Another Monday, another huge milestone movie for the Doomsday Countdown! You know what this is so lets get into it!
This film is quite possibly the best film in the entire MCU thus far, and that achievement cannot be understated with how complex and how ambitious this film is! Avengers: Infinity War is the culmination of everything the first three phases of the MCU was building towards, with the proper debut of Thanos as the primary threat against an assembly of fractured heroes.
Firstly, there’s the Russo Brothers direction, they manage to make this stacked cast not only work perfectly but also coherently. This film could have easily been a mismatch of different characters and tones but the Russos managed to unite everyone under the same tone and purpose without any of them feeling out of place or untrue to their solo movie characterisations. This film takes everything that worked about their time on Civil War and amps it up to eleven, the action is phenomenal, the stakes have never been higher, and there’s this lingering sense of dread as you feel Thanos moving closer to victory.
Furthermore, they have a unique structure to this film that makes it all the more chaotic but methodical. They have the heroes fighting on two major fronts, the space front and the Earth front. Given the fracture between the Avengers, they use that as a narrative tool to make Thanos’ victory all the easier, with them all being stretched thin and dealing with many different threats at once. Jumping from Thor landing in Wakanda screaming for Thanos to then Thanos himself beating the crap out of Iron Man on Titan? Such a great contrast.
Speaking of Thanos, this is essentially his film, he is the protagonist of the whole thing as we follow his journey collecting all of the Infinity Stones. A lot of people say that the build up to Thanos is what we’re missing now but there was very little build up to begin with. Avengers: Infinity War was designed to introduce and flesh out Thanos as a character beyond the evil figure lurking in the shadows that we briefly saw up until this point. Josh Brolin plays him with such conviction and gravitas that you cannot help but be fixated on him whenever he’s on screen. The complexity and nuance that Brolin brings would be impressive on its own merits but the fact he did it behind a motion capture performance? Absolutely incredible.
Aside from Thanos, obviously Tony is one of the main focuses of the film. As we follow him into this fight that has tormented him since the first Avengers movie, feeling unprepared and reckless in his choices in order to protect the world. Pairing him up with not only Spidey but Doctor Strange as well, that creates a dynamic that is really just a wonder to watch. Strange and Tony being characters that are fairly similar but in different fields makes the clashing and banter between them all the better! Then pairing those guys up with the Guardians? Oh god yeah that’s just awesome. I love how the Guardians are just unphased by the Avengers, especially Pratt’s Star-Lord who clashes with Tony’s methodical approach to these things. The whole sequence on Titan was visually stunning but a great showcase of how these characters work and interact with each other.
On the other front, we have Cap and the Earth based heroes, fortifying themselves in Wakanda. Cap does get a little bit side-lined in this film as a lot of the focus is on Wanda and Vision for this portion of the movie, given Vision’s connection to the mind stone. Regardless, everything in this portion of the movie is just as good as the stuff involving the space crew! Regrouping at Wakanda and having that awesome battle charge against Thanos’ army was incredible! Always happy to see Chadwick Boseman’s T’Challa again, especially as this and Endgame are his last appearances as the character.
There is a third section with Thor, Rocket and Groot going to Nivadellir to forge Stormbreaker. A lot of this, especially at the time, felt like it was actively undoing a lot of the development that Thor went through during Ragnarok. Giving him a new eye to replace the one Hela cut out, giving him a new weapon to replace the one that Hela destroyed and even slaughtering most of his people after they escaped Asgard. Thor really goes through it in this film, and quite honestly this is still the best on-screen interpretation of Thor so far! Hemsworth plays him with such gravitas and pain, masking it with a forced smile and slowly sinking into his depression.
Overall, Infinity War raises the stakes higher than they’ve ever been! To not see the cinematic event that took the world by storm back in 2018, you’re doing yourself a disservice! This movie is exactly why I trust the Russo Brothers to cook with Avengers Doomsday later this year!
To put it simply, and to refer to the title, it literally is the blueprint for which Doomsday is basing it’s narrative off of. Everything we have seen in the trailers, the extra footage, the interviews with the cast and crew, it all points to them using Infinity War as a baseline to build this new narrative from it. They introduce Doctor Doom in this movie, establish him as the primary threat and Doomsday will essentially act as a character study for Doom in order for people to get invested in this threat. They humanise him with the loss of his family, similar to how they humanised Thanos with the extinction of his own race. They way they present Doom in this film will be similar to how they established Thanos back in 2018, so Infinity War is a great way to understand this film thematically.
On top of that, they also seem to be re-using the whole “people split off into different teams to handle the same problem” format they used in Infinity War. Back then, you had the Earth based team handling the defence of Wakanda and you had the space based team handling Thanos on his own turf. The Avengers were scattered, uncoordinated and unfocused so Thanos got the upper hand on them. In Doomsday, Doom will likely use the beef between the New Avengers (Thunderbolts) and the Avengers, the unfocused nature of the Fantastic Four and the hostile defensive state of the X-Men to throw everyone off whilst he makes his moves. Not only that but this film is the first time the Russo Brothers handled an Avengers film, so it’s a good idea to see how they go about balancing these huge casts and giving everyone their moment.
Critically as well, Doomsday seems to put a lot of focus on Thor, bringing him back to a version of the character that was well-received in Infinity War. After the poor reception of Love & Thunder, they decided to go back to what works with the character and put him back on a more serious and grandiose path. He seems to be getting everyone to band together and “put aside your petty squabbles” in order to get things done. Also, Infinity War is canonically the last time Thor saw Loki, so up until this point he believed Loki to be dead and gone. Given that the variant Loki is going to be heavily involved in this film, you can expect a reunion between the two, which makes Infinity War all the more important to see in regards to Thor’s character.
Iron Man - Yes
The Incredible Hulk - No
Iron Man 2 - Yes
Thor - Yes
Captain America: The First Avenger - Yes
The Avengers - YES, PRIORITISE
Iron Man 3 - Yes
Thor: The Dark World - No
Captain America: The Winter Soldier - YES, PRIORITISE
Guardians of the Galaxy - No
Avengers: Age of Ultron - Yes
Ant-Man - Preference
Captain America: Civil War - YES, PRIORITISE
Doctor Strange - Yes
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.2 - No
Spider-Man: Homecoming - Preference
Thor: Ragnarok - Yes
Black Panther - Yes
Avengers Infinity War - YES, PRIORITISE
That’ll be it for the Doomsday Countdown this week! Thank you so much for reading and sticking alongside me for this journey through the Marvel Cinematic Universe! Join me again next week as we hit the big #20 and explore the inception of time travel (and kinda the Multiverse in general) in Ant-Man and the Wasp!
Don’t forget to leave a like and subscribe so you don’t miss any of the future Doomsday Countdown posts! If you want something a bit more varied, I also do posts on Wednesdays and Fridays about all things film and media! Not just nerdy Marvel stuff! Check it out!
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