Review of the IMAX 3D film 'Avengers: Infinity War' (2018)

The Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) is the franchise adapting the Marvel Comics to the silver screen. Marvel Comics always places its stories in a single fictional universe, and takes advantage of it to intertwine its stories, and occasionally makes all-star stories where every main character shows up – and now it's the turn for the films. Most of the characters from the MCU's previous 18 films appear on this 19^th film.

The plot that puts together so many characters is, of course, about a crises – one so big as to threat the entire Universe. The villain, Thanos, comes from a Malthusian catastrophe: Titan, his extra-terrestrial civilization, collapsed and disappeared because of overpopulation - and as a consequence he thinks cautionary measures must be applied to the rest of the Universe, i. e. killing half of the population. In order to achieve the power to do so, Thanos gets the Infinity Gauntlet built and seeks the six Infinity Stones:

• The Space Stone, housed in a relic called the Tesseract.
• The Mind Stone, housed in the Sceptre.
• The Reality Stone, transformed in a fluid called the Aether.
• The Power Stone, housed in the Orb.
• The Time Stone, housed in the Eye of Agamotto.
• The Soul Stone.

Thanos' quest for the ultimate power could be easily mistaken for a fable about absolute power, but it isn't really so... Thanos merely wants that power as a means to achieve his objective.

It is worthwhile to review how much effort the MCU's writers put into slowly developing the artefacts that now become central to the plot of this film. Nine out of the eighteen previous films feature five of the Stones in one form or another.

SPOILER ALERT. Revelations are told about the following films: Captain America: The first avenger, Thor, The Avengers, Thor: The Dark World, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Guardians of the Galaxy, Avengers: Age of Ultron, Doctor Strange, Thor: Ragnarok.

These are the previous appearances of the Stones:

• Captain America: The first avenger (2011): The Tesseract is introduced as a relic kept in a church in the Norwegian town of Tønsberg, stolen in 1942 and lost in the ocean in 1945.
• Thor (2011): In the post-credits scene, the Tesseract appears in the hands of Nick Fury, who gives it to doctor Selvig.
• The Avengers (2012): The Sceptre is introduced and given to Loki, who uses it to steal the Tesseract. After his defeat, the Tesseract is returned to Asgard. In the post-credits scene, Thanos is introduced.
• Thor: The Dark World (2013): The Aether is introduced as a fluid found by Jane Foster. The fluid enters Foster, then it is extracted by Malekith the Accursed. After his defeat, the Aether is sealed in a container. In the post-credits scene, it is trusted to The Collector.
• Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014): In the mid-credits scene, the Sceptre re-appears in the hands of Hydra commander Baron Wolfgang von Strucker.
• Guardians of the Galaxy (2014): The Orb is introduced and found by Starlord, then is taken by Ronan the Accuser, who extracts the Power Stone from it. After Ronan's defeat, the Stone is encased in a new Orb and then trusted to Nova Corps from planet Xandar.
• Avenger: Age of Ultron (2015): The Avengers recover the Sceptre. Later, Ultron steals it and extracts the Mind Stone from it. The Avengers get the Mind Stone back and use it to create the android called Vision, who wears it on its forehead. In the mid-credits scene, Thanos puts the Infinity Gauntlet on.
• Doctor Strange (2016): The Eye of Agamotto is introduced and given to Doctor Strange.
• Thor: Ragnarok (2017): The Tesseract is seen for the last time in Odin's vault when Loki passes along it.

At the beginning of Infinity War, Thanos is shown to already have the Power Stone, taken from Xandar. He seeks the other five, so he sends his lieutenants to retrieve the two on Earth and goes personally after the other three. His efforts will clash into Thor and the Asgardians escaping Asgard after Ragnarok, Vision, Scarlet Witch, Hulk, Doctor Strange, Iron Man, Spider-man and the Guardians of the Galaxy. The rest of heroes will be alerted too, coming together to stand battle against Thanos' efforts to collect the Stones.

The story is well developed and mixes drama with humour, with brilliant dialogues. Still, it shows a small bit of inconsistency. The writers have come up with such powerful artifacts that they make their wielders invincible. Take Doctor Strange's Eye of Agamotto, for instance. Such an artifact allows to go back in time in case of trouble – so, how can its wielder ever be defeated?

The direction from Anthony Russo & Joe Russo is good. The visual effects are brilliant and make for excellent set design, costumes and illumination, but the camera movements are somewhat limited. The music sets adequately the tone for the film.

As for the acting: Thanos is a brilliant villain. That has undoubtedly much to do with the voice interpretation from Josh Brolin, but also with the visual aspect – in spite of being a computer-generated graphic, Thanos' eyes and facial expressions seem convincingly human. As for the rest of the crew, Zoe Saldana, Benedict Cumberbatch and Elizabeth Olsen get the best moments. Chris Evans, Don Cheadle, Paul Bettany are highlighted too.

As for the IMAX format: The credits show that the film is 'Filmed with IMAX cameras', and the image certainly shows high quality, but not the best quality I have seen on IMAX films.

As for the 3D format: The 3D is not real – not filmed with 3D cameras, but a conversion.  Its falsehood is noticeable, but still good enough to make it worthwhile to watch in 3D.

All in all, a masterpiece. 5 out of 5.

Title:	Avengers: Infinity War
Genre:	Superheroes
Year:	2018
Nationality:	USA
Colour:	Colour
Director:	Anthony Russo & Joe Russo
Writer:	Christopher Markus, Stephen McFeely, Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Joe Simon, Steve Englehart, Steve Gan, Bill Mantlo, Keith Giffen, Jim Starlin, Larry Lieber, Don Heck
Cast:	Robert Downey Jr., Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, Don Cheadle, Benedict Cumberbatch, Tom Holland, Chadwick Boseman, Zoe Saldana, Karen Gillan, Tom Hiddleston, Paul Bettany, Elizabeth Olsen, Anthony Mackie, Sebastian Stan, Idris Elba, Danai Gurira, Peter Dinklage, Benedict Wong, Pom Klementieff, Dave Bautista, Vin Diesel, Bradley Cooper, Gwyneth Paltrow, Benicio Del Toro, Josh Brolin, Chris Pratt, Sean Gunn, William Hurt, Letitia Wright, Terry Notary, Tom Vaughan-Lawlor, Carrie Coon, Michael Shaw, Stan Lee, Winston Duke, Florence Kasumba, Kerry Condon, Monique Ganderton, Jacob Batalon, Tiffany Espensen, Isabella Amara, Ethan Dizon, Ariana Greenblatt, Ameenah Kaplan, Ross Marquand, Michael Anthony Rogers, Stephen McFeely, Aaron Lazar, Robert Pralgo, Olaniyan Thurmon, Blair Jasin, Matthew Zuk, Laura Miller
Producer:	Kevin Feige
Co-producer:	Mitch Bell
Executive producer:	Victoria Alonso, Louis D'Esposito, Jon Favreau, Michael Grillo, James Gunn, Stan Lee, Trinh Tran
Production designer:	Charles Wood
Cinematographer:	Trent Opaloch
Film editor:	Jeffrey Ford, Matthew Schmidt
Casting:	Sarah Halley Finn
Art Director:	Jim Barr, Thomas Brown, Ray Chan, Jordan Crockett, Jann K. Engel, Beat Frutiger, Matthew Gatlin, Kevin Houlihan, Chris 'Flimsy' Howes, Sean Ryan Jennings, David Scott, Mike Stallion, Brian Stultz, Mark Swain
Set Decorator:	Leslie Pope
Costume Designer:	Judianna Makovsky
Music:	Alan Silvestri
Running time:	149 minutes
Language:	English