My Own Little World

Infinity War is the Empire Strikes Back of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. This is a comparison made quite often – not just for this film, but for nearly every franchise. At some point, every gritty sequel will be likened to the practical perfection of Empire and its usurping of its predecessor’s formula. Whether this is deserved or not is a contentious subject with the fans of whatever franchise falls prey to the discussion. With the Marvel Cinematic Universe, though, Infinity War fits the mold perfectly. For the first time in these nineteen films, the stakes are real and not contrived by an incompetent villain. For the first time, the villain is a true psychopathic terror that gets true sympathy that can even approach empathy. For the first time (at least in an Avengers film), this group of god-like beings feels truly threatened by the antagonist, incapable of stopping them. There’s other parallels to be made for sure – like how both Infinity War and Empire split up ...

I loved the first Guardians of the Galaxy  film. It was so relentlessly original and infectious, and up until the release of Captain America: Civil War  it was my favorite movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I loved the cast, the writing, the soundtrack, and virtually everything else about it (save the villain; Marvel almost never does well there). Naturally, after the success of that first film, Marvel decided to attempt a repeat, bringing back the same cast, the same writer and director, and the same talking tree and raccoon. Marvel's sequels have usually at least in some ways improved on the originals, and sometimes they have struck gold, so I was quite hopeful for Vol. 2 . In some ways, this film does quite well, mostly due to the clever humor. Part of this is because of the writing and how fast and furious the jokes come, but I feel a majority of the humor's success comes from the chemistry of the cast and how everyone has different comedic slants. Every charact...