Can ‘Avengers 4’ Live Up to Its Promise?

Author: Christian Long / Source: The Hollywood Reporter

[This post contains spoilers for Avengers: Infinity War]

Over the weekend, moviegoers the world-over flocked to theaters in droves the world-over to Avengers: Infinity War, the film that was billed as the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s definitive turning point.

It’s an epic showdown between Marvel’s heroes and Josh Broln’s Thanos, a power-mad tyrant bent on destroying half of all sentient beings to bring balance to the universe.

As expected, it was a grand, ambitious spectacle filled with jaw-dropping events all the way through the film’s final moments. What wasn’t as expected for many, however, was the fact that the film is essentially the first half of a two-part story, meaning viewers won’t know the full extent of the fallout until its forthcoming (and as-yet-untitled) sequel hits theaters next year.

Splitting up the finale of a major film franchise certainly isn’t a new idea. Warner Bros. was so hesitant to say good bye to its Harry Potter series that it released the final installment, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, in two parts in 2010 and 2011. The Twilight films then followed suit by releasing Breaking Dawn — Part 1 in 2011 and Part 2 in 2012. Typically speaking, these two-part event films aren’t held in high regard by the public; they’re often seen as a ploy by studios to milk their franchise for all they can by padding their final installments with unnecessary filler — namely by turning its Part 1 into a prelude. (Some fare better than others.

The Deathly Hallows two-parter received strong reviews; the two-part Twilight finale did not.)

However, given the scope of the story and the sheer number of characters and narrative threads, this could prove to be the example where the two-part installment was warranted. And, while neither Infinity War nor its 2019 sequel mark the end of the MCU by any stretch of the imagination, it has been long-touted as the culmination of everything they’ve worked for since Iron Man blasted his way out of a cave back in 2008.

Still, considering that the MCU has amassed more than 40-hours of cinematic runtime over the past decade, it does seem a little odd that it’d…

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