Well. A movie like this is very difficult to judge as a “movie,” because in many ways it’s not. No, what it is is the culmination of a decade long series involving nineteen movies, all of which have been building and connecting in ways small and big, depending on each separate film, leading up this first entry in a two-part Avengers event, the ultimate “crossover,” if you will. It is not for newbies. It is not for casual moviegoers. It is for those who’ve been paying attention. They expect you to have seen all the previous Marvel Studios entries and if you haven’t…there is nothing here for you. So, leaving that aside, as someone who has seen all the films and occasionally liked some of them, not all, I still found this to be a perfunctory, noisy, unsatisfactory mess that holds none of the life of the last few (Black Panther, Thor: Ragnarok and Spider-Man: Homecoming all held enjoyable elements within the Marvel formula, enough to justify their own existences). I found everything to be rather mechanical here, with jumps from space to Earth and back again, a plot composed of 80% indistinguishable CGI fight scenes, strained one-liners inserted to keep the oppressive doom from becoming too heavy, and frankly, just plain boredom. It feels like this all had to happen, and the Russo brothers, who previously directed the Captain America films, were simply tasked with making it all come together as skillfully as possible, but with no room for creative inspiration in terms of story or characters. Just manage to get everybody onscreen, take turns showing them off, and we have to see them fighting. That’s it, those are the marching orders, and try to do it gracefully. I suppose in a sense they pull that much off, but I just wasn’t interested. The one daring moment involves a bold, dark cliffhanger bound to leave younger viewers upset, but if you know anything about upcoming sequels planned for the franchise, you have to know that there’s nothing to worry about there either, so where’s the suspense, really? I sit in the Avengers movies, passive to the experience, waiting for moments of cinematic inspiration or surprises that never come. I find it deadening.
