Avengers
I've finally seen The Avengers, so lets do the breakdown (other than "Hulk goooooood").
1. OMG HULK!!!!! I want to draw green sparkly hearts around him. Besides the fact that Bruce Banner/The Hulk were clearly the best written parts of the movie, there's the fact that writing can only do so much without great casting (as evidenced by two horribly written Hulk movies with the wrong actors playing Bruce Banner). I know very little about the Hulk story. My memories are very, very, VERY vague remembrances of the late 70s/early 80s TV show. And I still say Lou Ferrigno makes a better Hulk than CGI (which may be a tiny part of why Avengers Hulk works for me - all the Hulk sounds were most definitely Lou). But when you can see an actor in a part and just know they're right...Mark Ruffalo is right. And I mean on that special level where Christopher Reeve was right for Superman. Where Gary Oldman was right for Jim Gordon. That level of right. It makes me want a Hulk movie with Ruffalo (and Joss has to write it, since he clearly actually balanced the pathos of the storyline in just a portion of a movie with big personalities).
2. On the Hulk tangent: I love the humor they (inadvertently) gave Hulk. (It was inadvertent for Hulk. He didn't mean to be funny. But OMG, it so was.) Loathing of Thor including a sucker punch at Grand Central? Loki trying to lord himself over Hulk leading to Hulk's "don't give a fuck" smashdown? I'm glad I was sitting beside the other guy that loved that part, because we may have broken into applause, cheering...and well, he stood up and gave a standing ovation. Hey, I stayed seated.
3. Cap was so cutely emo. I have a soft spot for Cap because he's the Marvel equivalent of my Clark Kent/Superman. I'm a sucker for the super patriotic ones. What can I say? And the Steve/Tony snark was amusing (because, again, it's very Superman/Batman snark - I tend to default back to the obvious).
4. Love interests: Thank god Natalie Portman was reduced to a snapshot while Pepper Potts was played up. I hate Gwyneth Paltrow, but Pepper is the one time I like her. And Pepper is awesome. It's like if Alfred (Batman Alfred) were a woman and younger. Also, I want Chrissy from Growing Pains (you know, the waitress) to be in the next Captain America movie as Cap's love interest. M'kay? Joss, make that happen.
5. I feel like Black Widow and Hawkeye would've been much more interesting with some sort of lead-in of their own. I get that they're way lesser known and the chances of Hawkeye even getting a movie is slim, due to a lack of flashiness compared to the others. But lets be honest, despite the fact that ScarJo was kind of wooden at times (scenes with Hulk or Loki notwithstanding - she really delivered there), their backstory was way more compelling than anyone else's. Those two are not one dimensional.
6. SLJ as Nick Fury...should have been a tiny bit more awesome than he was. There were times we needed SLJ to just be SLJ (it's what he is and what you want to see). He tried to play low key in some scenes and it felt flat.
7. I needed more from Cobie Smulders. She looked awesome. But there wasn't quite enough of a steely glint to really sell her position in SHIELD.
8. I did, in fact, shout "NO!" when Agent Coulson bit it. I didn't even care about him in Thor, but his Cap fanboyness was so awesome in this movie. SO FREAKING AWESOME. Plus that parting shot at Loki with the gun. Ha! (So, since Agent Coulson died, and was clearly made into a fanboy, does that make him the pseudo-Joss of the Avengers universe?)
9. While I'm firmly of the mindset that Thor sucked and that the progression of Thor changing was ridiculous, Thor the movie at least had Thor the character have some personality and attitude. I admit that I was looking forward to Thor at least looking pretty and being sarcastic with Tony. I was disappointed by the lack of sarcasm. It seems like all he was was scenery and a way to tie Loki into the movie.
10. Which brings me to Loki. Unpopular opinion time. The suckiest bad guy in all history of superhero bad guys. And that includes Nuclear Man from Superman IV. If you suck more than Nuclear Man, you SUCK. Loki is supposed to be mischievous. I have yet to see any mischief. I see, and yes, I've said it before, a small child throwing a tantrum because he thinks daddy doesn't love him best. I've also come to another conclusion, given two different movies and two different writers/directors - Tom Hiddleston really sucks as Loki. I was willing to see if Joss's writing style could improve the character (because Loki is supposed to be somewhat humorous, and lord knows we know that's in Joss's wheelhouse). But Hiddleston still couldn't pull it off. I didn't buy that he was crazy or anything. There was no manic gleam in the eye. Nothing. Nada. Zip. Zilch. And yet they want the next Avengers bad guy to also be from the Thor universe? Jeez.
Overall review - HULK AWESOME! Worth seeing again. Better than the parts leading up to it.
1. OMG HULK!!!!! I want to draw green sparkly hearts around him. Besides the fact that Bruce Banner/The Hulk were clearly the best written parts of the movie, there's the fact that writing can only do so much without great casting (as evidenced by two horribly written Hulk movies with the wrong actors playing Bruce Banner). I know very little about the Hulk story. My memories are very, very, VERY vague remembrances of the late 70s/early 80s TV show. And I still say Lou Ferrigno makes a better Hulk than CGI (which may be a tiny part of why Avengers Hulk works for me - all the Hulk sounds were most definitely Lou). But when you can see an actor in a part and just know they're right...Mark Ruffalo is right. And I mean on that special level where Christopher Reeve was right for Superman. Where Gary Oldman was right for Jim Gordon. That level of right. It makes me want a Hulk movie with Ruffalo (and Joss has to write it, since he clearly actually balanced the pathos of the storyline in just a portion of a movie with big personalities).
2. On the Hulk tangent: I love the humor they (inadvertently) gave Hulk. (It was inadvertent for Hulk. He didn't mean to be funny. But OMG, it so was.) Loathing of Thor including a sucker punch at Grand Central? Loki trying to lord himself over Hulk leading to Hulk's "don't give a fuck" smashdown? I'm glad I was sitting beside the other guy that loved that part, because we may have broken into applause, cheering...and well, he stood up and gave a standing ovation. Hey, I stayed seated.
3. Cap was so cutely emo. I have a soft spot for Cap because he's the Marvel equivalent of my Clark Kent/Superman. I'm a sucker for the super patriotic ones. What can I say? And the Steve/Tony snark was amusing (because, again, it's very Superman/Batman snark - I tend to default back to the obvious).
4. Love interests: Thank god Natalie Portman was reduced to a snapshot while Pepper Potts was played up. I hate Gwyneth Paltrow, but Pepper is the one time I like her. And Pepper is awesome. It's like if Alfred (Batman Alfred) were a woman and younger. Also, I want Chrissy from Growing Pains (you know, the waitress) to be in the next Captain America movie as Cap's love interest. M'kay? Joss, make that happen.
5. I feel like Black Widow and Hawkeye would've been much more interesting with some sort of lead-in of their own. I get that they're way lesser known and the chances of Hawkeye even getting a movie is slim, due to a lack of flashiness compared to the others. But lets be honest, despite the fact that ScarJo was kind of wooden at times (scenes with Hulk or Loki notwithstanding - she really delivered there), their backstory was way more compelling than anyone else's. Those two are not one dimensional.
6. SLJ as Nick Fury...should have been a tiny bit more awesome than he was. There were times we needed SLJ to just be SLJ (it's what he is and what you want to see). He tried to play low key in some scenes and it felt flat.
7. I needed more from Cobie Smulders. She looked awesome. But there wasn't quite enough of a steely glint to really sell her position in SHIELD.
8. I did, in fact, shout "NO!" when Agent Coulson bit it. I didn't even care about him in Thor, but his Cap fanboyness was so awesome in this movie. SO FREAKING AWESOME. Plus that parting shot at Loki with the gun. Ha! (So, since Agent Coulson died, and was clearly made into a fanboy, does that make him the pseudo-Joss of the Avengers universe?)
9. While I'm firmly of the mindset that Thor sucked and that the progression of Thor changing was ridiculous, Thor the movie at least had Thor the character have some personality and attitude. I admit that I was looking forward to Thor at least looking pretty and being sarcastic with Tony. I was disappointed by the lack of sarcasm. It seems like all he was was scenery and a way to tie Loki into the movie.
10. Which brings me to Loki. Unpopular opinion time. The suckiest bad guy in all history of superhero bad guys. And that includes Nuclear Man from Superman IV. If you suck more than Nuclear Man, you SUCK. Loki is supposed to be mischievous. I have yet to see any mischief. I see, and yes, I've said it before, a small child throwing a tantrum because he thinks daddy doesn't love him best. I've also come to another conclusion, given two different movies and two different writers/directors - Tom Hiddleston really sucks as Loki. I was willing to see if Joss's writing style could improve the character (because Loki is supposed to be somewhat humorous, and lord knows we know that's in Joss's wheelhouse). But Hiddleston still couldn't pull it off. I didn't buy that he was crazy or anything. There was no manic gleam in the eye. Nothing. Nada. Zip. Zilch. And yet they want the next Avengers bad guy to also be from the Thor universe? Jeez.
Overall review - HULK AWESOME! Worth seeing again. Better than the parts leading up to it.