Avengers: Infinity War

[Legato Endless]

Spoiler: Thoughts, mostly from beginning of movie...

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Speaking of underpowered overpowered characters, I'm not sure what the purpose of shackling the Hulk was. Is it because he's pretty one-dimensional and too strong in what he does? I think I see the story-reasons; he's scared? But what was the meta reason? Similarly, Strange was toned down quite a bit. This however makes sense because he saw the future. Still, the pathway forward should have involved a little more uber magic being slung around, for meta reasons. Come on, we want to see the Sorcerer Supreme in action!

I can't comment on the movie in total because, full disclosure, I actually fell asleep during the huge end battle in Wakanda.

Spoiler: Banner's role

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To give Ruffalo more screen time and act as an exposition device. Between the already crowded film and the fact he spent most of Ragnorok as the Hulk, shelving his alter ego lets him get a bit of real face time. Second and more narratively, Banner being gone since Age Of Ultron makes him a solid outsider to reintroduce characters and events to. Every time Banner enters a new scene, there's two or three lines where someone updates him on the status quo. It's a quick shorthand for the substantial part of the audience that might have watched some, but not all, of the preceding films.

This balancing act is also why Strange, Panther, and the other more recent characters get shorter shrift. They've had recent films, so that's another reason to give more time to the old guard that probably will be retiring after Avengers 4.

Also worth mentioning: I'd always thought they should do a Marvel-Star Wars crossover, but I didn't think they'd actually do it. Snoke comes off as a badass in this movie and it's satisfying that Stark and Parker are the ones to beat him this time.

Am I the only one who sat up when Nidavellir appears on screen and thought, huh, I didn't know Cybertron was gonna be in this film? Because minus the rings, it honestly looks more like the Transformers' homeworld than the Bay movies.