Transcript

Hi and welcome back to Reel Opinions. It's a big one. It's Avengers Infinity War which comes out I suppose 36 hours from when this comes out I think, and it's good. It's genuinely really good. It already says in the title of the video but just to clarify, definitely no spoilers are here. Not even vaguely spoiler stuff, I just want to keep focusing on... not necessarily vague points but nonspecific.

I'm going to be splitting up this review kind of into two parts. One focusing on the experience of the film and the other being the film itself which will make sense when I get onto it. If you were just a big Marvel fan and you're going through the reviews on YouTube trying to find if you should believe the hype or not then I would say, one, listen just to the first half of this video, and two, yes I would say so. Which is rare for me because I don't think I've said that for a Marvel film for a long time. Possibly not since the first Avengers.

The reason I'm going to be breaking up the review into two parts is that as a film I think it's great but has a few flaws but as like a movie cinematic event I think that it is the most effective it's being in a long long time and I think that even for myself, not a super fan of the series, I found myself honestly captivated and enthralled as to what was going to come next. Even staying away from fan theories you hear the fan theories and I think one very important point to make is that it surprised me which is not something a Marvel film has done in a long time. It genuinely surprised me, there were moments where I couldn't believe that they made those choices. Perhaps more because I kind of view it so much as a (in context) as a very safe series so maybe that led into me being much more surprised. But I think that just leads into my ongoing point that I think fans are definitely going to get exactly what they were hoping for with this film. I really enjoyed it.

The comedy is an improvement still on civil war and becomes much more hit than miss it is still hit and miss for me but much more hit this time. All of the matchups I think with characters meeting each other for the first time, I think that they play off each other very well in almost every single scene - and coming into that the creative way which the Russos dealt with the fight choreography in Civil War definitely continues with this. Constantly trying to find new ways to just make these superheroes combine and find new interesting ways to try and make their powers fun to watch. I'm just so surprised that I think that they did manage to live up to the expectations of everything that's been set up to this film. I think there could be some controversial decisions that maybe some fans don't enjoy but I don't think any fan could say that they didn't deliver on the premise of this film. As a cinema experience I would say that it was the one of the most enjoyable I've had in a long time, genuinely, and again coming not as a complete super fan of the series.

Now is the part of the video where I'll jump into some of the flaws that I found with it - so if you just wanted to hear the full positive stuff maybe tune out now. I'm not ripping into it or anything just that it's small aspects where I wasn't necessarily disappointed but I thought it could be improved upon and certain story beats that I think could be if anything just cut or changed. Again with being vague and spoiler free.

Firstly is the cinematography which, considering the amount that they poured into this film does not I think look as impressive as they hoped and I find that the ways in which the Russos put the camera I find actually takes away sometimes from what's happening on screen. I don't think that they portray action in the best way that they possibly could. However, I will say that every time they have a creative idea involving shots then that's pulled off very well, surprisingly, so it's a weird mixture where I think when the moments where it counts I think they pull off some really great visual moments, but in a lot of the hand-to-hand combat and less important moments in this film I think that the camerawork feels like sloppy and almost unclear at points. Not to a point where it's completely detrimental to the film, but parts where I just thought it didn't feel like it was tightly made. Maybe they are going for slightly more off-the-cuff aspect to it, to try and give a kind of more realistic feel to everything, but I think they just kind of came off as – when you're doing it in such a massive CGI world for a lot of the film it doesn't come off that way, it comes off as kind of easy camerawork and I think it shows off a lot of how they are directors that have come from TV.

Another middling point is that sometimes I think some of the initial interactions between the characters I think happened very quickly just because want to get this show on the road. This doesn't feel like a long film but this is a long film they have a lot to get through and so I can understand that sometimes they need to rush through some introductions but I think like, for instance, some of the characters meeting aliens for the first time that seemed to be very brushed under the rug and just kind of "Let's go. Keep up the pace. We got to keep going." From the moment the film starts it never really stops going the whole film and I find it admirable but yeah I just think there were certain parts that were brushed under the rug a bit too much to get on with the action. There's only one newly established character in this film which is Peter Dinklage and I thought his character was stupid. I didn't take it seriously the whole time he was on screen and I know you could say that this was a film where you're not meant to take everything completely seriously but it was just a silly character.

I'm genuinely amazed for some of the story points that they went with in the end. Oh, and the story points thing that I wanted to touch on is just that I briefly said about fan theories earlier and I think that that has kind of come into play into the script. I've talked a lot in recent reviews about how the idea that fans reactions to things, because of internet culture, I think media is becoming a lot more reactionary to fans responses for things and I think certain scenes in this play into that a tiny bit. Not so necessarily much in a fanservice way but just in a way that it's clearly playing off fans expectations and again for those scenes.

I think that they could have been played differently or to be honest scrapped in order of more character building moments as opposed to setting up more questions just for the sake of more questions.

Again, I'm trying to stay vague but if someone watches the film and then comes back to this review I think that they might pretty easily put what scenes I'm trying to explain. It was genuinely impressive film, a really fun experience in the cinema, and while I don't think it will be like my favourite film of the year or anything like that I think that this goes to show it's just if anything it proves it as a big experiment that I think has paid off and I think that is ultimately going to cement it in a lot of fans hearts as like a true favorite series now.