The Hotdog Laserhouse

Infinity War was a weird thing where, after the movie ended, I had no idea what to feel. It’s a very strange movie in that it’s kind of hard to absorb from just one viewing.

That’s largely because of how its paced. The cast of characters is HUGE, one of the biggest casts in a mainstream movie like that. There’s, like, what? Seventeen heroes all sharing the spotlight?

And I didn’t see most of the previous Marvel movies. Here is every single Marvel movie I’ve watched from beginning to end:

• Iron Man
• The Avengers
• Guardians of the Galaxy
• Ant-Man
• Spider-man: Homecoming
• Thor: Ragnarok
• Avengers: Infinity War

Special mention should probably be given to Iron Man 3, which I’ve seen in enough bits and pieces on TV that it probably makes up 85% of the movie.

Regardless, I was in the dark for a lot of what lead in to this movie, complicating my feelings even more. Because this is such a dense movie, they spend exactly zero time setting up these heroes or their motivations. You’re supposed to know that Vision and Scarlett Witch have a thing, that Black Widow and Bruce Banner apparently HAD a thing, and why Bucky Barnes is in Wakanda. Or, uh, what Wakanda is at all.

So the movie’s running at a thousand miles an hour, but at the same time, it doesn’t feel like it’s losing anything for it. It didn’t feel poorly paced, just incredibly fast. There wasn’t any time to catch your breath until the credits rolled.

And after the credits rolled, I was just kind of… stunned? Not just because of the ending, but because it was almost too much to decompress.

About a month or two ago I watched it a second time with friends and it’s definitely a movie that helps seeing more than once. It’s not a hard movie to understand, but it’s a movie that’s constantly showing you so much so quickly that things you’d normally have time to think about get buried under seven more things, and then seven more things, over and over.

It was much more enjoyable the second time around because of this. You have an idea of what’s coming up, so there’s less time spent feeling run around, and you can focus on digesting the rest of the movie.

It’s really cool! I like how Thanos is really sold as the movie’s protagonist. He gets the most focus, the most character development, and they actually try to make you sympathize with him. Almost to the point where hearing him called “The Mad Titan” at certain points in the film almost doesn’t stick. The Thanos we see isn’t mad at all. He’s incredibly empathetic in his cause. He is not a ruthless bringer of war, he doesn’t really take pleasure in his battle, he’s merely fighting for what he believes is the betterment of all sentient life in the galaxy. He’s downright charismatic at times.

It’s a different way to view what is ostensibly a villain. Thanos is wrong, obviously. He believes in a cause that is fundamentally wrong. Sympathy and empathy mean nothing in the face of such large-scale murder.

But stories never show you their side in such comfort. Villains are always rude, they’re always monsters, they always have endless reasons to make you hate their guts. They kick puppies. They make children cry. They spit in your face. Play dirty. They’re bumbling idiots that boil with comical fury over a hero’s one-liner. You’re supposed to hate them.

It’s hard to hate Thanos. Thanos speaks softly. He loves his daughter. He cries. He watched his homeworld die. There’s a sort of regret in his eyes. He doesn’t want to do this, but in his mind, this is the only way.

And there’s a logic in that. We deserved this. Practically once a week, there’s a new report about how Earth is hosed because of global climate change. Devastating wildfires, powerful storms and more are only going to get worse. We were warned, we ignored the warnings, and now this is what we’re left with. It’s easy to believe in a narrative where Thanos is here to save us from ourselves.

And that is the real heart of what makes Infinity War so good. It’s almost a paradigm shift, and I suspect we’ll be feeling the influences of this character in many non-Marvel movies to come.