Avengers Infinity War - On Location in Edinburgh

Avengers Infinity War is the culmination of ten years and eighteen films of the Marvel Studios and you can read my full 5 star review here that is more glowing than a fistful of infinity stones.
The film's release this weekend is a cinematic event of monumental scale and looks set to have box office records falling before it faster than War Machine out of the sky after being blasted by Vision.
Wind the clock back a year to a cold, dark night in Edinburgh in early April, where hundreds of Marvel fans were patiently camped out on the Royal Mile for a glimpse of some action.

Yes, the Marvel Cinematic Universe had come to Scotland.
Edinburgh was chosen by directors the Russo Brothers as the only location outside of their Atlanta base for filming Infinity War and Marvel Studios spent six weeks in the Capital doing night shoots for a major sequence involving Scarlet Witch and Vision.
Not only was there a night shoot taking place on the Royal Mile and inside Waverley Station but the team took over a hanger at Leith harbour and turned it into a makeshift sound studio for filming.
Reports estimate that the shoot brought in around £10 million to the local economy and furthers the argument for Scotland to have its own proper film studio.
During April, Twitter was alive with rumoured sightings around town of Elizabeth Olsen, Paul Bettany and Chris Evans. Anthony Mackie's Falcon had flown the coop to St. Andrews for a round of golf and Team Thor (Hemsworth, Ruffalo and Tessa Thompson) were spotted at the Waldorf Astoria.
So enamoured with the city was co-director Joe Russo, he returned during the world press tour to screen 20 minutes of footage to a hugely appreciative crowd of fans. Full report here.
With the plot kept a complete secret until the film was released, fans were left to wildly theorise and speculate as to the plot of the sequence shot in Edinburgh.
Based on what was seen, it appeared as though Scarlet Witch and Vision were hiding out in Edinburgh following the events of Captain America: Civil War. They seek to fan the flames of their burgeoning  relationship when they are attacked by Thanos's Black Order, looking to reclaim the Mind Stone.

*Mild spoiler warning - the plot of Avengers: Infinity War will be briefly discussed from this point but nothing that is not already featured in the trailers*

Upon seeing the film, this is pretty much how this storyline plays out but with the addition of Steve Rogers, Black Widow and Falcon arriving to save the day.

What is immediately noticeable to anyone from Edinburgh, is how geographically accurate the sequence is. The action flows from Cockburn Street up to the Royal Mile before heading back down the road to Waverley Station. This level of accuracy is something that T2 Trainspotting could not even achieve!

So if you want to visit the "set" of Avengers Infinity War, here are the spots to go:

Miss Katie Cupcake, 52 Cockburn Street, Edinburgh

Don’t worry if you don’t immediately recognise the location because Miss Katie Cupcake, a vintage inspired store, was transformed into Hüsnü Kebab House for the purposes of filming.

This is where Vision and Scarlet Witch stop to discuss their relationship. Probably before sampling some of that Avengers-favourite schwarma or the Scottish twist on the delicacy - the deep fried kebab - pay attention for the sign in the window.

Laila's Bistro, 63 Cockburn Street, Edinburgh

Scarlet Witch is sent flying through the window of this Mediterranean bistro by Proxima Midnight before returning to save Vision as Glaive attempts to remove the Mind Stone rather forcibly.

St. Giles' Cathedral, High Street, Edinburgh

Located on the High Street on the Royal Mile, St. Giles' is the historic city church of Edinburgh. Some of the fight scene between Vision, Corvus Glaive and Scarlet Witch takes place upon the top of the Cathedral.

City Chambers, High Street, Edinburgh

Down on the street below the Cathedral, Proxima Midnight and Scarlet Witch go one on one outside the City Chambers, resulting in the spectacular explosion that featured in the above video.

Waverley Rail Station, Edinburgh

The site of the biggest night shoot for filming, the attempt to retrieve the Mind Stone from Vision's head climaxes inside Edinburgh's main railway station and sees the appearance of Captain America's beard (no, not Sharon Carter!), Black Widow and Falcon to turn the tide and save the day.

An area towards the rear of the station next to Platform 20 was cordoned off for the duration of filming. A green screen was installed along with a fake coffee shop that could and would be destroyed in the fight.

 

For those wanting to recreate the moment Steve Rogers emerges from the shadows, you will need to hop over to Platform 1 and look for the third alcove which has some graffiti and a mark on a brick that makes it easier to identify.

The station has installed a couple of standing screens displaying photographs from the filming plus video and still images from the final film to allow fans to check out exactly where the shots were taken. That way you can recreate the scenes from the movie using cosplay, LEGO figures or just yourself.

So there you have it. complete guide to the Edinburgh locations featured in Avengers Infinity War. We'll just all have to wait and see if there is a deleted post-credit scene where Thanos goes for a deep fried kebab to celebrate a job well done!

Avengers: Infinity War - review

Let’s make one thing perfectly clear right off the bat. Avengers Infinity War is not just a movie. This is an event. This is the season finale of a ten year, nineteen episode comic book series that was merely the twinkle in Kevin Feige’s eye back in 2008.
Disregard what the internet memes say. This *IS* the most ambitious film event of all-time. Nothing else even comes close.

Expectations are higher than they were for another fandom 19 years ago for The Phantom Menace. But can they possibly be met? 

Will it work as a film in its own right and will it work as the culmination of everything that has come before it.

The answer, Marvel fans will be happy to here... is YES.
As for the “story so far”, or “previously on Avengers Infinity War”, it would take Luis from Ant-Man’s motor mouth to take the audience on a abridged history of the MCU in five minutes to get everyone up to speed so let’s just get down to brass tacks.
Thanos, the big purple dude who has been sitting on his giant space toilet (Empire magazine’s words, not mine) since The Avengers has finally decided to claim the six Infinity Stones required to complete his Infinity Gauntlet (3 years after first claiming he would “do it myself” back at the end of Age Of Ultron). This puts him on a collision course with the Asgardians (The Tesseract), the Guardians of the Galaxy (who know where the Power and Reality stones are) and Earth’s mightiest heroes with whom the Mind and Time stones currently reside.
Straight away, from the first scene and his introduction, it is clear that this is Thanos's movie. Immediately establishing as a credible threat and the toughest challenge the Avengers have ever faced. Trust me, there will no longer be jokes about him sitting on his space toilet after this. He is built like a brick space sh*t house and knows how to throw a punch and he certainly has the stones (if you'll pardon the pun) to lay the preverbial smackdown on our beloved heroes.
Josh Brolin, pulling double comic book duty this Summer, proves the perfect choice for the Titan-ic villain. Enhanced by some stunning CGI work, he is simulataneously physically imposing, viciously cruel but also singular in his vision. As all zealots, he believes that his course of action is the correct one, no matter the cost to himself, his family or the universe.

The movie's central narrative thrust follows Thanos on his quest and it turns out to be the correct move on the part of the Russo brothers and writers Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely. By making Thanos the main protagonist of the story, it allows the filmmakers to delicately keep all the different plates spinning around him. And boy are there a lot of plates. There are 14 main characters who have had their name in the title of a movie, along with dozens more who make up various iterations of the Avenger rosters.
The Russo's split their cast into teams, each with a plot thread relating to a different Infinity Stone, providing some unexpected pairings that the audience wouldn't have realised they needed until now.
Following the events of Civil War, Steve Rogers (no longer Captain America) has stuck close to fellow fugitives Black Widow and Falcon who take a jaunt to Edinburgh, Scotland to rescue Scarlet Witch and Vision, who has a literal target on his forehead.
Thor, who has shown in Ragnarok that he can mine chemistry and comedy out of any pairing, teams up with Rocket Raccoon and Groot while the rest of the Guardians travel to Knowhere as Gamora's relationship to her "father" comes to the fore.
Finally back on Earth, Doctor Strange and Tony Stark battle for the position of Alpha Male with a goatee, and constantly chastise Peter Parker for his "really old" pop culture references.
Despite the over abundance of characters, every single one gets a moment to shine either with a quip or action beat. Although given the runtime, it leaves you wanting more from them all and some plot threads are left dangling, and maybe will still exist in the form of deleted scenes on the DVD i.e. Natasha and Bruce's relationship now he's returned.
The narrative switches back and forth between the groups organically so that the audience are always aware of who is where and how Thanos's plan is advancing before the various roads to Infinity War converge on Titan (Thanos's home planet) and Wakanda for the final showdown(s).
The trailers have thankfully given away very little of the main action sequences and they definitely deliver on an epic scale unlike anything seen in the Marvel Cinematic Universe before.
It is a cliche in superhero movies that no one ever really dies or stays dead but right from the off, the Russo's put all their chips on the table and tell the audience that all bets are off in terms of who is walking (or flying) out alive of this battle. There is a palpable level of fear and danger every time a hero goes one-on-one with Brolin's Titan, who towers over them in the same way Dwayne The Rock Johnson towers over Kevin Hart.
No more plot details will be discussed because despite all the theorising and speculating, it goes places you simply could not have predicted and thus is best enjoyed spoiler-free.
Avengers Infinity War is the event movie to end all event movies and where possible should be seen with an audience of hardcore fans. The ones at the midnight screening were invested in every single second. Resulting in bouts of laughter, squeals of joy, shocked gasps, shedded tears and moments of pure, stunned silence... and in Scotland, cheers for a sign in a window that read "We will deep fry your kebab"!
Just like someone holding a complete Infinity Gauntlet, the Marvel Cinematic Universe is virtually unstoppable at this point and Avengers Infinity War is their finest hour so far... but one expects as a time stone would tell, the best is yet to come.

5 stars

Road to Infinity War - Phase 2 - Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)

For me, Captain America: The Winter Soldier is the MCU's The Dark Knight. This is the film that proved that Marvel can not only produce great comic book movies but a genuinely great movie that transcends the genre.
And all that from the two guys who directed You, Me & Dupree!
The film does a fantastic job of developing the character of Steve Rogers, who not only finds himself "out of time" but also at odds with the people who give him orders. Is he fighting for the good guys anymore?
It is an interesting storyline, particularly given the modern world in which we live where surveillance and data is such a huge issue, and Captain America is the perfect conduit in which to funnel the story through.
It is also the film that hinted that Kevin Feige was not a fan of the Marvel TV shows at that time and took a giant steaming dump on Agents of SHIELD, forcing them to change their entire direction, when it is revealed that HYDRA has been infiltrating SHIELD ever since the Second World War, giving rise to the incredible "Hail Hydra" memes whenever anyone was photographed hugging someone.

While the film was tearing down SHIELD, it was building bonds and relationships for Rogers with the introduction of Sam Wilson (Falcon), his right hand woman Black Widow (Evans and Johansson are terrific together in this) and the return of Bucky Barnes as the Winter Soldier.
It also gives the MCU its most heartbreaking moment to date when Steve is finally reunited with Peggy Carter after all these years only to discover that she has Alzheimer's and must relive the joy and pain of seeing him again for the first time over and over, and Atwell is magnificent in that scene.
What elevates Winter Soldier over other MCU films at this stage are the action sequences which are the finest in the saga. The choreography, cinematography and storytelling are exceptional AND they are predominantly achieved through practical effects which is probably a first for the MCU.
It is not just one set piece either. From the opening tanker rescue mission to the final fist fight between Steve and Bucky, there are a number of action sequences that would easily make the overall top ten including the elevator fight, Fury's car chase and the freeway shootout.
The Avengers might still have the "Wow" factor and more geek friendly moments, but Winter Soldier is Marvel working at the peak of its collective abilities and was the beginning of the passing of the torch from Whedon to the Russos as the go-to-guys for Marvel Studios and based on this first effort, as Cap would say "I'm with you till the end of the line".

Infinity Stone counter = 3 (Reality Stone, Space Stone, Mind Stone)