Avengers: Infinity War (2018)
I was excited to see Avengers: Infinity War. Early online reviews seemed enthusiastic. The manager of the coffee shop I go to had a kind of glazed awe on his face when he spoke about watching it on the opening night in a full cinema, everyone laughing and gasping at the same points in the story. I enjoyed Black Panther, even if it had a heaviness to it that wasn’t all the good type. Thor: Ragnorok was a lot of fun. Guardians of the Galaxy 2 was surprisingly affecting. You get my drift. I’m reasonably invested in these characters.
I saw it at seven-thirty on a Friday night in the largest screen of the Darlington Vue. Because modern multiplexes have ten or more screens, some of them are actually rather small, which means it can be more like being in a rich friend’s basement than being in a proper cinema. I don’t have a rich friend, but in my imagination I do. Perhaps that’s the same. Anyway, this wasn’t like that. This was the big screen.
The film flies along, like you’re on a roller coaster, and at no point did I want to get off. There was always something interesting to look at, even if only for a couple of seconds. The characters come and go, literally coming and going through portals and gateways of various descriptions, moving from spaceships to planets without much effort or reason.
I’m being facetious. Of course the characters have reasons, it’s just it all feels jumbled up, the many individual films that have come before competing with each other for the audiences emotional investment. None really get it. When main characters die I don’t care. But I wasn’t bored. It’s cinema junk food. I’ll eat another one. It’s something I watch with my son and he laps these films up. I just can’t watch another for a while. I know what’s good for me.