Avengers: Infinity War marks an important point in the evolution of Hollywood. After watching it, I can give you strong recommendation: take your money, subscribe to Crunchyroll, and stream some anime (e.g., “Darling in the Franxx“). Hollywood is played out as a creative force in films, while anime has evolved from teen fun to serious drama (it’s still good teen fun).
Disney spent $300 to $400 million making Infinity War. It’s all on the screen: excellent CGI and a troupe of skilled actors. For a little more money Disney could have hired more skilled writers. Much of the plot makes no sense. Key points are idiotic. The dialog is painfully stilted. The characters are engaged in a desperate race against the clock to save half the population of the galaxy. Occasionally they pause to crack wise, much as in the Sound of Music
To see a film with a large cast of top actors engaged in heroics, watch The Longest Day
There are brief dramatic moments in it, but they fall flat unless you have a relationship with the characters from past films.
A: IW shows Hollywood’s obsession with CGI and disinterest in stories. It has a slapdash feel to it, despite the massive budget. Much of the action makes little sense. Heroes and villains clash with fisticuffs and the occasional red beams from the hands. People with no special powers fight villains alongside heroes with superpowers – with no difference in the fights. The non-super heroes should be smashed to jelly, but are unscathed. Heroes have super jewels of power, but they are seldom used. Experienced warriors forget how to fight, making stupid mistakes.
People act totally out of character. People make bold declarations, then do the opposite. People make weird decisions (bad decisions drive the plot).
Aliens with a starship the size of a city fight earthlings, much as if the Custer commanded a regiment of Abrams tanks with air support at the Little Big Horn. The fight should last one minute, but goes on and on – with the primitive natives doing quite well.
If you do see A: IW, count the oddities. Then post your count in the comments. I could not stay awake to do so during a second viewing. Especially last third, which was 50 minutes of fighting!
The bottom line
A: IW will probably have a multi-billion dollar box office, as superhero films dominate the US film industry. Why? By comparison with A: IW, John Wayne’s b-grade cowboy flicks look like PBS documentaries, and his WWII films look like The Iliad. These “tent-box-office superhero films are the Twinkies of entertainment. Soulless, manufactured like widgets. What in them appeals to us?
How do these stories shape us? Do they inspire us to be stronger – or pander to our fears and weaknesses? Do they challenge our hearts, minds, and imagination – or deaden them?
I enjoyed reading comic books as a child. I enjoyed many of the early superhero films (e.g., Batman Begins, the first Spiderman trilogy, the first X-Men, the first two Iron Man, and the first Avengers). But something has gone sour in this genre. Or perhaps they have drilled down into the emptiness in our souls.
Meanwhile, anime has grown. With the time burned watching the 19 Marvel superhero films, you could have watched almost two seasons of a good anime series. You would have seen provocative characters, countless plot surprises, innovative imagery, and strange new things. This might be the equivalent of the 1960s automobile industry. The US dominates with its large boring products while Japan innovates beneath their notice.
- See the top anime in each genre at Reel Rundown. IMDB has a list of the top 50 anime. Crunchybase shows their 1000 anime by genre.
A good Leftist at The Guardian admires genocide
“What if superheroes aren’t really the good guys?” by Steve Rose. As usual, barely hidden love for psychopathic genocidal murder for good Leftist causes. No matter how many times Paul Ehrlich and his clones are wrong, the Left still believes their doomster forecasts.
“This brings us up to Infinity War’s villain, Thanos. With a name like that, you know he’s not a good guy. But nor is he textbook evil. He doesn’t want to build an empire or amass wealth or any of the usual despotic bad-guy things. He just wants to restore balance to the universe, indiscriminately. You could call him a Malthusian extremist. ‘The universe is finite, its resources are finite. If left unchecked it will cease to exist,’ he explains. ‘So many mouths and not enough to go round.’ You wouldn’t call that evil if David Attenborough had said it.
“Thanos’s methods are hardly humane, but there is a logic to his argument: climate change and environmental destruction are inarguable threats. Human existence is unsustainable.”
Insightful comments from critics
“{Marvel}Â needs to move beyond climax after climax with unremarkable, repetitive violence.” –Â Alan Zilberman.
“All of the explosions, chases and pretty colors that bombard your eyes and ears feel repetitive and tiresome after a while, and their returns are diminishing. 99% of the dialogue is either shallow or just there for the sake of exposition.” – NYC Movie Guru.
“As Thanos edges closer to ultimate power, the heroes joke around as merrily as lacrosse players on the bus to Chapel Hill. …Marvel fans seem to love this, but the joshing and the action nullify each other. …Banter keeps dissolving the dread like a bar of soap in a bubble bath.” – Kyle Smith.
“Thanos is an idiot, but neither he nor the filmmakers know this.” –Â Rubin Safaya.
For More Information
Ideas! For shopping ideas see my recommended books and films at Amazon.
For more info, see “The Ultimate Guide to Marvel Comics Movies, In and Out of the MCU” by Joshua M. Patton at the Comic Years website.
If you liked this post, like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.  See all TV and film reviews, all posts about heroes, and especially these…
- We want heroes, not leaders. When that changes it will become possible to reform America.
- Are our film heroes leading us to the future, or signaling despair?
- We like superheroes because we’re weak. Let’s use other myths to become strong.
- Hollywood’s Hero Deficit – both a cause and symptom of our weakness.
- An America without heroes. We’ll miss them.
Trailer for Infinity War
IW is like an overpriced comic book where I purchased it to see what happens, shrug my shoulders, and then tossed it in the trash. It is not that it is horrible where I remember everything about it that makes it bad, it is just boring.
“People have super jewels of power, but they are seldom used. Experienced warriors forget how to fight, making stupid mistakes.”
What is the point of even have power and experience if you can not use it? Especially with the previous Marvel movies supposedly as a foundation only to see it sink in a swamp.
I grew up reading superhero comics, especially X-Men. If you had told my 15 year-old self about the current domination of the film market I would have said “my wishes are going to come true!”
Be careful what you wish for.
The extended animated commercials for toys that passed as shows in my youth often showcased better narratives than current superhero films.
I’d say more, but your analysis above reads like it was ripped out of my skull.
I have to go see this with my friends, I will try to take up your “challenge” above.
Christoper,
Please post your thoughts on the film after you see it!
Anime? You are a dork.
Hollywood sucks. The majority of the movies are boring and dumb. Instead of peeps wasting two hours and $20 bucks I’d suggest exercising or reading (not graphic novels). I’m not immune to the Hollywood dumb movie disease, but I lessen the financial impact by waiting and renting from Red Box. Recently watched the newest Thor movie (dumb), newest Star Wars (Uber dumb) and Hostiles (pointless). Personally, I have not seen a really good movie in a long time.
Gute,
“Anime. You are a dork.”
Parochial much? Anime is one branch of this entertainment media (manga and novels are the other two). It’s 2017 total global gross was $18 billion from all sources. It was roughly $12billion from 2005 to 2012, then began rapid growth — with international sales the fastest growing.
Direct revenue (e.g., excluding merchandise) was $2.5 billion in 2017. That’s a respectable total. Total US film box office revenue was $11 billion in 2017. US bo office has been flattish since 2012 while anime sales have been rising fast.
See more details from the anime industry annual reports.
More indicators:
Crunchyroll has almost 1200 anime for streaming, with English subtitles or dubs.
In its first year in 2002, the organizers of Anime Boston expected 500 attendees and 2,000 turned out. Recent crowds have consistently surpassed 20,000. The largest anime event in the U.S. is Anime Expo, held yearly at the Los Angeles Convention Center, with over 100,000 attending (source).
It’s a big world out there, and changing fast.
And just what is your problem with graphic novels? I won’t blame you if you prefer your books without pictures, but plenty of good stories have come to us via picture books. My life is richer for having read “Watchmen” and “Maus”, not to mention Will Eisner’s works like “A Contract with God”, and more obscure stuff like Ursula Vernon’s “Digger”. (I”m not going to start listing the Japanese ones I like, because if I do, we might be here all day).
My all-time favorite graphic novel is “Brought to Light”, specifically “Shadowplay: The Secret Team”, the half made by Alan Moore and Bill Sienkiewicz. It opened my eyes to see the kind of world we’re living in, and its use of pictures made it more powerful and more disturbing that words alone could be. I might not be here, reading Mr. Kummer’s website, if “Shadowplay” hadn’t taught me about the lies my government was telling me. Read it for yourself: https://archive.org/details/BroughtToLightShadowplayTheSecretTeam
“I lessen the financial impact by waiting and renting from Red Box”
I’ve gotten to the stage where I just check the movies out from the library for free because I don’t think they are worth even a dollar to see.
Multi billion dollar industry and tens of thousands who attend anime events. So, what that tells me is there are a lot of dorks in the world who spend a lot of their dork money on weird stuff.
Guys, I’m just teasing ya. I could care less that you like this stuff. My son is an anime fan and maybe not anime but I’m a Samurai Jack fan.
Ok, now let’s move on to Trekies………..
gute,
“a lot of dorks in the world who spend a lot of their dork money on weird stuff.”
Judgemental much? Do you often have delusions of godhood? Treatment is available!
God of the dorks Larry, god of the dorks.
“Brought to Light” is great, too bad my copy is falling apart.
”A good Leftist at The Guardian admires genocide
It just seems very strange that the same people that would support mass murdering despots oppose the death penalty.
And notice also the deaths in the film are randomly selected half of the population regardless of merit.
It seems like they support random deaths which can happen to anyone in contrast to targeted deaths that result from some deficiency of character.
Considering you reaped high praise on that stupid guardians movie despite it being universally panned including in Russia, and considering every avengers movie has been met with universal praise in majority of the world including Russia which is a nation you repeatedly suck up to in all you articles, I have to ask. What gives you a right to judge this film considering your clearly either a Russian troll bot or some alt right white boy who kisses Trump and Putins ass on a daily basis?
Tell us, Amir, which real live people do you respect? Who serves as your role models?
amir,
Wow! Thanks for sharing your view, however strange!
Hello editor! Please watch Cowboy Bebop if you haven’t already. It’s good writing and absent most of the tropes that give anime a reputation for being libidinal adolescent fantasy!
Also a perennial favorite among my close friends!
Cato,
Thanks for the recommendation!
By popular demand, I’ll be adding websites with list of good anime by genre.
Bebop is quite the anime classic.Worth watching. . Something I’ve watched and would recommend is “Shin Sekai Yori” – From the New World The source material is a Japanese Sci Fi novel that won their 29th Nihon SF Taisho Award.
Harold,
Thanks for the tip. It sounds fascinating.
On the short list of Anime to watch, by the same guy who did Cowboy Bebop is Samurai Champloo. A little bit more mature than Bebop, occasionally funny, sometimes viciously funny, and sometimes just so sad. It is what the title implies, a Samurai story. Honors US rap culture but in a tasteful way. Unapologetically Japanese and set in the period. GIve yourself a weekend to watch this, and then an evening to just let it settle in.
I’ll agree with you. I’d rather watch reruns of Dragonball or Captain Tsubasa than any new superhero movies. I pretty much stopped at the Dark Knight movies
I recommend the anime “Legend of Galactic Heroes”
Its old but good anime about the battle between 2 powers. One a democracy and the other an absolute monarchy.
Trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7grjXe2Eyo
Online stream:
https://otakustream.tv/anime/ginga-eiyuu-densetsu/
You can also find torrents to this anime to avoid the ads.
There is also a remake currently airing. I haven’t seen enough to make a judgemnt
Thank you. Legend of Galactic Heroes was epic. I would love to find it on DVD somewhere, with good English voiceover!
I watched these on Netflix, Gantz-0, Full Metal Alchemist – 2017 film, Godzilla Part 1 – 2017, Blame! thought they were rather good, though all for different reasons. I started with anime after reading Akira and then, later, watching the film.
Blame! reminded me *a lot* of a Brian Aldiss novel “Nonstop”. Different setting, but similar themes. In fact, if anyone’s *not* read any Brian Aldiss, Nonstop is a good place to start. If you read it, be warned, his output is nothing if not varied in type and style though always well written.
Bart Simpson loves a good Itchy and Scratchy. He’s even willing to defend this 2.5 episode as best he saw effa.
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