By Welcome one and all to Flixist’s new end of the year awards program, the Golden Cages! With Hollywood becoming increasingly out of touch with what the people like, we at Flixist have taken it upon ourselves to deliver the fair, balanced, dignity-filled awards you deserve. Why are we delivering our 2018 awards so late in the year? Because the Oscars do it and we’re better than them. The winners of the Golden Cages will be spread out over the next two weeks, right before the hostless Academy Awards.
So you’re the Norse god of thunder. You’re a big lug, women love you, men want to be you. Smash some aliens on Earth, zip to Asgard to settle some blood feuds, lose an eye. All in a day’s work. But in Avengers: Infinity War, it seems like everyone had just a little bit more on their plate than usual. Thor had a hell of a lot.
Brother dead, his people annihilated, and the guy’s stranded in space. All because giant, purple-thumb Thanos has some sort of cosmic genocide planned.
Well, that’s got to halt right quick.
The bulk of Thor’s story in Infinity War revolves around the Asgardian’s quest for a new weapon. After Mjolnir was shattered in Thor: Ragnarok, he can’t exactly kill Thanos without a Thanos-killer. We-he-hellll Peter Dinklage got somethin’ for you, Thor. After an arduous tanning session, Thor and his slice of the Guardians of the Galaxy forge Stormbreaker, an ax, not a hammer. Better than a spoon.
While Thor’s been playing fetch-quest across the cosmos, trouble’s a-brewin’ in Wakanda. Infinity War‘s final battle across the open fields is raging, its heroes showing signs of fatigue. Until Goldilocks shows up.
Thor’s entrance into the spandex-scrap of Infinity War’s finale was a climactic moment in a film seemingly full of climactic moments. The pacing and orchestration of Joe and Anthony Russo’s epic is worthy of discussion in itself, but how are you going to increasingly excite an audience this late in the game? When so much has already wowed us in twisting and turning, dizzyingly visual ways? You have Thor drop the ax.
Teleporting onto the field in a flash of light, Thor returns as Thanos’ horde wears down the heroes. It’s a nick-of-time save and one of the MCU’s finest fighters testing his mettle after being MIA for the film thus far. It’s a reunification we’ve been waiting for across multiple movies, part of the MCU’s epic scope and charm. It’s a visual spectacle in a film of visual spectacles. It’s funny. It’s cool. It makes you go “Oh shit.”