Wow, The Weekend in Review is back? That's crazy!
I, like all 7 billion people on planet Earth, saw Avengers: Infinity War. Here are my thoughts:
- Post-credits sequences are a form of terrorism. I understand the idea behind them--it's important that the mouth breathers understand that their favorite punchy-punch, talky-talk movies are made by an army of invisible artists and technicians--but, predictably, it doesn't work at all. As soon as the credits role, those savvy filmgoers looking for that "second screen experience" pull out their phones to check and see if anyone has sent them an image of their engorged genitalia on Snapchat. They only look up from their poorly-lit anatomy lessons after the last Eyelash De-Aliasing Supervisor has disappeared from the screen. So just play the stupid commercial for the next movie right after the marquee names roll off the screen.
- Why is Chris Pratt billed as "And Chris Pratt?" Have those shitty Jurassic Park sequels turned him into a young "And Anthony Hopkins?"
- STRANGELY enough, Doctor Strange was the MVP in this movie. When he took on his multi-armed form I gasped with STRANGE delight.
- When and how did Bruce Banner get Hulk-tile dysfunction?
- Approximately 25% of those in attendance during my showing got up to go to the restroom at various times. Since missing the famous "Living Manifestation of Destiny" speech in Mission: Impossible 5 for urine-based reasons, I no longer leave movies for any reason, ever. In order to pull this off I have developed a patent-pending dehydration technique that is 100% effective. Step 1: Stop fluid consumption no later than 2 hours prior to a film's start time. Step 2: Urinate repeatedly leading up to film's start time. Step 3: Once the film has begun, slowly, and I mean SLOWLY, rehydrate out of the film with the beverage of your choice (now that I'm 30, it's Diet Coke for me). Step 4: Enjoy. (Also works for air travel).
- Having Peter Dinklage play a giant "dwarf" was certainly a choice.
- The Russos have a knack for realistic action in their superhero films. By that I don't mean that everything looks real, because it certainly doesn't, but rather that characters behave and perform their superhero karate chop action in a way that seems realistic. Case in point: Captain America's shield never bounces quite as convincingly outside of a Russo Brothers Joint. The fisticuffs in Captain America: Civll War, namely the Cap/Bucky/Black Panther 3-way chase and the Iron Man showdown in the finale are bone-crunching, kinetic displays of violence. While Infinity War leans too heavily on the CGI for the fights to feel as hard-hitting as they do in some of the previous outings, that illusion of realism still powers most, if not all, of its action.
- Carrie Coons voicing Lady Voldemort was a meta-joke on the whole Leftovers-style ending of this movie, right?
- From a purely technical perspective, this movie is an unmatched feat in story engineering. I was delighted to see how a film featuring 30 characters, 6 magic rocks (that each perform a specific task), and the loose threads of a dozen movies worked so well. However, because of the sheer amount of characters, each picking up little bits and pieces of the narrative along the way, the film lacked emotional focus in a broad sense.
- Marvel has been eating DC's lunch for 10 straight years. That must really smart.