"INFINITY" INFANTILE

          This latest Avengers movie, even if it rakes in all the money in the world, marks a Marvel misfire.

          In spite of frequent funny moments due mostly to the presence of the Guardians of the Galaxy, an overwhelming preponderance of negative aspects override the good in the long-hyped Avengers: Infinity War.

          It's a mistake of Wagnerian proportions to make Iron Man the substitute father-figure of Peter Parker. This relationship is not in keeping with the original Marvel Comics source material, and more importantly plays poorly. There's no reason to downgrade Spider-Man into Tony Stark's squeaky little assistant. Anyone who knows anything about Spider-Man remembers that he's an ace science whiz who devises his own costume and web-shooters. Spider-Man doesn't use nanotechnology, doesn't have anything handed to him on a silver rich boy platter--and even if that did happen in some new woo-hoo graphic novel, it wouldn't mean anything because that's not the real material. 

          Boom.

          The conflict in this episode arrives in the form of a giant computer-generated yawn called Thanos. Remember Ultron? Somebody somewhere keeps getting stuck on the lame idea that what the world needs now is a cartoon Bad Guy going for the Best Actor Oscar, and it's an embarrassing display to witness. Not simply because it's done poorly with the CGI equivalent of "acting to the camera," but because the all-too-obvious race for the computer-performance acting trophy is as inherently flawed a premise as a comic book movie version of Hamlet with hordes of moody Danish princes flying around with space ray guns.

          But wait, there's more.

          The film requires that viewers accept too many ridiculous premises, not least of which being that the Big Bang generated six incredibly tacky-looking trinkets called the Infinity Stones which Thanos wants adorning his Michael Jackson-esque glove. If he can collect 'em all, then he will be the one with the big, big power. Who knows, maybe the next Marvel movie will incorporate nuclear arms-bearing Teletubbies into the story.

          Also, viewers are yet again expected to accept that Thor, a Norse god, speaks with a prestige British dialect instead of sounding--wait for it--Norse. Golll-ly, might as well have him do hillbilly talk. Or start rapping in Chinese.

          Nor should officious interstellar aliens in the service of Thanos or anybody else speak in prestige British, on account they never was hatched in Buckingham Palace.

          All of which (plus plenty of problems unworthy of deliberation) could probably have been generously overlooked were it not for an irresponsible and annoying ending. Remaining intentionally vague for no good reason, suffice to say, at the end of the day, comic book movies are for children. Sacha Baron Cohen makes challenging films. So does Michael Moore. But this thing's just gimmicky and decidedly unheroic. Toying with children's superheroes, for purposes of making sales or desensitizing the masses, no matter how proud Minister of Propaganda Goebbels may well have been to see it, isn't simply a turnoff, it's a dirty rotten trick.

Stewart Kirby writes for

THE INDEPENDENT

and

TWO RIVERS TRIBUNE