‘Avengers: Infinity War’ goes very very big

Bemedict Wong, Benedict Cumberbatch, Mark Ruffalo and Robert Downey, Jr., in Avengers: Infinity War

Too long a sacrifice can make a stone of the heart. O when may it suffice? – William Butler Yeats

Mankind deserves sacrifice – but not of mankind – Stanislaw Jerzy Lec

Avengers: Infinity War is a sequel to The Avengers and Avengers: Age of Ultron and takes place after the events of Thor: Ragnarok, Spider-Man: Homecoming, Black Panther and  Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol 2.   

The movie begins aboard the ship carrying the survivors of the destruction of Aasgard.  “Thor,” “The Hulk” and “Loki” are there ; confronting “Thanos” and his key minions, including Ebony Claw.  Thanos is after the Space Stone contained in the Tesseract.  It is one of the six Infinity Stones and Thanos intends to collect all of them.  He believes that the entire universe is overpopulated.  That this overpopulation represents a threat to its continued existence.  He intends to use the power provided by all six stones to kill half of everyone, everywhere.

Since Thanos had the Power Stone already, he only needs the remaining four.  The Mind Stone that is embedded in the forehead of “Vision”.  The Time Stone, safely stashed in the secret compound of the Masters of the Mystic Arts.  The Reality Stone which is in the hands of “The Collector”  The Soul Stone is on the planet Vormir and Thanos can only obtain it from “Red Skull, the Stonekeeper” by sacrificing someone he loves.


Hulk survives the battle and lands back on Earth, transforming back into Bruce Banner.  He reaches out to “Doctor Strange” in an effort to try to prevent Thanos from getting the Time Stone.  Ebony Maw is joined by Obsidian and they try and fail to take the Time Stone from Strange.  Since they cannot take the stone from him, they take him aboard their ship and head into space.

The Guardians of the Galaxy wind up rescuing Thor, who informs them of the intentions of Thanos.  They then split into two groups, Thor, “Rocket” and “Groot” go to see “Eitri” .  They plan to get a weapon that would allow Thor to kill Thanos.   “Drax” , “Gamora” , “Mantis” and “Peter Quill” arrive on Knowhere, only to find Thanos is there already.  He has the Reality Stone.  He takes Gamora with him as he departs.

Are you tired yet?  We haven’t even dealt with how “Midnight” and “Glaive” journey to Scotland to battle “Scarlett Witch” and Vision to get the Mind Stone and how they are rescued by more of the Avengers.  Or the events that wind up with everyone assembling in Wakanda for the ultimate confrontation.  Or how Doctor Strange makes use of the Time Stone to try to find a timeline where they can vanquish Thanos.    The film’s running time of 2 hours and 29 minutes allows directors Anthony Russo and Joe Russo a lot of time to cram as many characters from the Marvel Cinematic Universe into the action.

Josh Brolin in Avengers: Infinity Wars

There is a lot of action and it is a lot of fun to watch.  The irreverent humor found throughout the MCU’s movies is present.  The abilities and powers of the players are astonishing.  This is one movie where it would be handy for those in the audience to be provided with scorecards in advance.  If you haven’t seen all of the MCU movies that came before this one, you could be easily confused.

A reminder that like all MCU movies, you need to stick around for the post-credit sequences.

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