This is the ten year culmination of what we have been building up to. For some actors this means they have become very comfortable in their roles.With many of the actors contracts running up we knew going into this things were going to change, which translates to characters were going to die. Before we get into the meat of things in that regard, which can't be the elephant in the room because I think it is what gave audiences the strongest reactions, lets address that is what we are going to talk about at some point. So rather than shouting spoilers and being overly sensitive to your needs in that regard the fact of the matter is if you waited ten years for this and still haven't seen the movie by the time you are reading this, then it was much of a priority to you in the first place so who cares what gets spoiled or not.
Here I weigh things heavily against the comics, since this is a comic book blog not a movie blog. They pulled from various incarnations of the Infinity Gauntlet Saga. Obviously since the Black Order is a more recent invention. There were big difference in the story due to the fact people like Sliver Surfer and Adam Warlock are not involved. Mar-vell is coming and being played by Jude Law, but that is not where we are when we get to this film. The first device they use is having Thanos first whip up on Thor , Hulk and Loki to establish what kind of threat he is. This is the only real appearance of the Hulk as Banner is impotent to become him in this regard for the bulk of the movie also meaning they faked us out with fake trailers since the scene with the Hulk running behind them on Wakanda never happens.
The stars of this movie are really Thor, Dr. Strange and Scarlet Witch. Iron - Man has some moments but like Thanos says he does a lot of work for just a drop of blood. Spider -man is out powered holding his own better against the Black Order than Thanos. The Guardians of the Galaxy have some great moments with Thor and Mantis is more fleshed out. What what do Captain America and Black Widow do? Less than Vision thats for sure. Black Panther reaffirms the fact when he is not the sole super hero in the room, he falls back to being next to useless. He did very little in this movie and nothing against Thanos. In fact it was Thor who rescued Wakanda. Wakanda for ever held less weight as it was more "Wakanda for the next twenty minutes" or "Wakanda until we need a Nordic god to save us". Captain America did not do much more , but contributed more when it came time to throw down , being able to hold his own against Proxima Midnight, when both Black Widow and Shuri were getting their butts kicked by her later.
Dr. Strange should have had Thanos on the ropes midway into the movie. Scarlet Witch was able to hold him back with one hand. As a bad guy Thanos was one of the better ones to grace the screen. Not as clever as Loki, but more complex than he was in the comics. The only two complaints that are coming from the movie are the end. Who died and the general ignorance of people going into it not realizing this was only the first half, The Black Panther death got under the skins of some. Mot only did he get killed at the box office by this movie , but he got killed on screen. I think this took the gas out of the hype machine, I would prefer to have lost Scarlet Witch, Spider-man and Dr. Strange, but if that's how things went , it defied my expectations, so I am fine with it if this is a permanent death. I'll lend my theories on how they could work around this in the future in another entry, but right now this is what we got. I think Dr. Strange and Scarlet Witch certainly went out on a high note. Sure I could have used more Hulk. but they are juggling lots of pawns and I am fine with the Hulk not being in it at all as he is more of a loner , but oh well. This is one of the better Marvel movies for sure.
