Story
Avengers: Infinity War opens with mass murderer Thanos (Josh Brolin) and his army of monstrous aliens, witches and wizards attacking a planet and killing half of the population. Thanos believes that by killing half of the universe’s population, one planet at a time, he’ll prevent starvation, poverty and the total depletion of the universe’s resources.
Thanos is on a quest to obtain the Infinity Stones, which are gems with cosmic powers like the ability to control time. If Thanos obtains all the Stones he’ll have the power to wipe out half of the universe’s population with a single thought. Standing in his way are a collection of the universe’s greatest superheroes. They include Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), The Hulk/Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo), Captain America (Chris Evans), Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), Spider Man (Tom Holland), Dr Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch), Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman), and the Guardians of the Galaxy – Gamora (Zoe Saldana), Mantis (Pom Klementieff), Drax (Dave Bautista), Groot (voice of Vin Diesel), Rocket (voice of Bradley Cooper) and Star Lord (Chris Pratt).
The Avengers and Guardians fight Thanos and his armies across several worlds, including Earth, in a bid to stop Thanos from getting all the Infinity Stones.
Themes
Genocide and mass murder; starvation and poverty; depletion of resources; personal sacrifice; killing a son or daughter; superheroes and superpowers
Violence
Avengers: Infinity War contains extended, intense sequences of violence and peril. The violence includes killing a son or daughter, torture, mass death and numerous dead bodies, the mass destruction of property, and some blood and gruesome images. For example:
Sexual references
Avengers: Infinity War has some sexual references. For example:
- A man talks about having a dream where he has to urinate and is struggling to remove his pants, and then he wakes up actually having to urinate.
- A man asks if an explosive he’s placing on his belt is the ‘Blow off your junk kind’.
- In jest, a raccoon tells a man that he should have washed a bionic eye before he inserted it into his eye socket because he had to hide it somewhere unclean.
- A man tells a woman to stop massaging another man’s muscles.
Alcohol, drugs and other substances
Nothing of concern
Nudity and sexual activity
Avengers: Infinity War has some partial nudity and sexual activity. For example:
- A man and woman kiss on the lips.
- Women wear tight-fitting and revealing clothing.
Product placement
There is nothing of concern in Avengers: Infinity War but there are many toys associated with this movie franchise, which are likely to attract young children.
Coarse language
Avengers: Infinity War has some coarse language and name-calling. There’s also one offensive hand gesture.
Ideas to discuss with your children
Avengers: Infinity War is the darkest and most intense, violent and confronting Marvel movie to date. The movie is extremely fast paced and contains almost all the Marvel characters. You need a knowledge of previous Marvel movies to fully understand this very long movie.
The movie is aimed at adolescent and adult Marvel fans and is definitely not suitable for children. Parental guidance is strongly recommended for younger teenagers because of the many violent and disturbing scenes.
These are the main messages from this movie:
- Threats to a population can be a powerful way to bring people together.
- People with power can do what they want and dictate what is morally and socially acceptable, regardless of the consequences to others.
Values in this movie that you could reinforce with your children include:
- cooperation for the greater good
- equality – in this movie, women warriors and superheroes have as much intelligence, strength, fighting ability and courage as men.