I was as excited as the next person to watch the twenty-second film in the Marvel Cinematic Multiverse, and I even coded a hacking algorithm so that I could be sure to secure one of the Cardinal Nights tickets and risk expulsion for this dumb movie. Still, I have to admit I was disappointed.
Imagine my disappointment when I finally watched the film.
At around minute 7 of the film, I accidentally spilled my entire Icee onto the person in front of me in shock. Why? Tony Stark had gone ahead and swallowed all nine of the Infinity Stones, confusing them for his typical morning breakfast of nine fist-sized portions of flavorless rock candy (a super-hero staple). Taken aback, I assumed perhaps he would very soon throw them up, or maybe even die, having sacrificed himself for the greater good. Dear reader, how wrong I was.
Instead, the movie suddenly cut to a “Magic School bus” style adventure down the digestive track of Mr. Anthony Edward Stark. That’s right, 160 minutes of the movie were devoted to a factually accurate, pre-teen audience-targeted exposition of the biological mechanisms of digestion, getting into every nook and crany of Iron Man’s small intestine.
I would describe further, but I don’t even think it’s decent or publishable to write up the visual horror of Tony painfully shitting out the stones one by one. The terrible sounds of his rectal suffering continue to keep me up at night.
The only saving grace of this film were the last 10 minutes, where things really sped up and the whole gang back together again travels to Vormir, Asgard, Quilix, and Pen15, where that zany bunch gets themselves into all sorts of trouble and finally all die in the end.
4 out of 5 stars