I have been emotionally compromised by Avengers: Infinity War.
I was sitting alone in the theater, wrapped in a hoodie, trying not to make gross crying noises because there were strangers on either side of me who did not ask to have an emotionally compromised woman sobbing while they were trying to enjoy this cinematic experience.
I’ll admit I am a comic book reader, but I like to think of these films as comic-inspired pieces of entertainment. (It’s the only way I keep my sanity about Wanda and Pietro Maximoff and the way the movies bastardized them.) But I don’t think you need to be entrenched in comic culture to feel things during this movie.
The Marvel Cinematic Universe has given us so much in ten years and in two hours and thirty minutes took it away.
SPOILERS AHEAD. (Man, I warned you.)
The movie centers around Thanos, step daddy (as in he kidnaped her as a child) to green lady Gamora (Zoe Saldana) from Guardians of the Galaxy, running around and trying to get Infinity Stones that control time, space, reality, power, mind, and soul.
The stones are scattered around the universe. Dr. Strange has the time stone in his possession and Vision is literally powered by the mind stone, so as you might guess, Thanos might have A Hard Time getting ahold of them.
One of his first obstacles is Thor and Loki who have the Tesseract (remember that from the FIRST THOR MOVIE IN 2011, wow what a throwback) which houses the space stone. Loki tries to kill Thanos and is literally strangled to death by one of Thanos’ meaty hands.
This is like three minutes into the film. It really sets the tone for all the mayhem to come.
I have a hard time believing the God of Mischief who can project himself and shimmer away places can be strangled to death but they made a real point of showing his corpse. So, poor Tom Hiddleston who was in this movie for only a second but is on this press tour for three months.
So, uh Thanos succeeds, but basically lays waste to everything in his path while he does it.
Including poor Vision. R.I.P.
So why does Thanos want the Infinity Stones? So he can kill off half the universe’s population to “restore balance.” Sounds like genocide, but okay. Again, he succeeds.
This movie does alright getting everyone together pretty well, it props Dr. Strange up in a pretty good way making him out to be cooler than he actually is, in my humble opinion. I liked the clashing of egos between both him and Stark who are more alike than they realize.
It also did a good job of making you feel for Thanos as a bad guy. He sacrificed Gamora, his daughter, for the soul stone. To obtain it a sacrifice of something you love had to be made. It made her death all the more upsetting when she realized she would be the price for this mass genocide mission.
But the death that ruined me was Peter Parker’s. Sweet, gentle, always trying to do good Peter Parker. He deserved better. Bless his little cotton socks.
The massive fight scene with every superhero, all of Wakanda’s armies and a million of Thanos’ weird creatures was done just alright. It flipped between Wanda and Vision trying to have some sort of sentimental moment and the aggressive, jerky, fight scene that felt a little clumsy.
Let's take this moment of silence to mourn for Black Panther, Star-Lord, Groot, Gamora, Mantis, Drax, Dr. Strange, Wanda, Vision, Bucky Barnes, Loki, Heimdall, Falcon, Scarlet Witch, Spider-Man, Maria Hill and Nick Fury.
This movie is everything that the MCU has been setting up for the past decade so it taps into information you’ve been harboring in the recesses of your brain from all those movies you’ve seen.
Well, I hope you have or else this movie won’t make a hell of a whole lot of sense.
Even though I have seen the movies -- I’ve got questions.
Where the hell was Hawkeye? Like he would stay on house arrest? Pft.
Where is Captain Marvel? Way to show up to a party late, my dude. Where’s Deadpool and his X-men hangers-on?
What happened to the Infinity Gauntlet after Thanos committed genocide? Looks like it’s broken now, is that how the heroes will get the upper hand?
Is Cap going to die? He dies in the comics. Am I ready for that?
So, basically all the supers but the original Avengers died when Thanos snapped his fingers. Is this going to be a ‘power of the originals’ sort of situation to defeat Thanos? I think I’ll find that annoying for a lot of reasons.
Wanda is one of the most powerful members of the team and she’s dead now. I mean they never use her powers very well anyway but still. Additionally, Thanos destroyed worlds with the stone and suddenly a handful of supers will be able to defeat him?
I don’t know.
It’s obvious the heroes won’t stay dead for long, they basically never do.
They can’t.
But how.
HOW?!
The best part of the film though was 10-year-old Lucas.
Oh? Did you miss him? He made a cameo in my screening only as an excited moviegoer sitting in the row in front of me.
He was so excited. When Tony told Peter he was an Avenger, Lucas silently cheered. When the tension mounted, he was nearly vibrating in his seat with anxiety. His reactions were so pure and so unashamed I had to ask him what he thought.
Lucas has been alive as long as the franchise has been making films. He has grown up with these heroes being a household name in a way he could consume since before he could read comic books. His excitement is what this movie is about.
He has seen every film except Black Panther, which he hopes to see soon. Lucas said he likes Thanos as a bad guy. And no, for the record, he didn’t cry.
"I didn't cry, no. Almost! Almost," he told me as I was still wiping tears off my sad little face.
This movie did some things great and did other things just okay but its purpose was to try and give some sense of completion to a decade’s worth of content. It leaves a lot of questions open but you left with a sense that all the movies have been leading up to this.
There is still plenty of time to answer all those questions with several movies still upcoming including Avengers 4, but for the beginning of an end of an era, MCU, ya’ did good.
I give this movie 4 and a half stars out of 5, but I admit to being biased. Sorry.
This movie broke box office numbers and will only continue to soar. It premieres in China on May 11 and will be playing in Jacksonville for the next few weeks. I recommend going to see it at Sun-Ray Cinema in Five Points to support local!
Destiny Johnson is a digital reporter at First Coast News who was not mentally prepared for this much death and feels really raw and vulnerable still. She might need a hug. You can follow her on Twitter @hello_destiny.