Infinity War – Spoiler Free Family Review

Critics don’t watch films in our house, our entire family does. The boys have grown up with the new iterations of Captain America, Ironman, Guardians of the Galaxy, and Thor et al. To them, while they understand that the characters are cartoons, they are also real in their imagination. Lego kingdoms are built and destroyed in the Marvel Superheroes’ names; they dress up for Hallowe’en as Thor, and Spiderman.

This film has been anticipated in our house for months and months. The entire family has been watching trailers and sneak peeks together and debating on how the full complement of Superheroes will work together.

Did it live up to the hype?

As you’d expect in a film that has war in the title there are battle scenes and associated violence, but with minimal gore. The rating of 12A is appropriate and if you’d intended on bringing a young child along you may want to reconsider.

With so little time to cover the numerous storylines the characters become cartoonish and their traits accentuated even more so than usual. They are reassuringly familiar to the smaller members of the family and they revel in the in-jokes which made the audience laugh out loud that you would only get if you have watched the previous films in the series. The film is peppered with historical references which is a joy for a Marvel geek who knows the universe inside out.

Infinity War is unapologetically brash and loud. If you’re not already a Marvel Universe fan you may struggle to follow the story. I did find the movie a bit on the long side, but that might be down to having to sit through over 5 mins of title sequence to reach the obligatory Easter-Egg (disappointing this time I’m afraid).

We left the cinema with 101 questions from the older boy, which are going to be a regular feature of our household for the next year. There are more questions than answers in Infinity War, and the fact that we now have to wait a full year to see more is a source of huge frustration for him.

That, I suppose, is an indicator of a job well done.

Disclosure: Images within this blogpost were kindly provided to me by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures Ireland.  I bought and paid for my own tickets in my local cinema; I was not requested or paid to review this film.