Avengers: Infinity War (2018) - Film Review

*Originally written May 3rd, 2018*

Review:

Avengers: Infinity War had a lot to live up to. It's the culmination of an insane 18 films of hit-or-miss quality and 10 years of build up. I had my worries about Infinity War. Packing all these characters into such a huge film. Would it work? I wasn't sure. While it is far from perfect, this is a fun, effective, ambitious and surprisingly emotional epic that spells the beginning of the end for a decade worth of superhero films.

The structure is more in line with Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2, while the characters never all meet up in one huge scene (And a couple are curiously absent), everyone has their moment to shine and a part to play. A lot of the team-ups were unexpected, but mostly work. It's hard to talk about without spoiling, which I will not do.

Marvel has always had a villain problem, 90% of them are bland and throwaway fodder just to fill the space of a bad without any real character. Thanos, on the other-hand is a completely different beast. Josh Brolin delivers an extremely developed and compelling villain. It's so rare that a villain comes along where you completely agree with his motivation and why he does what he does. Despite being the bad guy, he has genuine heart and emotion behind him, leading to a moment of surprisingly brutality that I didn't think the MCU had in it. It really helped that Brolin is given such a huge amount of screen-time, possibly more than the heroes themselves.

Much like the Guardians films, this is an extremely gorgeous film to look at, filled with mostly impressive CG (Aside from a couple of Thanos' throwaway goons). It's not just the CGI too, the cinematographer is top notch too, there's so many bright and beautiful locations, a far cry from the ugly and televisual Age of Ultron.  Alan Silvestri's score was also fantastic. Again, scores are something the MCU seem to overlook, so it was great to hear a memorable orchestral score in a Marvel films.

Like I said, it's not all perfect though. A big problem I have had with the MCU is the lame humour and while there is quite a bit of eye-rollingly embarrassing comedy here, it's not as intrusive as it has been in the past. It's much more in line with Civil War, where they let moments of emotion breathe rather than throw in some stupid joke and remove any kind of tension. That said, there are some moments that are genuinely funny, it's not massively hilarious, but I do have to remember these kids films, despite how dark and mature Infinity War gets.

And Infinity War does get dark. A lot of people die, some long running, some not. While some of the deaths will be impossible for the MCU to commit to, it didn't make the ending scenes any less haunting or unsettling. There were one or two deaths that just got a collective shrug from me though, particularly the ones early on.

Infinity War really is a hard film to talk about, it's half a film, despite losing the "Part 1" in the title, this really feels like the first part of a film, and luckily we only have a year to see the resolution to the Empire Strikes Back style ending, but based on this, I'm sure it'll be worth the wait.


Superhero fatigue might be slowly kicking in, but Infinity War manages to be an ambitious and devastating entry into the now 19th film MCU that are slowly learning from their mistakes. I don't know what more I could have wanted from this film.

8/10 Dans

Avengers: Infinity War is out now in cinemas in the UK
Watch the trailer below:

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Black Panther (2018) - Film Review

Review:

*Originally written February 17th, 2018*

I went into Black Panther with relatively low expectations. I find most of the first standalone films in the MCU to be their weakest. I wasn't surprised by the critical acclaim Panther received though, good or bad, these films get a free pass from the critics, so I went in not knowing entirely what to expect. To my surprise, this was pretty excellent and while it suffers from a few of the problems most superhero films succumb to, this manages to fix a few of them.

This opens an entire new world within the MCU, Wakanda is a gorgeous, fascinating place that mixes futuristic sci-fi ideas with old fashioned tribal aesthetics. I have to bring up the society's backward system of using a monarchy and royal family though, such a stupid and broken system and only leads to the trouble they get into at the end on the film. They had it coming.

Black Panther wasn't the best in Civil War, but Chadwick Boseman really makes the role is own here, a near James Bond like figure with charisma and gravitas to him that makes him insanely watchable. Aside from a few lingering threads to Civil War, his story feels entirely standalone, which I always appreciate in this now 18 film franchise. 

Boseman is joined by a cast of very memorable supporting characters too. Panther's sister is a sort of Q like presence that provides the team with gadgets and weapons, Martin Freeman is given a lot more to do than he did and Civil War, I was surprised at how much screen-time he was given too, I suspected he was going to be nothing more than a cameo, but he's a pretty big supporting character.

On the villain side of things, Michael B. Jordan is excellent, one of the finest villains in the MCU yet, a sympathetic sociopath with clear motivations, motivations you could actually get behind and a surprisingly emotional character arc. He was a far cry from the wasted bad guys the MCU usually put out. Andy Serkis was also great fun in his role, I just wish he got more screen-time in this whole thing.

Coogler directs the 135 minute film with a brisk pace and the whole film does look gorgeous (The MCU seems to have finally broken away from the awful televisual look that plagued Avengers 1-2 and Captain 2-3). Some of the action is fluid and kinetic to watch, it's just a shame the film succumbs to that annoying third act where boring pieces of ugly CGI hit each other. The final fight on the train tracks is disgusting to watch, some of the worst special effects the MCU has had to date. Which is a shame considering how small in scale the early scenes were.

I wasn't a huge fan of all the hip-hop music either, a lot of the time it just didn't fit and felt forced, but at the very least it was far more memorable than the utterly forgettable score here. I'm pretty convinced there wasn't one at all in all honesty?

One of my biggest problems in this series has been the lame humour that ruined some of their films. Thankfully, this is a lot better in that department, the writers know when to shut the characters up and let the tension in a scene breathe, rather than ruin it with an embarrassing joke to make 6 year old children laugh. It's not all perfect though, that lame humour does pop up every now and then, a particular character towards the end ruined some potentially effective scenes.


Black Panther is far better than I was expecting, a gorgeous, beautiful film that expands the MCU, tells its own story and finally delivers a great villain, it's just shame it falls into the third act trap of bombastic garbage CGI towards the end.

8/10 Dans

Black Panther is out now in cinemas in the UK
Watch the trailer below:

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