, back to Infinity War. Before going to the movie I had a talk with my youngest. He gets really into these movies and loves his super heroes. If something bad happens to them it makes him angry or sad. So I warned him and said this wasn’t like the other Marvel movies. There is a part 1 and 2 so things aren’t going to go well for the heroes and a lot of his favorites might die or be hurt very, very bad.

Basically I was giving him a chance to not watch it, and he thought about it but decided to watch it anyway.

Well, it was intense, right from the start. I kept watching him and he was really into it but it was clear parts of it bothered him quite a bit. I talked with him after and he is angry at the person who made the movie. I did reassure him than in part 2 things will probably get a lot better and the heroes will win in the end. I asked if he was glad he watched it or wished he had stayed with his Nana and Papa. He admitted he was still glad to have watched it but was still mad.

For me, I really enjoyed the movie but not as much as Black Panther. It was great seeing so many characters from the MCU in a single movie. I feel they did a good job of bringing in aspects of each individual part of the franchise too. Like when they switch to the Guardians of the Galaxy for the first time, they are playing music like you’d expect from one of their movies.

They also added a lot of great comedic segments, which helped to counter balance the darker elements.

I think if I didn’t know some of what was going to happen it would have been a true emotional rollercoaster. Unfortunately some of that effect was lost on me.

There are certain things that didn’t fully make sense. I suspect it could be related to cast availability but they didn’t have certain characters and they basically said “oh, they can’t make it…” I mean the reason was a little more specific but I feel like it would have been good to at least give some effort there. It’s like how Thor wasn’t in Civil War. Granted that wasn’t an Avengers movie but pretty much everyone but Thor and Hulk were in it including new characters like Spiderman and Ant Man. We know what Hulk was up to after Ragnorak and Thor was probably busy with other stuff, but it is still disappointing they didn’t have a little more about that in the movie.

Maybe they’ll do something in the upcoming Ant Man and the Wasp movie. There is clearly some major happening that they will have to acknowledge in that movie.

Anyways, I’ve talked for a while and hopefully if you ended up on this page you have seen the movie, but if not I’m going to warn you that there is a spoiler ahead. Like the next paragraph I’m going to start talking about something specific in the movie, not just my experience and feelings about it. Before I jump to the spoiler I will say the movie is a solid A, not an A+. Might have been an A+ if I didn’t see certain things coming. Either way I can highly recommend it.

Ok, you were warned. My favorite part of the movie was actually a casting decision. As you probably know, Thor’s hammer Mjolnir was destroyed is Ragnorak (they show it in the preview which I think was a real disservice). Well, in Infinity War he seeks a new weapon. He goes to the place where Mjolnir was forged and it is a dead hulk in space. Then he is attacked by a giant. When the motion stops for a moment you clearly see the giant’s face. Turns out that space dwarves are about twice as tall as an average human but are played by people often cast as dwarves or halflings. The dwarf that towered over Thor was none other than Peter Dinklage. I lost it.

I had been avoiding spoilers or information about the movie as much as I could so I had no idea he was in the movie. When I realized they cast him as a dwarf but made the dwarf a giant I had a hard time breathing I was laughing so hard.

In my mind there had to have been a conversation something like this:

casting director: Peter, we have a part we think you’d be perfect for.
Peter Dinklage: You’ve got 30 seconds to wow me.
CD: Space Dwarf
PD: Ok, I’m interested .. but not wowed. 25 seconds.
CD: Space Dwarf that forged Thor’s Hammer out for revenge against the Titan who mangled his hands, killed his people, and broke his forge.
PD: …
CD: …
PD: You’re losing me. Dwarves, forges, seems a bit played out. 15 seconds.
CD: Did I mention the Space Dwarf is a giant?
PD: You mean like tall for a dwarf? Maybe average human size?
CD: I mean like twice as tall as a tall human.
PD: You had me at Giant Space Dwarf. Peter out!

If that conversation didn’t happen I’m still going to pretend it did. It feels like something right out of an SNL skit only it happened for real. That scene alone was worth the price of admission.

So that’s my review and I hope you already saw the movie if you’ve made it to this point. If not, there is plenty of other stuff that happens in the movie that makes it worth your time to go watch it.