SPOILER ALERT! If You Haven’t Seen Avengers: Infinity War Yet Skedaddle. Here There Be Spoilers
(But Seriously, It’s Been 12 Days Already. What Are You Waiting For?)
Try as I might, I couldn’t figure out a way to write a review of Avengers: Infinity War that would do it justice without giving away a hundred spoilers. I’m neither that smart nor that skilled a writer. But in the week since I’ve experienced it (and it is an experience rather than a simple movie), I’ve had plenty of thoughts rolling around in my head.
I’ve also had a lot of thoughts about DC’s floundering universe ever since Justice League fell flat on its face last year (bringing the DCEU to a near screeching halt). And watching the reaction to Infinity War’s conclusion on social media, these two worlds of thought inevitably collided and revealed why the MCU has become such a powerhouse while the DCEU has failed to find any traction with mainstream audiences.
There are two primary reasons why the MCU succeeds. The first is how painstakingly planned out it is. For all the characters that populate the MCU, it has essentially been building to a single story over the past decade. Each movie, regardless of the characters it stars or the story it tells, is a chapter in that larger tale. Everything has a purpose in the context of a single goal. Whether it’s big or small, every story is a brush stroke on a far larger canvass.
In case your harbouring any doubts over that particular point, I want you to ask yourself a question. How much do you think Infinity War’s end credit scene raised Captain Marvel’s stock? Marvel’s Mightiest Hero’s first solo title shot from being a maybe-see to an absolutely-gotta-see on a lot of people’s list. Who is she? How does she tie into the story of the Infinity Stones? How will she save the trillions who were wiped from existence by a victorious Thanos? Thousands of people who were planning on giving Cap a pass at the theatre next March now plan on snatching up tickets on opening night because they need to see the next chapter before Avengers 4 finishes Marvel’s current uber-tale.
That sixty seconds of post credit footage also probably added a hundred million dollars or more to Captain Marvel’s world wide box office.
Love it or hate it, the MCU is a storytelling and business masterpiece. When you step back and look at it as a whole, the MCU is an extraordinary piece of cinematic architecture.
But before we discuss the second (and most important reason) the MCU succeeds, we need to admit that the MCU is a singular move making achievement.
Saying the MCU has been successful on an unprecedented level isn’t mere hyperbole. Has there ever been a shared universe like this one in movie history? Have we ever seen a multi-character, multi-film franchise that has spent a decade telling stories against the same backdrop with most of its movies earning the title of blockbuster? To date, has anyone been able to copy the MCU’s success?
No? OK then, let’s continue.
The biggest secret behind the MCU’s success (and behind most of the DCEU’s failure) can be found in the near universal reaction to Infinity War’s ending. When the final curtain fell, after the heroes failed to stop the malevolent Thanos and half their ranks simply evaporated, audiences across the entire world sat in stunned silence. The Internet was swamped by thousands of memes sarcastically depicting how the movie had shaken so many people. Water coolers were hijacked by unnerved fans asking each other if their favourite hero had survived. What did they think about Loki’s fate? Whose death hit who in the feels the most? (And let’s be honest, if Spider-Man’s deletion didn’t hit you the hardest, you don’t have a pulse).
It’s because people care about these characters. Audiences have forged an emotional bond with these heroes, many over the course of several movies and some for the better part of a decade. Marvel’s critics love to bash it’s signature use of humour, but the MCU has perfected using levity to allow mainstream audiences (who know little to nothing about the comics that inspire the movies) emotional access to the stories and the characters in them.
The biggest reason I was so disappointed with Justice League was that it completely ignored the lessons the DCEU should have learned from the (much deserved) success of Wonder Woman. Before Princes Diana conquered the box office, DC’s movies really only appealed to hardcore comic book fans. And even then, they often polarized that community (Batman Vs. Superman prompted rarely seen levels of name calling on movie and comic book chat rooms). But Wonder Woman was able to reach beyond the comic book fandom and appeal to a much wider audience. She spoke to women of all ages and backgrounds hungry for strong role models in a world dominated by testosterone. And she answered that call at a time when a movement for equality and dignity for women was gaining unstoppable steam.
Wonder Woman was able to do what previous DCEU movies couldn’t and what the MCU had been doing for years. She just used different emotional gears to bridge the divide between comic book fans and mainstream ones. Sure, previous DCEU movies made money, but not nearly as much as they should have (BvS was projected to do around 1.5 billion dollars globally, especially after a record breaking opening weekend. It petered out well short of 900 million). And Justice League threw that lesson to the wind in favour of a stale, cookie cutter approach that failed.
Ask yourself, when Superman died at the end of BvS, did you have the same reaction you had when Peter Parker hurled himself at Tony Stark, pleading for his life? If Flash and Cyborg had been reduced to dust at the end of Justice League, would it have delivered the same emotional gut punch that hit you when Black Panther and Bucky dissolved into nothingness?
No.
While DC apologists often accuse the media of conspiring against the DCEU (seriously?), they fail to realize that reviews are no longer the barometer audiences rely on when deciding whether to invest their movie going dollars in a specific title. As far as promotion goes, reviews are a thing of the past. But word of mouth is a powerful tool and outside Wonder Woman’s incredible staying power last summer, DC’s movies have never enjoyed positive word of mouth outside their rabid flock of devoted supporters.
Marvel’s have.
Infinity War destroyed the mould in plenty of other ways too. We’ve become so accustomed to seeing the good guys win at the end of super hero movies, Infinity War’s ending was an almost unforgivable shock to our system. Even when victory demands suffering and sacrifice and loss, the good guys usually win. But to see the heroes fail despite unimaginable sacrifice was something we weren’t collectively prepared for.
To see the Scarlet Witch summon the emotional fortitude to kill the man she loved, only to have him resurrected and murdered again before she herself faded into oblivion was jarring (and definitely NOT something we ever expected to see in an MCU movie).
And is there any doubt Thanos is the best, deepest villain we’ve ever seen in a Marvel movie?
But the short of it is this; no one will be talking about a DC movie for the next year (at least nowhere close to the level of Infinity War). Marvel will have released three movies between last year’s disappointing Justice League and next December’s barely anticipated Aquaman (and at least two of those Marvel films will be members of the billion dollar club). And does anyone really expect Shazam! to hold it’s own against Captain Marvel next March, especially after the way Infinity War set Cap up?
At the end of the day, despite knowing most of our fallen heroes will somehow return, our collective feels are going to spend the next little recovering from the bruising they took from Infinity War. We’re going to be mourn our lost friends, many of whom we’ve spent years with. We’re going to feel for Tony and Steve and Thor, who will be suffering from the universe’s greatest case of survivor’s guilt. They may even be broken and brought low by their defeat the next time we see them.
And few of us are going to spare a single though to characters we barely met or couldn’t care less about.
Image www.marvel.com
