MASSIVE SPOILERS! IF YOU WANNA SEE IT VIRGIN, DONT READ

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Ok, so last night was practically the first marvel film I didn’t enjoy. I mentioned this my husband we left and said “but you deathly hallows part one? They’re practically the same!” And that got me thinking and reaffirmed WHY I walked away disappointed.

My first point, the pacing. Its so fast it could give you whiplash. It barrelled along at breakneck speed to show you all the awesome characters from the MCU but at the cost of character development and leaving everyone feeling like flat characters. The only one that didn’t was Thanos. I enjoyed his development but not at the cost of undermining several interesting and compelling characters. So my second point, character development.

And here I’ll draw comparison to deathly hallows for my husband’s sake. DH did develop its characters, in fact it stressed it. The whole point of part one was gear them to the fight with a try and fail cycle. Every downbeat in deathly was followed up by an uptick in either determination, friendship or introspection. The pacing allowed for that and nurtured it. Where as in IW … It’s was all downbeats that undercut the character previously done development or tried to uptick on a one liner punchline. Intact at 5 minutes in I seriously questioned ‘what was the point in Thor Ragnarok?’ its message and Thor character progression was robbed in mere moments. Intact … Thor’s whole arc in IW destroys Ragnaroks message. This is recurring problem with nearly all the 'heros’ in the story, they all fail and learnt nothing and don’t progress, hell the only ONE I think that did learn died so that moment was kinda robbed too.

Now the narrative does follow logical conclusions are it barrels along. The main problem is that the hero’s of the story achieve nothing, they learn nothing from thier failures and therefore don’t progress. Even the deaths are anticlimactic, not one was an heroic death, one almost was before it went for a do over and fell flat. By half way, I could see the formula, knew what was coming, wait for the twist that never came and emotionally checked out. Infact it became so formulaic that Thanos used the same tactic 3 times to achieve his goals. Torture loved one in front of hero, hero tries to grin and bear it but gives in, hero gives Thanos what he wants, Thanos then kills the hero. 3 times! In one movie!

By half way, I stopped enjoying the jokes and fight scenes because I knew the out come and was sorely disappointed.

So back to what my husband said, why did I enjoy Deathly Hallows and not Infinity wars? Well at the end of DH it’s was grim, fearful but a strong sense determination and will in the face of death. IW left me exhausted defeated and learning nothing, and the movies hinted resolution from it part two is a cryptic notes about a magical caption mcguffin that’s had no screen time of emotional build up that I assume at this point will perform a Deux Machina and that doesn’t inspire me.

In all honesty, this should have been 2 movies … There were too many characters on screen that fell flat or were undercut or retro developed, the pacing didn’t get a chance to breath. And some scene were just pointless too, like the neuro surgery scene that goes nowhere plot wise.

I really really want to like this. I’ve been looking forward to this for year and I hate that all I did bwas walk out disappointed and unentused to see another marvel movie.