What critics think of ‘Avengers: Infinity War’
Read what the reviews (good and bad) say about Marvel's magnum opus.
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Will “Avengers: Infinity War” live up to — or even exceed — the sky-high expectations set for it?
At this point, it’s not a surprise when a Marvel movie is a critical and box office success, with the 18 previously released movies in the Marvel Cinematic Universe each earning more than $100 million domestically and receiving more positive reviews than negative ones on critical aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes. But “Avengers: Infinity War,” a colossal crossover event that combines nearly every superhero in its stable, could manage to trump all of them. According to Box Office Mojo, the film will open in more theaters than any prior MCU film, and studio expectations are that the film will make more than $210 million in its opening weekend, which could mark the third-best opening of all time, behind fellow Disney franchise films “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” ($248 million) and “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” ($220 million). While it’s never a sure thing until the receipts are tabulated, “Avengers: Infinity War” looks to be in good shape financially.
As for the reviews, critics have responded mostly positively to the movie, which had an 85 percent Rotten Tomatoes freshness rating at the time of this article’s publication. However, looking past the RT rating, there’s a greater range of opinions than you might expect in the reviews, with many of the “fresh” reviews containing more than a few gripes about the movie.
To help with your pre-theater preparation, we’ve rounded up a range of reviews (the good, the so-so, and the bad) from some of the nation’s top film critics.
The Good
USA Today critic Brian Truitt gave the film 3.5 stars out of 4, and said that the film told a story unlike any other in the MCU canon.
Marvel has pulled off all sorts of cinematic flavors in its 10-year legacy, from heist films and political thrillers to space operas and fantasy epics. Now it boasts a full-fledged Shakespearean tragedy.
Richard Roeper of the Chicago Sun-Times praised both Josh Brolin as the murderous Thanos, writing that he gives “perhaps the film’s most interesting performance,” and the film’s screenwriters for providing Thanos with an unexpectedly thorough story.
Rarely has the seemingly unstoppable evil force in a comic-book superhero film been given such a richly dramatic background and so many scenes in which there’s actual dialogue and not just CGI-laden battle sequences.
The So-So
Peter Travers of Rolling Stone lauded Brolin’s performance as well, writing that he builds a character “worthy of pity and terror.” However, Travers said the film suffers from where it falls in the MCU anthology.
This movie is an epic event, built to celebrate the end of a decade in which the Marvel Cinematic Universe produced 19 films. One problem is that No. 18, Black Panther, casts a long shadow – it’s arguably the best in the series, an unqualified triumph and could perhaps be the first realistic Marvel contender for a Best Picture Oscar.
The Boston Globe’s Ty Burr (who gave the film 2.5 stars out of 4 in his review), said that the film delivers for any die-hard Marvel fans, which he admits includes a “planet-sized chunk” of moviegoers. But he also wondered if filmmakers let “fan service get in the way of making a better movie,” and said that combining so many characters into one film was a bit much.
Put them all together, and what do you get? Superhero slurry. There’s a reason the best recipes don’t call for every ingredient in the pantry.
The Ugly
A.O. Scott of The New York Times used the first half of his review to pen a mini-diatribe on how films like “Avengers: Infinity War” have changed the critical profession, but eventually got around to panning the film for boring action scenes and repetitive pacing.
The action is especially tedious and predictable. I mean both the scenes of fighting and flying and the overall rhythm of the first two hours or so. People talk for a while, sprinkling jokes and morsels of personality into the heavy dough of exposition. Then they fight in the usual way, by throwing giant objects (and one another) and shooting waves of color from their hands.
The headline of A.A. Dowd’s review for the AV Club perfectly captures his sentiments: “‘Infinity War’ is just way too much movie for one Avengers movie.”
‘Infinity War’ inherits plenty of the problems endemic to crossovers: the privileging of quantity over quality, of spectacle over story, and of the shock value of major changes to the status quo over just about everything else.
