Seems as good a time as any to feel like a drop in the ocean, so I’m going to throw my opinions about the latest Marvel film at the internet.

Although the first Infinity War is less of a standalone, and packs less of an emotional punch than other Marvel films, it’s still entertaining. I’ll explain:

*SPOILER WARNING* – If you are caught up on the films or simply don’t care about spoilers, please read on.

Standalone or stepping stone

Obviously, every Marvel film is part of a greater, ongoing universe so they should naturally feed into one another to keep the momentum for the “series.” They aren’t supposed to be single-shots. However, I believe all of the earlier movies have strong “standalone” qualities; the films individually carry their own story arcs, resolving them before the credits roll.

Even the prior Avengers crossovers provide full story arcs. The characters have internal and external problems at the start, we’re given time to see the problems and potential solutions come to a boil, and then there’s a climax and resolution where most problems are solved and the characters are shown to have grown.

With Avengers: Infinity War, the character development is lacking, relying more on the viewers’ knowledge of past films than ever, and the movie ends in the middle of the rising action. Obviously, this was intentional, since Disney and the Russo brothers plan to spread the story arc over two Infinity War films (with an Ant-Man sequel and Captain Marvel debut in-between). So, with Infinity War, they wrap up Part One by crushing our heroes with major setbacks.

Side Note: This is essentially what was famously done by The Empire Strikes Back, but unlike Empire, I doubt Infinity War will be ever be referred to as being the best of the series.

Ultimately, Infinity War is unique as being the only MCU film to lack a full story arc. It probably also has the largest proportion of movie-goers thinking “WTF?” at the end (I haven’t seen such a response since watching The Fellowship of the Ring in a theater where some folks didn’t know they were only watching the first in a trilogy).

Personally, I’m fine that the movie is more a part of a series than it is a standalone. I’ve been trained since the days Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings to be okay with waiting a year or so for the next film. The folks at Disney are becoming experts at intermittently releasing films to build and maintain interest. So, although there are many unresolved threads, I’m still fine with waiting for the wrap-up, especially since we’ll have two other MCU films in the interim.

Death everywhere, but not a tear to drop

Okay, I don’t think I’ve actually shed a tear while watching a Marvel movie, but I’ll admit I’ve come close. With Black Panther, I’m driven to near-tears every time I see Killmonger (Michael B. Jordan; Seth Carr) going up to the apartment to find what happened to his father. Guardian of the Galaxy Vol 2. also got me pretty good when Peter Quill learns the details of his mother’s death. Going back to Phase One movies, I’m also moved when the scrawny Steve Rogers dives on the grenade in The First Avenger.

With Infinity War, we’re treated to a high death count. Try as I might to delve into some sympathy and empathy, I wasn’t quite as affected as I would’ve liked.

In the opening scene, we see slaughtered Asgardians and the fan-beloved Loki choked to death. I felt almost nothing. I was busy thinking, “Dude, we just saw these guys get saved at the end of Thor: Ragnarok. And where the hell is Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson) and that rock guy (Taika Waititi)? Are they all just dead now after Bones/Eomer (Karl Urban) sacrificed himself for them?”

Well, I also thought “Nooooo!” when Heimdall (Idris Elba) was stabbed in the heart, but that was about it. I’d already seen Loki die before, so–yeah.

Perhaps the lack of emotion also has to do with the rushed pacing of the movie. There’s so much to get through, the scenes fly by, and Thor (Chris Hemsworth) doesn’t get a fair chance to relay his pain to the audience.

I’m going to take a risk and say the lack of tears is, perhaps, partially because of the men at the helm. For the record, I thoroughly enjoyed directors Joe and Anthony Russo’s work on Captain America: Winter Soldier and Captain America: Civil War (it’s probably largely because of their success with Winter Soldier that Captain America didn’t shrink into more of a background character). They do great with the cloak-and-dagger stories, evoking certain emotions featuring the brotherhood between Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) and Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan), and certain types of comedy. However, they don’t seem as proficient with the use of pathos in their work.

Then again, getting people to cry probably isn’t the main objective in these movies.

Awkward woman VS woman combat

The movie seems to go out of its way to force the only female villain, Proxima (Carrie Coon), to fight the female heroes. I’ll concede there are instances where they mix it up a bit, most notably in Scotland. However, the film quickly establishes an awkward C-story between Proxima and Black Widow (Scarlet Johansson).

This seems to be the result of using a dated mechanic: forcing female characters to fight each other, insulated from the males in rather contrived manners. This issue is most noticeable when Proxima faces off against Black Widow, Okoye, and Scarlet Witch at the same time. The Winter Soldier and Cap aren’t that far away at the moment, so why don’t they go after Proxima? I’m pretty sure the answer is, “All-girl Fight,” preceded by a shrug.

Fan Theory Zone

I generally don’t like to go too much into fan theorizing, but I feel compelled to make a few comments:

1. Cheating with a bit of meta knowledge, the fact that certain movies have already been announced and certain actors are contracted for more films, a lot of the characters who “die” in the movie aren’t really dead forever (e.g., there are supposed to be more Spider-man and Guardians movies, and I don’t think those would work very well without Tom Holland and Chris Pratt as Spider-man and Star-Lord).
2. I assume, with Chris Evans’ apparent insistence not to contract for more movies, the only character who is more guaranteed to be “truly” killed off by the end of the Infinity War is Captain America. Many other folks will likely be brought back.
3. Dr. Strange saw all the possible futures, including one in which the good guys won; he probably had a very specific reason to make sure Tony Stark, of all the folks present, is left alive. So, it’s probably a future where Stark somehow makes it so the characters wiped out at the end of this movie aren’t quite gone.
4. Thanos’ goal is to get rid of half the population of all civilizations so that the civilizations can continue to exist and not overuse their resources. Maybe what he does by snapping his fingers isn’t to kill everyone, but to separate them into two alternate realities. That would halve the population, like he wants. Or maybe he sends half the population into a state of limbo. Why wouldn’t he just use his all-powerful gauntlet to create infinite resources and make everyone happy? He’s called the Mad Titan for a reason; he has to accomplish his goal (halving the population), but he doesn’t have to do it in the way people expect. At any rate, I think all the people who turned to ash at the end of Infinity War weren’t really killed in the normal sense.

Despite all the critiques I might have, I still found Avengers: Infinity War to be entertaining and I will continue to give all my money to Disney. The only problem is when I re-watch this movie, I’ll feel like I have to immediately go on to the next one because this movie offers no closure whatsoever.