Plot: Thanos (Josh Brolin) and his "children" attack and assault the Asgardian people as they fled the ruins of Asgard in pursuit of the mythical Infinity Stones, objects of such unmistakable power that when combined could give the user effective limitless control of the universe. Having already taken the Power Stone from Xandar, he now seeks the power of the Tesseract and it's Space Stone from the Asgardians. Loki (Tom Hiddleston) is revealed to be in possession of it and only surrenders it after Thanos threatens to kill Thor (Chris Hemsworth). Thanos pummels the Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) into submission, but Heimdall (Idris Elba) manages to send the Hulk to Earth using the Bifrost to warn them of Thanos's impending arrival. Heimdall and Loki are both killed and Thor is left to drift through space as Thanos sends his minions to Earth to collect the Mind Stone and the Time Stone while he seeks the Reality and Soul Stones somewhere in space.
Hulk crash lands into the New York Sanctum where Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) and Wong (Benedict Wong) meet him and seek out Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) to warn him about the impending arrivals. Stark believes destroying the stones would be best, but Strange insists that he is bound to protect the Time Stone and encourages Stark to seek out the Mind Stone within Vision (Paul Bettany). Vision has apparently gone AWOL, though, alongside Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen). When compelled to contact Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) about his whereabouts, New York is besieged by the Children of Thanos. After a brief battle with the timely arrival of Spider-Man and the comedic non-arrival of the Hulk, Tony Stark, Dr. Strange and Spider-Man are carried off into the spaceship belonging to Thanos's henchmen, who hope to extract the Time Stone from Strange.
The Guardians of the Galaxy run into the destroyed Asgardian vessel and encounter Thor, who clues them in to Thanos's plans, with Gamora (Zoe Saldana) realizing he will come for her to find the Soul Stone as she knows where it is. The Guardians split up as Gamora goes with Peter Quill (Chris Pratt), Mantis (Pom Klementieff) and Drax (Dave Bautista) to seek out the Reality Stone while Thor takes Groot (Vin Diesel) and Rocket Raccoon (Bradley Cooper) to Nidavellir to procure for himself a weapon he could use to kill Thanos before he obtains all six stones. The Guardians run into a trap set by Thanos using the Reality Stone to snare them and capture Gamora, hoping to force her to give him the location of the Soul Stone at the thread of destroying her sister Nebula (Karen Gillan). Thor and his group find that Thanos had wiped out most of Nidavellir's dwarfs save for one (Peter Dinklage) who helps Thor to create the mighty axe known as Stormbreaker. Thanos and Gamora find the Soul Stone's location, but are unable to attain it except by destroying that which Thanos loves. Gamora is temporarily placated by this, but Thanos reveals he's always loved her as his daughter before killing her and acquring the Soul Stone.
Vision and Wanda are attacked while they were hiding together in Scotland by Thanos's children, but are saved by the likes of Steve Rogers, Natasha Romanov (Scarlett Johansson) and Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie). After going to Avengers HQ to pick up James Rhodes (Don Cheadle) and Banner and also having a manhood raising contest with Colonel Ross (William Hurt), the makeshift Avengers fly to Wakanda to hide and protect them, but Thanos's army of mindless alien followers pursue them and prepare to invade. King T'Challa (Chadwick Boseman) rearms the Avengers and Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan) while also calling in all of his allies for battle on Earth. The aliens overwhelm Wakanda's defenses and are nearly successful in capturing the weakened Vision, but Thor's timely arrival with Groot and Rocket turns the tide long enough for the Avengers to defeat the Children of Thanos.
Strange, Stark and Parker manage to defeat Thanos's second in command, but Stark desires to take the fight to Thanos and the trio fly to his homeworld of Titan, where they encounter the fledgling Guardians of the Galaxy as they prepare to set a trap for Thanos. While there, Strange has a vision of only one way they could hope to overcome their enemy out of fourteen million possibilities. Thanos arrives in pursuit of the Time Stone and gets into a brutal fight with the makeshift Avengers. The good guys nearly overpower Thanos on several occasions, but Peter Quill's anger over the death of Gamora allows Thanos to regain command and brutally impale Tony Stark. To the shock of everyone, Strange surrenders the Time Stone to Thanos provided he spare Tony's life. Thanos leaves for Earth with five of the six stones and Strange tells Stark there was no other way for them to come out of that encounter alive.
Thanos's arrival ends the hopes of Wanda Maximoff keeping Vision alive and she forcibly destroys the Mind Stone inside of him while her friends fend off the incoming Thanos. Thanos sees he Mind Stone disintegrate and commends her for being able to kill that which she loves, but he uses the Time Stone to turn back time long enough to take the Stone from the Vision and kill him and possess all six stones. AS he realizes his power, Thor overpowers Thanos and impales him with Stormbreaker, but Thanos uses the last of his energy to snap his fingers and wipe out half of all life in the universe, retreating to safety with the Infinity Gauntlet and his Stones. The Avengers on both fronts are forced to watch as Quill, Mantis, Drax, Strange, Peter Parker, Sam Wilson, King T'Challa, Shuri, Bucky Barnes and Groot all disappear into dust, leaving Tony Stark and Nebula stranded on Titan and the forces on Earth completely shell shocked by the losses of friends and half of life in the galaxy.
What's Bad?: Honestly, after watching this film back and forth several times before coming up to this review, there really isn't anything outside of a few nitpicks I can find that are truly wrong with this movie. I guess you could argue that the way that Tony and Steve didn't trust the other after Steve sent that letter to Tony at the end of Civil War is a plothole, but it does make their conflict conclusion all the more believable in the next film, so I'd say it's forgivable. Aside from that, there is a sense of total destruction of the Asgardian population in this film that is hinted at, but we find that many more survived in the next one, so again, a minor nitpick.
What's Good?: First and foremost, I have to give credit where it's due for this movie not feeling bloated and way too stretched out for a movie of this scale. I think a lot of it has to do with how separated these characters are for most of the film as well as how some of the relationships play out. Strange and Stark play extremely well against the other's arrogance, with Peter becoming something of a negotiator between them. Everyone is in their own clearly defined locations, with the paths only converging when it was absolutely necessary. No one feels forced to be in one specific place and all of the emotions and actors on screen seem genuine to a fault. We see that Tony and Pepper have rekindled their relationship, we see a completely one sided rivalry between Starlord and Thor, Wanda and Vision have some nice scenes together, but the fact that the film doesn't feel too congested with plot points and characters is an achievement.
Thanos truly makes his presence known in this movie. After having two powerhouse bad guys in the last two MCU Movies in Hela and Kilmonger, I was initially afraid that Thanos would be more subdued in this one. But to my relief, they gave us what we finally wanted to see. And, as many have already spoken about, Thanos is one of the greatest villains in the history of film. He's not just a power obsessed villain who wants the Infinity Stones for a reason. He has a passion for conservation and protection of the world's finite resources and firmly believes that if you depopulate the world, it could solve this issue. He does his deeds without prejudice or regard, completely randomly and fairly. Good people and bad people fall victim to his acts and he believes himself the sole hope for salvation as the rest of the world fights him relentlessly to this point. He sacrifices everything he is and was to get to this goal, including his own adopted daughter Gamora. Thanos is also not over the top villainous in his desires, making a deal with Strange to spare Tony Stark's life while getting what he wanted in the Time Stone. He is truly a dramatic villain the likes of which will probably never be seen on this scale ever again.
This film has some of the coolest action spectacle of all of the MCU and the best nerdgasm moments in the entire MCU (yes, including Endgame). These moments include Thor obliterating a large portion of Thanos's army with one attack, Doctor Strange's solo match with Thanos and Captain America almost singlehandedly being able to pry the Infinity Gauntlet off of his hand. I don't think there's a single action scene in this whole movie that I think can be skipped, that's how cool they all look. Heck, even the beginning of the movie where Thanos manhandles the Hulk is incredible to behold. It's nice to actually talk about something that truly met the expectations of its fanbase and even surpassed it to a degree.
The ending of the film was also a HUGE risk to take. This is the first mainstream movie since arguably Fellowship of the Ring to end on such an ominously dark note with little to no hope for the future. Even one of my favorite movies of all time, The Dark Knight doesn't capture the feeling of hopelessness as well as this film does. We all know how they're going to end it, but for a brief moment and window of time, you're left to wonder just how the hell the MCU could possibly manage to talk their way out of this one.
Overall: While I will go out on a limb and say The Empire Strikes Back is the better film, Avengers: Infinity War is the closest we have ever gotten to replicating the stunning success of a long anticipated sequel. It's dark, cruel and takes no prisoners in telling a story that needed to be told. No one is safe from this point on in the MCU and I appreciate them showing these superhuman characters having flaws outside of emotional ones. There actually are limits to the powers of people like Captain America, Thor and Iron Man. And this movie displays them on full display.
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