So I Saw Infinity War (No Spoilers)
May. 3rd, 2018 07:00 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
glitter_n_goreYou know, it's not all roses being an internet reviewer. Often, you can guess at least a little how you're going to feel about a piece of media. If you're going into fangirl mode, you scrounge up presale money and plan outfits for opening weekend. Or, if you suspect it's going to grab you by the throat and give you nightmares, you mentally steel yourself until you feel like you can take it in without it overwhelming you. The thing is, this doesn't normally happen in the same movie.
Avengers: Infinity War, Part 1 was a curve ball. On April 27, I wore my Captain America shirt all day, and went to the movies right after work. By the time I was driving home I was stunned. I spent most of the weekend buried in fix-it fics and yelling "HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO REVIEW THIS?!?!" into the void. Then I said to myself, "Lady, you somehow found a way to review Darren Aronofsky's mother! and finish it in time to have it published in the April edition of Belladonna Horror Magazine. You can handle a spoiler-free review of a superhero blockbuster movie for your DreamWidth blog."
Can I though, world? CAN I?
I could tell you about these Infinity Stone things, what movies they first appeared in, what they do, and why we're meant to care, but let's be honest: you don't want to hear about that. No, you want to know why we superfans are wandering around with thousand yard stares and flooding our social media feeds with sad GIFs and tags like #I'mNotCryingYou'reCrying. I thought I was ready for whatever the MCU could throw at me. I wasn't. And now I'm having an out-of-genre experience.
I like being scared. I like being pulled out of my comfort zone. I like it when movies throw me for a loop and make me think and wonder and not want to sleep. But I also like deus ex machinas, explosions, cheesy one-liners, slickly choreographed action scenes, magic, laser guns, gratuitous pop culture reference jokes, and puns. There are reasons I so often forget to include plot summaries and instead wind up focusing on the way a movie made me feel. A lot of my so-called reviews disintegrate into fangirl squee, such as, "OMG this part! And then this part! It was so cool, you guys, you gotta go watch it!"
There's a lot I can happily squee over in Infinity War. I want to tell you everything I loved and how fun it was to watch it unfold for the first time, and I am looking forward to seeing my mom react to it, because she always watches these movies eventually too. With all the pearl-clutching and rending of garments going on right now, I want to emphasize that there is a lot of really good stuff in this movie. Some of my favorite moments in all of MCU history are happening here, and I don't want them to get lost in the shuffle.
There were also a few scenes that made me physically recoil and look away. Me! The girl who binge-watched all three Purge movies, and all six Resident Evils, earlier this year. At one point I had my shirt pulled up to my eyebrows and was muttering, "I can't look, I can't look," to my friend Sarah. That's the level of uncomfortable I got. Those parts I'm NOT looking forward to sharing with Mom, and I honestly don't know if I shouldn't just spoil a few things so she'll be more ready than I was.
That's not even getting into the plot clutter taking up space and pulling time away from characters I'd rather spend time with instead. Most of it is remarkably well-paced, all things considered. The Russo brothers know what they're doing, as they did with The Winter Soldier and Civil War before this. Despite the fact that I strongly question, and even outright despise, some of the decisions they made here, I still believe in this series and I want to see what happens next. Honestly I get the feeling that there was a studio mandate to dot some I’s and cross some T’s and it just didn’t gel as nicely as it could have. There’s a peripheral conversation also happening about How Comics Work, which I find frankly exhausting. I don’t read the top shelf Marvel comics BECAUSE of how often they pull crap like this. Having that style of storytelling bleed into the MCU is not a plus, and it irritates me.
Because something’s changed now. This is not the MCU I thought I knew. There’s a great line from John Carpenter’s Masters of Horror entry, “Cigarette Burns,” that I think fits here: “We trust filmmakers. We sit in the dark daring them to affect us, secure in the knowledge that they won’t go too far.” There’s a sweet spot between taking your audience for a ride that they won’t expect, and bringing them to a place they don’t want to be. Infinity War put a toe over the line.
This is where I’d normally put an “in conclusion” type wrap up paragraph, but I still can’t decide whether I actually liked this movie, including the ending, or not. So I’m doing the only thing a fangirl can do: I’m going again.
Avengers: Infinity War, Part 1 was a curve ball. On April 27, I wore my Captain America shirt all day, and went to the movies right after work. By the time I was driving home I was stunned. I spent most of the weekend buried in fix-it fics and yelling "HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO REVIEW THIS?!?!" into the void. Then I said to myself, "Lady, you somehow found a way to review Darren Aronofsky's mother! and finish it in time to have it published in the April edition of Belladonna Horror Magazine. You can handle a spoiler-free review of a superhero blockbuster movie for your DreamWidth blog."
Can I though, world? CAN I?
I could tell you about these Infinity Stone things, what movies they first appeared in, what they do, and why we're meant to care, but let's be honest: you don't want to hear about that. No, you want to know why we superfans are wandering around with thousand yard stares and flooding our social media feeds with sad GIFs and tags like #I'mNotCryingYou'reCrying. I thought I was ready for whatever the MCU could throw at me. I wasn't. And now I'm having an out-of-genre experience.
I like being scared. I like being pulled out of my comfort zone. I like it when movies throw me for a loop and make me think and wonder and not want to sleep. But I also like deus ex machinas, explosions, cheesy one-liners, slickly choreographed action scenes, magic, laser guns, gratuitous pop culture reference jokes, and puns. There are reasons I so often forget to include plot summaries and instead wind up focusing on the way a movie made me feel. A lot of my so-called reviews disintegrate into fangirl squee, such as, "OMG this part! And then this part! It was so cool, you guys, you gotta go watch it!"
There's a lot I can happily squee over in Infinity War. I want to tell you everything I loved and how fun it was to watch it unfold for the first time, and I am looking forward to seeing my mom react to it, because she always watches these movies eventually too. With all the pearl-clutching and rending of garments going on right now, I want to emphasize that there is a lot of really good stuff in this movie. Some of my favorite moments in all of MCU history are happening here, and I don't want them to get lost in the shuffle.
There were also a few scenes that made me physically recoil and look away. Me! The girl who binge-watched all three Purge movies, and all six Resident Evils, earlier this year. At one point I had my shirt pulled up to my eyebrows and was muttering, "I can't look, I can't look," to my friend Sarah. That's the level of uncomfortable I got. Those parts I'm NOT looking forward to sharing with Mom, and I honestly don't know if I shouldn't just spoil a few things so she'll be more ready than I was.
That's not even getting into the plot clutter taking up space and pulling time away from characters I'd rather spend time with instead. Most of it is remarkably well-paced, all things considered. The Russo brothers know what they're doing, as they did with The Winter Soldier and Civil War before this. Despite the fact that I strongly question, and even outright despise, some of the decisions they made here, I still believe in this series and I want to see what happens next. Honestly I get the feeling that there was a studio mandate to dot some I’s and cross some T’s and it just didn’t gel as nicely as it could have. There’s a peripheral conversation also happening about How Comics Work, which I find frankly exhausting. I don’t read the top shelf Marvel comics BECAUSE of how often they pull crap like this. Having that style of storytelling bleed into the MCU is not a plus, and it irritates me.
Because something’s changed now. This is not the MCU I thought I knew. There’s a great line from John Carpenter’s Masters of Horror entry, “Cigarette Burns,” that I think fits here: “We trust filmmakers. We sit in the dark daring them to affect us, secure in the knowledge that they won’t go too far.” There’s a sweet spot between taking your audience for a ride that they won’t expect, and bringing them to a place they don’t want to be. Infinity War put a toe over the line.
This is where I’d normally put an “in conclusion” type wrap up paragraph, but I still can’t decide whether I actually liked this movie, including the ending, or not. So I’m doing the only thing a fangirl can do: I’m going again.
no subject
Date: 2018-05-04 06:05 pm (UTC)You put this so well, this is pretty much how I'm feeling, too. Respect their abilities in tackling a daunting task, even though I DON'T like some things in the movie.
no subject
Date: 2018-05-04 07:34 pm (UTC)It's like, I'd like to be glib and dismissive, but I can't, because they made me care, and HOW DARE THEY?? That's why it hurts. Weirdly, I'm starting to like it more the more I think about it.
no subject
Date: 2018-05-04 08:42 pm (UTC)