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Author Topic: Marvel's The Avengers  (Read 8012 times)

1SO

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Marvel's The Avengers
« on: May 06, 2012, 12:52:50 AM »
I'm assuming nobody started this thread because everybody will have seen it soon enough. Still, I like having all the reviews in one neat file and I ask for Lobby, Bondo, verbALs and the rest to repost your reviews here so they don't become lost forever in that other soupy thread.

The Avengers
* * *


Let's do a head count.

Robert Downey Jr. - Tony Stark / Iron Man
* * * 1/2

The original film created this take on Tony Stark, but Whedon's sarcasm is the most perfect match for Downey. I hope they got along well because for Iron Man 3, if Whedon doesn't at least do a dialogue pass it'll be a wasted opportunity. Downey is so sharp in every scene it only further points out what a mess was made of IM2 with him trying to make it fly through fast-talking improv. Just the opening scene with Pepper Potts is funnier and better-written than any other scene in the last couple of years. After a rather clunky opening section, this is where Joss Whedon started working within his comfort zone. 

I know in the comics Captain America is the team leader, and he gets to play that role here too, but Stark is the Mal Reynolds of this misfit gang. I love how much range Downey gives to Stark, going from playfully trying to anger Dr. Banner to honestly comforting him and giving serious advice on how to best handle Banner's unfortunate condition. I enjoyed him more here than in either of the other two films.


Chris Evans - Steve Rogers / Captain America
* * *

Captain America doesn't seem like he could hold his own with this lot, but I love how Cap's biggest asset is his bravery and his heart. He's still the guy who wants to do the right thing, do his part to fight evil. Evans has not forgotten this side of his character. Cap isn't a show-boating stuntman and he even wears that suit with real, believable pride. The character isn't as much fun as the company he keeps (or even Evans other super, The Human Torch) though I liked the extra layer here of being a man who's slept through the last 70 years.


Mark Ruffalo - Bruce Banner / The Hulk
* * * *

Just Wow! After many films which never got The Hulk right, I had given up belief. Ruffalo and Whedon do it by focusing on the man instead of the monster. Ruffalo's line about his suicide attempt was perfect as was his explanation during the climax about what it takes to get him angry. Also this Hulk still feels like Ruffalo's Banner. Usually the actor disappears and the computer creature takes over, but not this time. Extra point to Whedon for adding a live action Ruffalo as Hulk transition shot during the first transformation. And extra point to Ruffalo for making all the scientific jargon with Downey sound believable. (Some of the best banter in the film.) The Hulk had my two favorite action beats in the film. One was when he transforms just in time to bring down the giant creature barreling down on them. The other is when Loki asks how anyone can possibly kill an immortal and Hulk loses it, grabs Loki and flings him pell-mell all over Stark's penthouse.


Chris Hemsworth - Thor
* *

Here's where we get into problems. There are too many invulnerable characters in The Avengers, which makes the puny humans come off as silly for even fighting them. The forest scene is stupid, and makes Iron Man come off as suicidal. (What happened to his super smart brain?) Thor is especially uninteresting during the climax because we know he's in no danger, so whether fighting Loki or taking out random aliens there's no creativity involved. (Thor's best moment was when fighting Hulk. He holds his hand out for his hammer to come and it takes a humorously long time to do so.)

Also, why does it take so long for Thor to show up? I'd swear it's about an hour in before he arrives. The movie train had already left the station and made a couple of important stops along the way. Then when he does arrive, Chris Hemsworth doesn't come off as the same Thor from the previous movie. He was a real surprise before, funny and believable. In the down time he's lost grasp of the character. The accent sounds forced and the performance is mostly fake.


Tom Hiddleston - Loki
* *

Loki's complexity made for an interesting bad guy in Thor, and Hiddleston sold me on his talent in War Horse with just one look. Here is where Whedon's screenplay let me down the most. We get the one scene between brothers that reminded me of Loki's complexity, but the rest of time it's all "kneel before Zod". The arm-stretched grandstanding is tired and watching Hiddleston go through the motions is a waste of talent. The most disposable scenes are between Loki and the alien race. Very uninteresting and lacking the most obvious drama of Loki believing he commands an army when in truth he is the puppet on their string. Loki's only dramatic purpose is to give the aliens a figurehead we can have dialogue scenes with. He's also The Yoko, a twice used Joss Whedon dramatic device of setting a team against itself in order to defeat them individually.


Scarlett Johansson - Natasha Romanoff / Black Widow
* * *

I don't like Johansson, and this is about as good as I've ever seen her. Not as cool with the fighting as her moment in Iron Man 2, but actually a good performer. It's hard not to compare her to Buffy, especially with that opening scene which is right out of the Buffy playbook. However, she has lots of great moments and by the time she faces off with Loki on the ship (which completely fooled me) I couldn't complain about her acting.

What I can complain about is her role in the epic battle. I mean, am I supposed to believe she could hold her own against an alien invasion of that size? When The Avengers get their group shot, Captain America looks over his head but Black Widow and Hawkeye just look like fools. I don't care if every bullet is a kill shot, when the master assassins are tasked with holding back the ground force all by their twosome it's a h-u-g-e stretch of credibility. And that's before they start trading jokes between shots.


Jeremy Renner - Clint Barton / Hawkeye
* * 1/2

I'm a big fan of Renner and hope he gets to do more acting than action in the future. The big disappointment here is that he's one of the bad guys for most of the film. Since he never got a proper character introduction, we don't even see some personal friendships or character traits that are overtaken by Loki's power. In other words, his bow and arrows become the character since he has nothing else to work with. He was more interesting in S.W.A.T.


Samuel L. Jackson - Nick Fury
* 1/2

Speaking of better in S.W.A.T., what the hell happened here? Jackson comes off as old and tired, like his boring Jedi character. All talk with no bite and no bark. Jackson was the badass of the 90s, but now he can't even muster the energy to give his dialogue any bite. The scars around his eye patch are more interesting. When he stops the fighter jet with a rocket launcher it was such a bold move it felt out of character, but I prefer that guy.


Clark Gregg - Agent Phil Coulson
* * * 1/2

The real wild card in The Avengers deck. Straight-laced to a fault with unassuming charm. Gregg makes Coulson into whatever the scene needs him to be, quietly stealing moments all along the way. You think it would be impossible to pick a favorite Coulson moment since he's been doing this so sly and smooth since the first Iron Man, but I have to clearly give it to when he holds that big gun on Loki. A Joss Whedon moment in every way.


Joss Whedon - Writer/Director/Hero
* * *

I'm such a huge fan of Whedon that I hope for something amazing every time. While I'm very happy he's finally going to bask in success and not just of the cult variety, I was disappointed by the general lack of cinematic moments. His episodes of Buffy always pushed what you though television was capable of and while Serenity plays like the 3-part finale "Firefly" never had, it also had a nice sense of scope and style to it. The Avengers has the budget and the effects, but overall isn't more cinematically ambitious than one of his season finales. I always considered Whedon a better director then fellow TV vet J.J. Abrams, but now I reconsider that opinion. Fun as this is, it's no Star Trek, which also had to bring together a lot of characters into a team.

I wonder if Whedon benefits from a less epic scope, something where he can be more creative. The opening 10 minutes of Serenity contains some of the sharpest writing in terms of explanation and backstory you'll ever witness. Here, it takes too long to bring all the elements together and then it's the writing that carries the film. Not the alien spectacle, which often too closely resembled the Battleship trailer placed before the feature. Joss Whedon delivers good, wholesome fun with The Avengers, but this is a guy more than capable of unforgettable greatness.

Lobby

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Re: Marvel's The Avengers
« Reply #1 on: May 06, 2012, 01:06:52 AM »
Yes, Sir! (And I'm glad you enjoyed it so much!)

--------------
The Avengers (Joss Whedon, US, 2012)

Oh my, that was fun!


I grew up with comics. For years I had a subscription for Donald Duck and I read them over and over again until they fell into pieces. I read the Asterix and Tintin albums until I knew them by heart and I still catch myself ever so often quoting them in everyday conversations, taking for granted that everyone else knows exactly what I'm referring to.

I read all sorts of comics and I still do. Everything except for one kind: those about traditional superheroes. You know, those who have silly stretch pants and can fly. They were the territory of my seven years younger little brother. It happened that I threw a glance in his magazines. But they never stuck with me.

In an effort to give all sorts of movies a chance, I tried a couple of superhero movies last year, but they turned out to be disappointments and I as good as swore not to see any more superhero movies since they're bound to suck.

I tell you this to let you understand the nature of my relationship with superheroes. With a few exceptions (read Dark Knight) it's cold.

The Joss Whedon effect
Considering this I probably would have stayed away from The Avengers if it wasn't for two things:

1. It had been picked for the-movie-to-watch-together for our monthly meet-up with the Swedish film blogging network and I didn't want to miss out the discussions.

2. It was written and directed by Joss Whedon, the man behind Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which is one of my TV series. (And no, Buffy doesn't count to the silly superhero category. She doesn't fly and she hasn't got stretch pants.)

So I went to the theatre with a fairly neutral mindset. I still remembered how bad I thought of Thor and I dreaded to see another movie in 3D after my most recent horrific experience with John Carter. But again: it was Joss Whedon. And my friends seemed to be hyped about it.

A long takeoff
So what did I make of it? Well, to begin with I didn't know at all since the starting distance before I reached the takeoff point was huge, almost as long as the introduction of this post.

It's not that there's a long stretch of set-up and babble in the film; we're thrown into action at once, but the movie just failed to bring me on board.

I think my problem was that the film is if not a direct sequel, at least connects to a whole bunch of other movies about the various superheroes that are in the center for it. And of all those movies, Thor was the only one I'd seen. I hadn't seen The Iron Man, I hadn't seen Captain America and I was only familiar with The Hulk through the TV series from my childhood, not from recent movies. While Avengers doesn't require you to have seen all those movies, I think it helps if you have, since you'll figure out who the characters are and connect to them more easily.

As it was now, it took almost an hour before I was completely into it. But on the other hand: once I was there, I didn't want it to finish.

After the slow start, it got better and better, the more warmed up I got, and in the end I found myself digging The Avengers quite a bit, much more than I had expected.

Five reasons why I liked it
Those are my top five reasons for caring for it so much:

1. The humor. This is my number one reason and I think we have Joss Whedon to thank for it. I found myself laughing or giggling over and over again, much more than in ordinary comedies. I'm generally sulky and hard to get to smile, but there was something in the tone, the self referring jokes, the glimpse in the eye, that worked for me, and I could sense the ties to Buffy. It's fun, but in a loving way, never going as far as to being a travesty. I love it.

2. The special effects. If you make a superhero movie with a huge budget and an expected huge audience, you should have special effects to match it. Where Thor failed, showing the same little strip in the desert over and over again in fighting scenes that felt small and unimpressive, The Avengers goes all out and provides all the beauty and majesty and excitement you could expect, from cosmic worm holes to melting sky scrapers and a hulk that looks as believable as a hulk can be. It never feels cheap.

3. The cast. I'm not sure who I like best - Robert Downey Jr as Iron Man, Mark Ruffalo as The Hulk, Jeremy Renner as Hawkeye or Tom Hiddleston as Loki. But they're all pretty wonderful.

4. The lack of cheese. With so many characters to handle, there's very little time available to spend on the back stories for each one of them. Priorities need to be made. Sometimes this type of blockbuster movies can be dragged down into stereotyping and awkwardness by some cheesy mandatory romantic side story, but lo and behold, we don't get much of this. The focus is rightly on the visually stunning fighting scenes and the fun dialogues. Thank you for that!

5.  The Hulk. There's no shortage of superhero characters, but if you ask me to mention one, it will have to be The Hulk. I had a conversation over twitter with Steeve, whose middle-aged father also took a liking for him. My conclusion was that we easily can identify with him, having a lifetime of experience controlling our temperament. There's a scene where we see him unlash his wrath at one of the opponents that especially stuck with me. I was close to standing up in my chair cheering and clapping. You'll know when you get to it.

2D or 3D
In case you're in doubt whether to watch it in 3D or 2D, I'd recommend you to go for the 2D.  The 3D isn't as bad as in John Carter, but it doesn't add very much either. Especially if you watch it with subtitles, you may encounter issues with the text getting blurry from time to time. That happened at our screening. Clearly wasn't just an issue with my eyes; everyone in our company complained about it. I solved this by only listening to the speech, ignoring the text as if the film had been scratched, but if you're depending on the subtitles I can imagine that it's extremely annoying. I would go as far as to say that I would be prepared to pay MORE to watch it in 2D than in 3D and I think that was a bit against the whole idea?

All in all I enjoyed hanging around with the superheroes enough to give it a good rating. I'm pretty sure though that if you ask me about it in a year or even as little as a month, I won't remember a thing. The blurring process has already started.

TLDR version: Oh my, that was fun!

My rating: 4/5
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StudentOFilm

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Re: Marvel's The Avengers
« Reply #2 on: May 06, 2012, 01:37:41 AM »
The forest scene is stupid, and makes Iron Man come off as suicidal. (What happened to his super smart brain?)

As much as the scene just serves as the "hey lets get our heroes to fight each other scene" that happens no matter which characters are teaming up, I wouldn't say Iron Man is suicidal. He's cocky as all hell, likes a good drink, jumps into a weapon, and zips around having a ball (even though at his heart, he is really just trying to be the best hero he can be).

Since the character with the authority problem who is itching for a fight (which doesn't really come off as much as I'd hoped in this film) is Hawkeye and he is off being possessed for half the movie, it made sense that Tony would put on the suit and then things escalate because Thor is still maturing in a sense (in his own Asgardian way of being the viking itching for a fight). Kind of like the War Machine/Iron Man fight in Iron Man 2... its the "must-include" scene of super-heroes fighting that doesn't make sense the more you think about it, but is just part of the make-up of the comic book/cinematic super-hero universes. Just as much as the "hey, skyscrapers are going to fall on us" moment.
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Re: Marvel's The Avengers
« Reply #3 on: May 06, 2012, 02:31:36 AM »
Pretty much everything Adam said in his review sums up my opinion perfectly. Bravo, sir.

The first 15 minutes were painful. Loki is a very weak villain. In The Incredibles, there is that fantastic scene at the end where you see the family working together. But at the end of The Avengers, a film with a theme about being on a team, they're all separated fighting individual battles against countless alien easily killed cannon fodder. Never did I really feel that the characters were in serious danger at the end. It was just so senseless and boring.

I loved a lot of the stuff in the middle though. The airship battle, the forest battle, the comedic dialogue amongst all of the avengers characters, the reveal of SHIELD's plans for the Tesseract - all enjoyable. The humor in particular is the best thing going for the film.

verbALs

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Re: Marvel's The Avengers
« Reply #4 on: May 06, 2012, 02:34:34 AM »
So apart from;

Quote
The airship battle, the forest battle, the comedic dialogue amongst all of the avengers characters, the reveal of SHIELD's plans for the Tesseract

you thought it was boring.

This sounds like a Life of Brian sketch.
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Totoro

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Re: Marvel's The Avengers
« Reply #5 on: May 06, 2012, 02:37:41 AM »
Yeah, aside from three scenes and a few lines of dialogue in a 150 minute film, I thought it was boring.

So hilarious!

Bondo

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Re: Marvel's The Avengers
« Reply #6 on: May 06, 2012, 07:51:47 AM »
The Avengers (2012)

Let’s start with a confession; I didn’t watch Thor or Captain America. As a general rule, I prefer the superhero films that exist more or less in the real world, the billionaires with toys style of Iron Man and Batman. Neither Thor nor Captain America (nor Hulk, though I did see the more recent film version of that) fit comfortably into a world that operates more or less along these lines. The Avengers, drawing most heavily on the Thor mythology, with Loki as the chief villain, is a film that certainly operates at a vast distance from reality. Between Loki and his collaborators, I saw no insight into human weakness or otherwise compelling analogy to the human condition. For about fifteen minutes, there is more of a subplot related to Nick Fury and SHIELD that was much more compelling, but it remains too secondary as a driving theme, thus as an intellectual endeavor, the film was mostly a failure.

But on a simpler summer blockbuster level, The Avengers excels. It has a group of compelling characters with generally strong acting, all powered by an incredibly witty script from Joss Whedon and Zak Penn. Much like Whedon’s involvement with The Cabin In The Woods, he’s a man who clearly has a good feel for comedic beats, and it isn’t just through the words but also through certain moments of the action. Much as Tony Stark’s personality carried the Iron Man franchise over a lot of weaknesses in those films, this all provides what is necessary to make The Avengers a worthy film.

Before I wrap up, I would like to address one critique that has been made, and that is basically the destruction of skyscrapers as part of the action. Watching this, I don’t really have an issue with the film’s usage at least so far as I don’t think it really plays upon 9/11, with the exception of a couple short moments that could just as easily have been left out. My greater concern is that too often this action, and one of the enemy types in the last battle, looks almost indistinguishable from the Transformers movies and Battleship (based mostly on my experience with those films’ trailers). It seemed a bit too typical, and further, I’m not sure the climatic sequence that makes up most of the final third of the film makes a lot of sense. If an alien force were to attack the US, I could see the use of the strategic, high-powered attack of Independence Day, but this film’s random violence and destruction doesn’t strike me as a compelling plan of action. Sure, there are a lot of neat moments, but the broader scope of the attack is completely senseless, which does open the film up to this type of criticism. If there isn’t a sound intellectual reason for this cacophonous sensory feast, nor much acknowledgement of the human toll of it, it does feel a bit exploitative. There are far worse films than this on that account though.

So yeah, I had a good time, fueled by sitting among a crowd that was extremely into the film. To the degree that I just let the adrenaline speak to the quality of the film, it is fine. The more I intellectualize it, the more it looks meager. Above average within its genre, it is miles short of a film like The Dark Knight at being able to rise above mere popcorn fare. Still, it was the perfect antidote to the series of theoretically intellectual, unfun films I’ve been watching lately.

4/5

1SO

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Re: Marvel's The Avengers
« Reply #7 on: May 07, 2012, 01:42:22 AM »
I couldn't follow the physics of the falling chamber because it was twirling as it dropped. How did Thor finally break out of it?

Bondo

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Re: Marvel's The Avengers
« Reply #8 on: May 07, 2012, 01:44:22 AM »
He's a god, physics are merely a suggestion to him.

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Re: Marvel's The Avengers
« Reply #9 on: May 07, 2012, 01:47:42 AM »
He jumped. Pushed off of one side and hit the other (with his hammer?).
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