Aboard The Grandmaster's spaceship Thanos and his henchman, The Children of Thanos, have slaughtered the remaining Asgardians fleeing from a destroyed Asgard. He has traced Loki there, who is in possession of the Tesseract which contains the Space Stone, one of six stones Thanos needs to wield the Infinity Gauntlet. Thanos kills Loki after imprisoning Thor and defeating the Hulk, but a dying Heimdall manages to open the Bifrost one last time to send The Hulk back to Earth. He lands at the Sanctum Sanctorum in New York City where he warns Doctor Strange and Wong about Thanos' impending arrival. Back in space Thanos destroys the ship using the Power Stone hurtling Thor through space, but he is saved by the Guardians of the Galaxy who received a distress call from the ship. Knowing that Thanos already has two of the stones the separate groups go about trying to stop the increasingly powerful villain from obtaining the others in order to disintegrate half the universe.
With such a large amount of characters to deal with there was always going to be some that featured less prominently than others, but for the most part the film balances them well. The film partciulary excels at grouping them into several sub-plots as to allow specific characters to bounce off each other.
Robert Downey Jr. is as solid as ever as the playboy genius Iron Man, and is paired well with the very similar Benedict Cumberbatch's Doctor Strange. They are joined by the enthusiastic yet naive Peter Parker. Tom Holland can do no wrong, and is particularly strong in one of the films closing scenes; his character a perfect balance to the hardened thespians of the franchise.
I found Chris Hemsworth's Thor to have become uncharacteristically funnier, in the same manner of those aforementioned, in his previous film Thor: Ragnorak and was concerned that trend would continue here. The beginning of the film sees Thor suffer a terrible loss and which could have easily seen him transformed into a dour character to deal with, which is again perfectly rectified by having him joined by The Guardians of the Galaxy, particularly Rocket and Groot, to counteract this with their funny banter. Their humour doesn't always fit in with the rest of the Avengers, though, with both Drax and Mantis finding little to do.
Gamora, on the other hand, is extremely instrumental to the film, with Thanos's daughter providing some much needed pathos to the villains motivations. He's surprisingly likeable as a villain because of this, although ultimately he's world destruction agenda still falls flat despite an attempt to character a relatable backstory for the troubled family.
Back on Earth, Paul Bettany and Elisabeth Olsen's Vision and Scarlet Witch are the most focused on characters, due to Mind Stone being his life source. Their relationship has never felt understandable to me, so it's a hard sell here, but it's hard to care too much when longtime fans can't help but get excited when the Avengers and constantly reuniting with long separated friends (I'm looking at you, Steve Rogers with that impressive beard), or even meeting each other for the first time.
The only real problem the film has, as it has been for majority of Marvel's phase two films, is that believable and the motivation behind a lot of the characters actions. The franchise has been running for ten years, so fans gain a greater sense of what they think characters will do, and when they don't it becomes difficult to believe. Loki, God of Mischief has escaped death numerous times, so his demise here - trying to foolishly stab Thanos - is annoying (as is the fact that if he hadn't stolen the Tesseract from a collapsing Asgard none of this would have happened). Despite knowing where the Soul Stone is and asking Quinn to kill her so Thanos can't get it, Gamora not only tells Thanos where is it after her sister Nebula is tortured, but she foolishly doesn't realise Thanos's plan to kill her to get the stone until too late. The moment The Children of Thanos come to Earth to retrieve the Mind Stone from Vision he knows the solution is to kill himself for the greater good, yet Scarlet Witch only agrees to this until it's too late. The most ridiculous of all is Stephen Strange giving Thanos the Time Stone in exchange for Tony Stark's life, a man who he's just met and openly expresses that he doesn't like, the only understandable explanation being that when he calculated the future possibilities the only one in which they win featured Tony playing a significant role, which is why he would save him. One understands that quickly addressing these dilemmas significantly shortens and changes the story, but that doesn't make them any less frustrating.
The movie is fast-paced, has high-stakes, and is surprisingly emotional amongst the abundance of action, while still managing to retain its humour. While it is the longest-running Marvel film to date, fans of the franchise will not notice its longevity in the slightest, and in fact while be left wanting a lot more due to its cliffhanger ending.
Rating: 4/5
