Blog Project 2

For my second Blog Project I really thought about what it was I should do, and it took me time to decide what kind of topic I wanted to fully immerse myself into. As an avid comic book fan I thought I'd delve into one of the more interesting comic book movies that came out recently. Avengers: Infinity War. It particularly stands out to me, as a comic book fan, because you can go to these movies without any prior knowledge of the comics and thoroughly enjoy them. In fact I think people who aren't engraved in comic book lore enjoy them the most because most who follow the comics always knitpick a little too much. The general public is going crazy for superhero films and Infinity War exceeds the high expectations.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZfuNTqbHE8

The movie was directed by Joe, and Anthony Russo and has a huge list of star actors and actresses such as Robert Downey Jr, Chris Pratt, Josh Brolin, Scarlett Johansson, Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista and many more. The actors all deliver very strong performances throughout, with many praising Spider-Man (played by Tom Holland's) character. The beginning of the movie is about a very powerful being known as Thanos who is hunting for the Infinity Gems so he can cleanse what he determines to be an overpopulated galaxy. Standing in his way is an assembly of Heroes from all over the galaxy who are driven to stop him and protecting the fate of the entire galaxy.

When it comes to similarities and differences the first thing we can do is look at the original subject material which is the comics themselves. Now they've streamlined a lot of the lore so that general audiences can enjoy the movies without having to diverge time to look through the many seas of comics to understand what's going on. The movies still maintain the relative feel of the comics without a lot of the baggage that comes with it. In the Original Quest for the Gauntlet storyline that the movie is based on it's actually a big reveal to be Thanos, in the movie though it mostly centers around Thanos as a central character instead of an antagonist that appears at the very end for an epic battle. Another way it's similar is Thanos' motivations for cleaning the galaxy and many of events throughout the movie are ripped straight from a comic panel which is a good ode to those that follow the books.

Within the genre I say it stands different just based on the scale of the film. Most superhero films have a central narrative which is the character it tries to follow throughout. In this one the narrative jumps around a bit and for some it can lead to people being withdrawn from the whole process of the film because we're never in one place for too long. They also work to develop the motivations of the villain. In many films in this genre we don't get a lot of depth into the villain apart from the fact that he's an evil bad guy, the only other movie in this genre that really gives the villain as much depth that I can think of is The Dark Knight with Heath Ledger's adaptation of the Joker. These two movies stand on their own when it comes to character development for the villain. It's similar to other hero films because we still get the colors, crazy unbelievable things that happen, the powers that many characters have. You can watch fifteen seconds of the trailer and know what kind of movie it is without any knowledge of what you're seeing.

I think this film is important because it is full recognition of a type of literature that hasn't been well received when translating over to films for generations. Are these films perfect? No, but they deliver on a lot of the quality that is missing when you turn a novel into a movie. I usually despise book-turned-movie projects because they remove the qualities of the book but for these movies they do the comic books a lot of justice. It matters to me, and many other comic nerds specifically because it wasn't popular to be into comics several years ago. Growing up I remember being made fun of for enjoying comic books and now it seems like everyone is. It's a big shift in our culture. I think with how cynical our culture is we look to demagogues from the comics for inspiration because a lot of us just want to find something to be hopeful about and the message these films send are very positive. The target audience is kids through young adults but I think anyone of any age can truly find enjoyment in this movie. For stereotypes there's only one I can really recall off the top of my head and that's Drax (played by Dave Bautista). He's kind of playing the big, muscular, drooling idiot. The film does good things for him but there are moments that are meant to make you laugh, even if they are slightly offensive. Such as when he claims that nobody can see him when he's completely still, even when that isn't true at all.

The strengths are in the set piece moments, costume designs, character interpretations, and action sequences. This movie really delivers on the imagination of the comic book fan. The CGI is really top notch and there isn't any movie out there that I think is better. There are still moments where you can tell that it's CGI but it doesn't take away from the experience. One example of CGI that was noticeably CGI and detracted from the experience was when Iron Man gets into his suit for the first time but beyond that the CGI is great. I only have two things that I'd consider to be a weakness for this movie and that's the campy humor which is a staple of these movies. In this it's just too much and I think they should've dialed it down a lot. The last thing is the pacing. Sometimes it slows down too much and we're left trying to catch up, but then it speeds up and you get lost trying to keep up and process everything. I think there must've been two sides in the development team that were conflicted about how fast the movie should be going at. The movie is very good.

I'm not too familiar with the work done by the Russo brothers but since they've taken on many of the Marvel films I've felt improvement in the quality of the movies so I'd say they did pretty good. Considering the movie came out four months ago and people still talk about it I guess you can say it's pretty memorable.

Critics for the film have been very positive, mostly citing the effects, action, and the characterization of Thanos to be the best points of the film. One such reviewer claimed that: "Thanos' plot is explicitly, enthusiastically genocidal." Which is exactly what his character so happens to be. Another reviewer said this in regards to a criticism: "the plot is extended absurdly due to the film trying to fit a little slot for every character to shine. While it's good at first it does get a little predictable with how it fleshes the characters out." For the most part I agree with the positive reviews, but can also understand the negative ones because they do make valid points.

The many actors and directors used social media to promote the film, with many of the actors posting iconic lines from their characters. I'd say fans were so hyped up for the movie that these little posts didn't really do much to draw interest because people were already excited but it satiated the taste of fans up until the release. I actually went out and bought the film even after watching it a handful of times. I'm familiar with many of the actors and actresses careers so I do already follow the ones I like. Most of my friends enjoyed it, as did my family even though I had personally catch them up on a lot of the details prior to watching the film.

In giving this critique one thing I learned is how different expectations are for these kinds of things. Also I learned how nuts the public is for these movies when ten years ago superhero films were mostly B-movies you bought in the 5 dollar bin at Walmart. We've definitely come a long way.