Was finally able to see it this weekend. I enjoyed it a lot. 4/5

Last week I watched the "standard" 3D version; this week I saw the 2D IMAX. I thought the framing of the IMAX version was preferable to the standard 2:39:1 version, which was too tightly cropped (or the projection was "mis-framed" in the theater).

Finally saw this late last week. I thought it was more than a worthy culmination of the MCU movies to-date. Even accounting for most of the significant character development being in the lead-up films, this was a monumental achievement in writing, direction, and editing. The pacing was nearly perfect, the mixture of humor, action and drama was well-balanced, and the villain had genuine pathos. This film solidifies the fact that Marvel really has succeeded in creating a cinematic universe and not just a bunch of very good comic-based movies.

Memorable moments:

• Cap emerging from the shadow
• The wacky adventures of Thor and "Rabbit"
• Groot making the handle for Stormbreaker
• Thor joining the battle in Wakanda
• Surprise appearance of Red Skull

I had a few of minor quibbles that knocked it down from 5 to 4 stars:

• The way Squidward was defeated took me out of the movie a little bit, because he was established as having pretty signficant power to defy the laws of physics and also incredible reaction time. Yeah it could be argued that the element of surprise and overwhelming strength of the vacuum of space was the difference, but it just seemed somewhat inconsistent with the internal logic of the film.
• Similarly, Thanos' capabilities with the gauntlet at various times (based on the set of stones in it) was somewhat unclear. At times it felt like he should've been capable of destroying others or defending himself much more easily than he did.
• The visual style and camera movement in a couple of the early action scenes didn't feel right to me, but that seemed to get better in subsequent sequences.

Minor quibbles aside, this was fantastic and I suspect will be worthy of many repeat viewings.

Does anyone else kinda feel that the ending of Thor Ragnarok was diminished a bit? Specifically the whole 'Asgard lives through the people, not as a place?'. They all take off in search of a new settlement and bam, slaughtered by Thanos.

Should have just stayed on Asgard, then at least Thanos would have to go through Hela to get the Tesseract. Then again he probably would just team up with her for a chance to taste that death kitty.

Agree, I saw it in legit IMAX - it looked great in that ratio.

You shouldn't be. Only during the Christmas holidays (or some sort of extreme exception) do movies have insane holds of 20% or less because most people have a lot of time off and every day during the holidays basically plays like a Saturday.

Avengers: IW played in 4000+ screens, which is full market saturation. Anyone who wanted to see it on opening weekend got to see it due to the sheer number of screenings available. A 56% drop is actually really good. Nobody would have blinked an eye if it had dropped 65% due to the crazy heights of the opening weekend.

IW has one last weekend to make some dough, which should be in the $50M range for the weekend, before Deadpool 2, Solo and all the rest of the summer heavy hitters lay claim. China will bring a nice boost to IW's international BO once it opens there. $2B global is quite attainable at this point, but James Cameron does not have to worry about losing his crown.

I don't recall thinking it looked too cramped in standard 2D. I might see it again in IMAX to compare.

Don’t worry, when they undo the events of this film the Asgardians will be happily living in Norway.

Here's how I look at it. Thanos should have been able to exploit the power of the stones and squash those that faced him with a thought, especially after acquiring the Reality Stone. But he didn't. He toyed with the heroes. Either he didn't think any of them as a real threat... or... some part of him deep down doesn't believe he is worthy of such power, or maybe his crusade is not right after all. In the comics, Thanos himself always supplies the means to his defeat. MCU Thanos may have the same flaw.

I saw it somewhat differently. To me, he views himself as a benevolent savior. He actually (in his own warped way) cares about these people. He just gets annoyed when they try to prevent him from accomplishing his mission. That is why he was willing to spare Tony when Doctor Strange offered him the Time Stone. Who knows, maybe he was counting on that to happen.

The only character that he killed in genuine anger was Loki. But that was for a very different reason. Loki had deceived him and failed him in the original Avengers film. Thanos still harbored some anger about that.

On the other hand, Ebony Maw did view people with some contempt, and he did think of them as insignificant, and no real threat to him. That was his undoing (if he is, in fact, really dead).

I think Ebony Maw is dead dead. He was getting all crystallized as he froze in space, just like Yondu as well as the Ravagers that Taserface was tossing out the airlock.

You could say the same for Black Panther, GotG 1 (Nova Corps get decimated off screen), GotG 2, Spiderman Homecoming (he gets the suit and becomes an Avenger anyway) and heck, even Civil War to an extent. But especially Ragnarok because:
1) Asgard was unified and escaped Hela, then just utterly defeated except for half of them escaping off screen
2) Thor gets his eye back
3) Thor get his hammer back
4) Hulk gets shunted back to Earth like he never left
5) Asgardians not named Thor are still worthless cannon fodder. Which is internally consistent with how they're treated in the Thor movies, just saying it's kinda crappy that, I dunno, Wakandans put up more of a fight than Asgardians seemed to be capable of.

But that, in and of itself, is also true to comic book crossover events...

Depends on what happens in #4.

What a second.....where and how the hell did I miss that?

Were you sleeping when Thanos went to get the Soul Gem and there was a guide there who said the tesseract teleported him there?

I don't think Weaving reprised his role, though.

Lol - I was just about to reply that I do remember now but.....for some reason it didn't like red skull to me and if that was in the comics - I don't follow comics at all so I wouldn't have caught it by that either. Still, no excuses though, I'm kind of dumbfounded as to how I didn't notice something in plain site like that.

He didn't, it was an actor from The Walking Dead. Aaron, I think.

really? i could have sworn it was his voice. why wouldn't he want to do it? and it was a nice surprise seeing Red Skull again, thought it was Weaving, now, disappointed it wasn't...

I recall Weaving saying some negative things about being in a movie like Captain America back then but I don't remember the exact context.

The actor who played Red Skull in IW is quite the impersonator - there are videos out there of him which are pretty damn good. I imagine he was cast specifically because he kind of looks like Weaving and he'd be able to do a good impression of Hugo Weaving while in makeup.

Weaving didn't like the prosthetics process and didn't show much interest in returning for something that's ultimately minor.

http://www.slashfilm.com/hugo-weavin...-marvel-films/

Here's his quote on the subject:

Would it have been so tough on Weaving just to spend a few minutes in a sound booth just to record his voice for the few lines that Red Skull spoke?

Well he was pretty shrouded in darkness and wearing that cloak. He didn't exactly look like the character in the previous films or comics (that I’m familiar with at least) other than when you see his face. I almost thought it might have been Death like is in the comic version of the story at first.

And here's an interview with Ross Marquand who did it:

Ross Marquand discusses his surprise Avengers: Infinity War cameo
http://ew.com/movies/2018/05/01/aven...and-red-skull/

The Russos asked Marquand to not do a direct impression.

I don't think Marvel would have paid him as well as he got paid for doing Megatron in the Transformers live action films. Hell, even then, they brought back Frank Welker, I think. I think it just comes down to Red Skull getting screwed over in First Avenger.

Granted, Weaving trashed the work he did for Transformers, as well.