Pros and Joes Review: AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR
This is the moment we’ve all been waiting for. Years of anticipation and buildup have led us to this moment, this particular place in cinematic history:
We are releasing our second Pros and Joes Review.
Oh yeah, and the biggest movie company in the world just released arguably the biggest blockbuster of all-time. As of yesterday, Avengers: Infinity War had made over $800M across the globe. It tied The Force Awakens for fastest to $300M (five days) and is on track to be the fastest film to make $1B. That’s B as in Buckeroonies.
That means that there’s a decent chance you’ve already seen the movie before reading this, but for the sake of inclusivity we are going to keep any spoilers to an appropriately demarcated section at the end.
SPOILER-FREE REVIEW
Frank Kaminsky:
Gladiator. The Dark Knight. Shawshank Redemption. Forrest Gump. Now, Avengers: Infinity War. Those are my top 5 movies of All-Time. I knew from the second the movie got going that it was going to be special. The hype build-up surrounding this movie was massive, and 10+ years went into the storyline of Infinity War (sometimes very hard to follow), but damn did it blow those expectations out of the water. I left the theater knowing that I had just witnessed a special movie. The movie may not get the amount of love it deserves from Marvel superfans, but to the common Marvel fan like myself it was fantastic. The action was amazing and Thanos is a badass. Cheering for him by the way. Big Thanos fan. After the success of a story build-up like this one… Avatar 2 better be great or I will slap my grandmother. No, I won’t. I don’t know why I said that. I won’t.
But maybe…
Two Enormous Thanos Gauntlet Thumbs Up
Matt “Dor” Dorsett:
I am Groot. I am Dor. I am Avengers: Infinity War and I’m an absolute revelation of a movie. I’ve seen it twice now, and the second time was just as amazing as the first.
Here’s the thing, I couldn’t stop comparing Infinity War to The Dark Knight after we left the movie. I feel pretty confident saying that The Dark Knight is universally regarded as a top superhero/comic book movie of all time…and I think anytime that a movie is even in the same conversation it’s going to be widely regarded as amazing. If you read our first review (thanks btw) you know that I like action and boobs in my movies. Well, hate to break it to you but no boobies in this one, and normally that would detract from my score. But when it comes to the action sequences in this movie, Infinity War is sporting a fucking DD cup. There’s no real warm-up, like the movie doesn’t dirty talk you or anything. It just gets right down to business from the get-go, a strategy that I am a big fan of.
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Two Modestly Dressed Thumbs Up
Jack “Jacques Tulee” Tully:
My good friend Garrett said something after seeing Avengers: Infinity War that in my mind perfectly sums up my feelings on recommending this movie:
“If you weren’t going to love it, you would’ve figured it out 18 movies ago.”
Seriously, it’s got to be pretty hard to walk out of the theater with a negative reaction to the movie. Like, what kind of asshole do you have to be to pay opening week money to spend 3 hours in the theater seeing a movie 10 years in the making, then say, “You know, that just wasn’t for me. One star.” If you’re reading this and you’re going to see the movie, you’re going to love it.
Going into it, I was worried about whether or not Marvel would be able to pull off the stakes necessary for such an epic, clusterbutt of a movie (that ones for you, Mom). You can only see the world on the brink of annihilation so many times before you start to realize that nothing that’s happening with the story really matters. I was worried that Marvel would take the easy way out and put the kid gloves on, not willing to risk the brand on real emotional stakes. All I can say is that I was fully satisfied with the end result. It did some things that I thought it would have to do, and even more that I wasn’t expecting. One of the best blockbusters I’ve ever seen, and I cannot wait to see how Part 2 wraps it up.
Two Big Ol’ Thumbs Up
Alex Flood:
I stated in the last blog that my biggest deciding factor on whether a movie is good or not is whether I think about it the next day. How about this one, did I think about Infinity War the next day? Not only did I think about it, I went and saw it again in less than 24 hours. As much as I hate Hollywood right now, and how much I hate that they don’t take chances on cinema the way that they used to, and for how much I love run-on sentences, I absolutely loved this movie. After we left the theater, we went into the parking lot and talked about it for 40 minutes.
The movie is a 2 hour 40 minute non-stop epic and I emphasize the word EPIC. Nobody in my theaters did so much as take a piss while the movie was going on. We were mesmerized. It’s very difficult for filmmakers to build up emotional connection with villains in movies as large as this, especially CGI Josh Brolin as the ultimate supervillain trying to exterminate half the population of the universe, but directors the Russo brothers (Winter Soldier, Civil War) knocked it out of the park with Thanos. So much so that I consider him the second best comic book movie villain of all-time after Heath Ledger’s Joker.
Two Thought About It Thumbs Up
FINAL SCORE:
8/8 Thumbs Up. That’s 100% of our thumbs for those keeping track at home.
SPOILERS BELOW! BEWARE!
- Best part is when they all start making out with each other in the middle of Madison Square Garden.
– That last one is for those of you that have continued reading this but haven’t seen the movie yet. Stop now. You don’t want no spoilers. A spoiler’s a guy that can’t get no love from me.
– Real spoilers now.
– Opening with Thanos beating the Hulk down easily and then brutally strangling Loki to death was just about the perfect way to start. Let’s you know they aren’t messing around.
– All the action with Thanos was awesome, but what was even more intriguing was the work put into explaining his motives. It does a great job of enforcing its core question: “What are you willing to do in pursuit of what you think is right?”
– Knew FOR SURE that the stakes were real when Thanos turns teary-eyed to Gamora and admits his love for her, just before sacrificing her life so that he could grab dat yung $oul $tone.
– Starlord with quite possibly the biggest fuck-up of all-time not keeping his emotions in check.
– Thanos snapping his fingers and creating a new reality was the absolute best ending possible. My mouth was agape as I watched all my favorite superheroes reduced to dust. “What did it take?”… “It took everything.”
– Why Spider-Man, why? WHY HAVE YOU DONE THIS TO ME, MARVEL?!?
– Frank’s Quote of the Movie: “I hope they remember you.”
The movie ends with Thanos snapping his fingers, which in our opinion will go down as one of the most iconic moments in comic book history if not cinema in general. With that one simple action, half of the entire universe was dead. Marvel wasn’t afraid to be bold in this movie: the bad guy won, he won convincingly, and he did it in a way that you almost wanted Thanos to win. When the credits finally roll, you feel empty because you want the final conclusion. The great news for everyone that loved this movie, you only need to wait a year for part two to come out.
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ABOUT THE JOES
Frank Kaminsky: Professional NBA Player and “Big Movie Guy”
Matt Dorsett: Average Joe and “Big Boobie Guy”
Alex Flood: Film Buff and Skilled Opinionator
Jack Tully: Writer and Expert by Default
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