In fact, it's such an accomplishment that you might actually be more inclined to notice its imperfections, considering how few of them there are.
I'm here to talk about one of them today. Mild Avengers: Infinity War spoilers to follow.
So the next most dastardly character to be introduced to us in this film beyond Thanos -- who was in other MCU films, but so briefly that he couldn't even make an impression on us -- is Ebony Maw, Thanos' lead henchman. You probably remember him, but he looks like this:
Maw is no Thanos, but he's pretty powerful in his own right. He's got the ability to move things through the air like a Sith Lord, which I believe is what he's doing in this shot.
But apparently you can outsmart him, as long as you've seen the movie Aliens.
Aboard Maw's donut ship somewhere in the cosmos, stowaway Peter Parker explains a plan to Tony Stark based on an idea he got from the James Cameron movie, which we don't actually know until we see it in action. And that plan is to blow a hole in the side of the ship -- I'm calling it an airlock in the subject of this post, because that's what it is in Aliens -- and to suck the unsuspecting Ebony Maw out into space. And then to leap into action to try to prevent Stephen Strange from following him out.
It works -- which should not be something Natasha Romanoff knows anything about.
The erstwhile Black Widow is one of the most underutilized characters in this whole movie, which is okay, because she more than makes up for that in Endgame. But perhaps because of this lack of significant involvement, either the writers (Christopher Markmus and Stephen McFeely) or the Russos give the following line of dialogue to Scarlett Johansson's character:
"Where's Maw?"
Or something similar. She says this while speaking through a dome forcefield on Wakanda, when two of Maw's cohorts are standing on the other side. And she says it to taunt the two surviving henchmen, knowing that Maw can no longer be counted in their number.
The female one -- Proxima Midnight, played by Carrie Coon, who knew? -- reacts just as Black Widow would have hoped, bitterly taking the bait and talking about how Maw's death would be avenged. (Don't talk to an Avenger about avengeance.)
The thing is, Natasha should not know about any of this. Although she did meet Proxima Midnight and her buddy, whose name I won't bother to look up right now, in an earlier fight in Scotland, Maw was not there, and there would be no reason for her to know that such a person -- such an alien -- even existed.
But let's say for argument's sake that Nat does know that there's a telekinetic creature named Ebony Maw who works for Thanos. She'd have no way of knowing he was dead. Unless I am mistaken, the earthbound Avengers have had no contact with the ones who are still off fighting Thanos in space. Considering that Tony Stark, Stephen Strange and Peter Parker had never been to space before, they certainly don't have any communications technology that would allow them to update the earthbound Avengers on their movements. I suppose if they did have that, there would be some chance they would have briefed the earthbound Avengers on the unfortunate fate of Mr. Maw, but that likely would not have been among the most urgent information that needed to be communicated at that moment.
But Black Widow needed to have a line of dialogue there, because she hasn't done much else in this movie.
Like I said, the fact that I noticed this only increases the level of achievement by the Russos. It seems like one of those situations where the dubious phrase "the exception that proves the rule" applies. To the extent that anyone uses that phrase correctly, I suspect it means that when you notice an exception, you notice just how strong the rule is otherwise. And this is an extremely strong film, which I have told my son is my favorite ever made in the MCU.
He didn't necessarily say the same thing himself, though he'd only just finished it so it would be too soon to reach that conclusion anyway. He's so in the bag for Spider-Man that I'm sure he prefers one if not all of those, none of which feature the (temporary) death of his beloved Peter Parker.
But he was obviously pretty impacted by the movie. I felt for sure he would have seen somewhere on YouTube the footage of the various Avengers disappearing into dust, but no, he had managed to avoid that happening so far. He does know what happens at the end of Endgame, in part because it's a plot point in later MCU films that he's seen, but all the particular parts that make Infinity War such an achievement were largely unfamiliar to him.
The one I was bracing for happens in the very first scene. You may recall that at least three times before on this blog I have expressed a worry about my children seeing Loki strangled to death, which I still consider to be the single most traumatic moment in the entire MCU. Strangulation is a pretty brutal form of death to begin with, and the fact that Loki is a fun trickster, who starred in his own series that my kids watched, just made it all the more scarring.
At least that's how I've always felt. But, I had no indication in the moment that this was particularly difficult for my son to watch. I think I asked him if he knew that was going to happen, and he said he did not. That was my chance to assess his well being in the form of his response, and he seemed just fine.
To quote Vince Vaughn, my baby's all grownsed up.
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