{"id":5121,"date":"2018-09-08T11:58:13","date_gmt":"2018-09-08T15:58:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/?p=5121"},"modified":"2022-10-25T10:15:32","modified_gmt":"2022-10-25T14:15:32","slug":"avengers-infinity-war-2018-movie-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/avengers-infinity-war-2018-movie-review\/","title":{"rendered":"Avengers: Infinity War collapses under the weight of its own continuity"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Like a teeter-tottering pile of mint-condition, unread, bagged & boarded collector’s edition comic books, the Marvel Cinematic Universe<\/a> is quickly collapsing under the weight of its accumulating continuity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Joe and Anthony Russo’s Avengers: Infinity War<\/em> may be an edifying experience for the dedicated fan who’s seen all 19 or so preceding movies, and paid enough attention to the details to be able to follow what’s going on. But were it not for Tom Holland adding some levity as Spider-Man, and Josh Brolin as the relatively interesting villain Thanos (atypical for the superhero genre, to say the least), there isn’t much substance here beyond callbacks to previous installments and teasers for the next round of punch-punch boom-boom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The
The Avengers: Infinity War<\/em> is one part lunchbox, one part Wikipedia entry.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Picture the little kid coming to this for the first time. She is enamored by the idea of Spider-Man swinging through New York City, Captain America punching out baddies, and Iron Man fighting crime with his neato gadgetry. She has read and re-read her handful of comics, and is excited that her parents are taking her to the movie theater to see her heroes come to life on the big screen. Imagine how she feels when what she gets is more of a Wikipedia entry than a story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s the same paradox that affects all indefinitely ongoing comics: the more pages that pile up, the more complex the continuity, the more impenetrable it comes, and before you know it the only people reading comics are grownups.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Like a teeter-tottering pile of mint-condition, unread, bagged & boarded collector’s edition comic books, the Marvel Cinematic Universe is quickly collapsing under the weight of its accumulating continuity. Joe and Anthony Russo’s Avengers: Infinity War may be an edifying experience for the dedicated fan who’s seen all 19 or so preceding movies, and paid enough […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5122,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,2],"tags":[1700,1783,1780,384,1782,548,385,1247,1781,1784],"class_list":["post-5121","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-3-stars","category-movies","tag-1700","tag-anthony-russo","tag-avengers","tag-comic-books","tag-joe-russo","tag-josh-brolin","tag-marvel-comics","tag-spider-man","tag-thanos","tag-tom-holland"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/avengers-infinity-war.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa9lhB-1kB","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":5331,"url":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/avengers-endgame-2019-movie-review\/","url_meta":{"origin":5121,"position":0},"title":"No escape from the tyranny of continuity, in Avengers: Endgame","author":"Chad Ossman","date":"May 4, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"There is no escape from the tyranny of continuity. Like daytime soaps, superhero comics exist in a quantum state of constant churn and perpetual stasis. Characters are introduced and die and un-die, relationships form and split and reform, villains are defeated and rally and are defeated again. Excelsior, and collect\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "3 Stars"","block_context":{"text":"3 Stars","link":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/category\/ratings\/3-stars\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Avengers: Endgame","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/avengers-endgame.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/avengers-endgame.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/avengers-endgame.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/avengers-endgame.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/avengers-endgame.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":787,"url":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/iron-man\/","url_meta":{"origin":5121,"position":1},"title":"Robert Downey Jr.’s got a bum ticker in Jon Favreau’s Iron Man","author":"Chad Ossman","date":"May 4, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Jon Favreau's Iron Man finds just the right tone for a superhero movie, pitched somewhere in the sweet spot between Spider-Man's emotional melodrama and Batman's grim vengeance. This blogger, a former lover of comic books (that stopped keeping up with them partly out of frugality, and partly lack of brain\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "3 Stars"","block_context":{"text":"3 Stars","link":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/category\/ratings\/3-stars\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Iron Man","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/05\/iron-man-feature.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/05\/iron-man-feature.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/05\/iron-man-feature.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/05\/iron-man-feature.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/05\/iron-man-feature.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":106,"url":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/fantastic-four\/","url_meta":{"origin":5121,"position":2},"title":"Fantastic Four","author":"Chad Ossman","date":"December 19, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Did they learn nothing from Spider-Man 2, clearly the pinnacle of the superhero genre (and I will fight a Marvel Team-Up with anybody that dares disagree with me)? Fantastic Four is an aggressively stupid series of one missed opportunity after another. 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