The Emotional Stakes of AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR

***SPOILERS AHEAD***

If the people at Marvel have accomplished anything with this 10-year experiment, they’ve at least made a movie that cannot be compared to any other movie. All those “most ambitious crossover event of all time” memes were funny and all, but the inescapable thought you have during Infinity War is, “this should not have worked.” All of these characters packed like sardines into one movie is not a recipe for a coherent, emotionally effective movie, let alone one directed by veterans of TV’s Community and Arrested Development, Anthony and Joe Russo. But the success of Infinity War is that the recipe worked: you can follow the plot, and it packs several emotional wallops, the best of which the Russo brothers save for the end.

Let’s not get too crazy with our praise though; Marvel doesn’t get points for creativity here. Combining the characters from the most popular movie franchise of the last decade is a no-brainer for a company that’s in the business of making money. I love these movies, but there’s no way I can’t be a little cynical about this. They figured out that investing in making the individual movies stand out on their own merits pays off big time when they get the band back together for the main event. But making money by making something good is still making something good, so I’m fine with being along for the ride.

My wife and I marathoned through all 18 movies preceding Infinity War in the month or two before its release. One of the undeniable conclusions (besides that 18 movies in one franchise is a lot to watch in a short time- we’ve set up a GoFundMe for all the work we missed*) is that the Marvel movies have been getting better. The movies from the first five years (with the exception of Iron Man and the first Captain America) are remarkably unfocused and even dull. The casting was everything; Chris Hemsworth’s charm carries the first two Thor movies, and Robert Downey Jr.’s carries the second two Iron Man movies.

Which makes the achievement of the first Avengers movie all the more impressive in retrospect. On a smaller scale than Infinity War, it shouldn’t have worked. The movies propping up that 2012 crossover event were not all that impressive, and yet director Joss Whedon presented us with a movie that was not only coherent in its visuals and its story, but also a hell of a lot of fun.

But since then, Marvel has flipped the script and invested heavily in making its individual movies stand out as much as or more than the Avengers movies. From Captain America: The Winter Soldier on, the studio has made it a priority to have the standalone movies tell singular stories that develop the characters. In other words, the standalone movies were legitimately standing alone. You weren’t just entertained, you actually began to care about the characters, because you watched them grow and learn and change. Steve Rogers, Thor, Peter Quill: they weren’t the same at the end of their movies as at the beginning.

However, the expectations for character development and emotional involvement are low for the Avengers movies. We know the difficulty level is high in a movie with 70+ characters, and we honestly just want to see the cool action sequences and hear some good one-liners. After Age of Ultron disappointed (I like it, but it’s the lesser Avengers of the first two by far), there was no way a movie could do what the original Avengers did, entertain at a high level while balancing way too many characters and plot points, and make us care.

And Infinity War does succeed in a lot of the same ways as the original Avengers. There are some awesome fight scenes. I’d even go so far as to say that action scenes are better, even though the original’s remain fun six years later. But the Russo’s have two action-packed Captain America movies under their belts, and they know how to build suspense and help the audience follow what is happening from punch to punch. They’ve also mastered finding stakes within each action sequence.

For example, the first big fight scene between two of Thanos’s henchman and the earth-protecting Doctor Strange, Iron Man, Wong, and Bruce Banner, along with an interloping Spider-Man, is clever and creative in its choreography, but also in how Banner discovers a rift between him and the Hulk in the midst of the battle. Iron Man is also occupied with more than just the fight: he has to protect Peter Parker as well. This gives meaning to the action, and furthers the plot without too much exposition.

When you have all these characters to juggle, there’s no way to grow them all unless you include some of that character development in the action sequences as well. In a fight between Thanos and Strange, Stark, and some of the Guardians, Quill learns something that inspires a response from him mid-fight, changing the entire course of the movie. Later, the Russos juxtapose shots of Thanos batting each Avenger away like insects with the Vision desperately trying to convince the Scarlet Witch to destroy the stone in his head, and we watch her agonize over the prospect of killing her love while Thanos deals with our heroes as if they were crumbs on his lap. I wouldn’t say that the movie as a whole sees a ton of concrete character development, because the ending is a cliffhanger. But individual scenes have stakes, and the combination of action and plot makes us care while being in awe of who’s overpowering who and how they’re doing it. It’s a tightrope act we’re unlikely to see ever again.

…until next year when the next Avengers movie comes out. Where does Marvel go from here? I’m not talking fan theories about plot or business realities, such as the fact that Marvel has dates already set for Spider-Man and Guardians of the Galaxy sequels, plus the reality that Black Panther is their highest-grossing movie and there is no way in Wakanda they would abandon that character to its Infinity War fate.

No, I’m more curious how the next Avengers movie carries this emotional weight going forward. For as much as Infinity War’s ending has to be undone in some way, it still felt real. And that’s not mentioning the other characters’ whose passing felt even more irreversible, like Loki, Heimdall, and Gamora. Zoe Saldana, in particular, gave such a moving performance for a superhero movie, it’s hard to imagine this wasn’t her curtain call.

But the balance between superb action and weighty emotion is a tough one to find. The Russo brothers have proven adept at it, but can they sustain it when the bar is this high? At this point, I wouldn’t bet against Marvel. Everything they touches turns into gold, and I’m not just talking about their profit margins. These movies are going to be beloved for a long time. Until the next Avengers comes out, let’s appreciate Infinity War for what it is: a singular achievement that never should have worked in the first place.

*In case my boss reads this, this is a joke. I swear I didn’t take any leave to watch Marvel movies.