Judging a Film Within its Context: Avengers Infinity War

           

 

              I was 14 when Captain America: The First Avenger first came to theaters. It was one of the first films that I remember getting super excited about seeing in the theater. (For most of my childhood, I hated the theater; sorry mom and dad.) So excited in fact, that I made my very own Captain America shield out of cardboard and duct tape. I remember being completely exhilarated and unashamed, as a cute girl asked for a picture with me, or the manager of the movie theater walking by and complimenting my efforts and hoping that I enjoyed the film.

                I’ve grown up with the Avengers. The first Iron Man came out when I was 11 years old. I’m 21 now, so for all intents and purposes that’s half my lifetime. They started coming out right when I started to really get into movies. The First Avenger really gave me my first look into a movie that had ideas of morality and right and wrong that I as a kid could understand and digest.

                Here I am, 7 years later, a little older, a little wiser, and a few different Avengers movies sitting on my movie shelf to my right. My movie taste has grown with me. I’ve started to go past surface level and really dig deep into what makes a movie great. No longer am I purely enraptured by the action or seeing my favorite superhero on screen, but I’m entranced by good story telling.

                Good storytelling. 19 different movies, different stories, are now part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Each movie interconnected with the next and each movie pushes the narrative of the universe as a whole. That’s unprecedented in film history.

                That leaves me with a bit of a problem. Avengers: Infinity War is the culmination of 10 years of film. It’s impossible to judge it based on just the film itself, and there’s a large part of me that think it needs to be. It needs to be judged as a singular entity, just like every other movie out there. I want to treat it like I would La La Land, or Get Out, or Mad Max: Fury Road. I want to think through it and review like I would any other film that I go see in the theater.

                But here’s the thing: context matters. Every film is surrounded by outside context. Would Get Out have been so successful and so incredible if it didn’t come out when it did? Even Fury Road has context, desire it being a removed sequel, being released during 2015 during a resurgence of the feminist movement. Outside influences will always affect how we view films. That can be socially or personally. La La Land doesn’t affect everyone like it affects me, sadly.
                Any movie I’ve ever seen won’t be judged purely on its own merits. There will always be outside contexts that will affect how I view a film.

                This leads me back to Avengers: Infinity War. The fact remains, that it is the culmination of 10 years, 19 different films. It’s not fair to judge it out of that context, just like it would be unfair to Get Out to judge it out of its context. Whether or not you’re tired of the context is a different story altogether, but Infinity War needs to be seen as the end game of the MCU. It’s unfair to it to be seen as anything else.

                So I’ll be there at 7 PM, my butt in the theater, incredibly excited for the end of this chapter. There will be plenty of laughing, plenty of shocked expressions, and plenty of tears I’m sure. (There will be open weeping if Cap dies.) I’m going to go and enjoy this movie for what it is: the culmination of my childhood.