SPOILER ALERT
I once wrote that it's cathartic to follow up spoiler-free reviews of massive movies that I enjoyed with spoiler-filled discussions on the things that happened in the movie, and this is especially the case with the gargantuan Avengers: Infinity War, which is so loaded with hidden gems (pun intended), twists and shocking developments that Marvel itself has gone all-out on social media pleading for fans to keep from spoiling anything in the film. Well, I'm putting two spoiler alerts on this post just to make sure everyone understands what they're reading when they click this story. With that out of the way, let's get this started.
AGAIN...SPOILER ALERT
Last chance...okay, here we go...
I had mixed to negative feelings about the first two deaths in the movie, those of Heimdall and Loki, and I don't mean I'm upset that they died. I get that these deaths were meant to establish that Marvel meant business, but I mean, wow. LOKI, the arch-villain of the first Avengers movie who has, over the years, become a fan-favorite character, was dispatched less than ten minutes into the movie, just to make a point. Loki's death seemed oddly anticlimactic, and if I'm honest, I would have preferred something quite a bit more dramatic considering the impact this character has had on the Marvel Cinematic Universe. He was the benchmark Marvel bad guy for years, so taking him out with barely any thought, while certainly not without its reasons, just feels a tad disrespectful. But that's just me.
Also, given the unprecedented success of Black Panther, it was also unfortunate that the filmmakers went, inadvertently or not, with one of the most tired, old story tropes around, i.e. killing the black guy first, even though Heimdall died right after doing something appropriately heroic. It seems he survived the holocaust of Thor: Ragnarok mainly so that he could be used as a plot device to whisk one of the characters to safety. Oh, well, at least he was given far more dignity than the Warriors Three.
The other two deaths in the film, that of Gamora and, in the film's climax, that of Vision, delivered real gut punches, even though they were telegraphed fairly early on in the movie, and I found Gamora's death particularly affecting for some reason, in part because she's "real" unlike the synthezoid Vision and because it was her own father who murdered her. Both of these deaths delivered considerable impact, and given the way they played out, it seems unlikely that they will be undone by the next film, though given the nature of the Infinity Stones, one cannot say for sure.
On that note, with regards to the people crumbling into dust at the end of the film, which was basically almost everyone who WASN'T one of the original team of Avengers, I didn't feel quite as shaken because, more than any of the four character deaths I just mentioned, those deaths have a distinct whiff of impermanence about them. I mean, let's be honest, Marvel isn't going to kill off a cash cow like Spider-Man, OR their newest golden boy Black Panther, so I'm pretty sure I can safely call b.s. on that.
It was also quite telling that it was the original Avengers team that was left behind (along with Rocket, Nebula, Okoye and War Machine) because it's somewhat fitting that they'll face off against Thanos for the final battle.
It does a film a great disservice, though, to dwell solely on the deaths or pseudo-deaths that punctuated the narrative. There were quite a few story developments, if not necessarily "twists" that stood out, not just because they enhanced the story, but because kudos MUST go to Marvel for keeping these things so tightly under wraps.
For me, the single most impressive feat of Marvel's "spoiler blackout" effort was keeping the identity of the character played by Peter Dinklage under wraps, and as it turns out, as short as his screentime as Eitri, the maker of Mjolnir, was, it was quite pivotal.
Also, the return of the Red Skull, even if he wasn't played by Hugo Weaving but The Walking Dead actor Ross Marquand, was a lovely Easter Egg that I absolutely did not see coming, even though I had a feeling, years ago, that the Red Skull hadn't actually died but was simply transported somewhere else. I just never figured on him turning up here.
This was, at the end, a bad-guy-centric movie, and on that note there was something distinctly uncomfortable about the fact that Thanos, having presided over the extermination of half of life in the universe, sat down and looked at a sunset in the Philippines. It was most likely unintended, but it was a startling parallel to our own mass-murder-endorsing president here in the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte.
Finally, the return of Samuel L. Jackson's Nick Fury to the MCU after a three-year and SEVEN-film absence is a truly welcome development, even as he joins the characters who turn to dust, especially since he spends his last moments calling in the MCU's next heavy hitter Carol Danvers, better known as Captain Marvel.
Anyway, in an age of social media and internet leaks I found it particularly impressive that Marvel were able to keep so much under wraps right until the release of this movie, and I honestly hope this is the norm, moving forward.
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