The Avengers

callalily61 said:

I've never read an Avengers comic book. Didn't know anything about Hawkeye, Black Widow or Samuel L Jackon's character (name's already slipped my mind). Only knew Iron Man and the comic-book Thor and Loki from the movies. I do know some Hulk canon.

The movie made perfect sense to me. Just enough backstory to ground the characters and away we go! Whedon is excellent.

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On the Serenity DVD, in Joss's commentary track, he talks about the extreme effort he needed to introduce everyone who'd never seen Firefly (he wisely assumed that was most people) to the entire crew at once. If you recall, after the flashback (history lesson) within a flashback (hands of blue laboratory) within a flashback (the agent) the first scene introduces the entire crew in one near-continuous scene - as well as almost all of Serenity itself.

Knowing how seriously he took that one scene, and how successful he was at that, I had no worries that he'd be able to introduce the Avengers to non-comic-savvy moviegoers as well.

IdiotsRUs said:

PS: my Hubby liked BW a lot. As he said 'She's got a great arse - and a fucking fabulous attitude. The attitude is sexier than the arse.'

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Mr. Al Pacino agrees.

Saw it yesterday, and loved it! Of course, now I need to see Thor and Captain America now....those are the two I've missed.

I've read Marvel in years past, but mostly X-Men. The movies, in general, do a good job of introducing the characters, perhaps in part because nearly every freaking one is the origin story all over again. Great for me; bad for OG fans.

I dug the Ruffalo Hulk. Robert Downey, Jr. seems to have it easy, though, as though Tony Stark was written as him, and not that he's playing a role. I liked the snarky dialogue, but I'm a sucker for that, and I'm glad that they changed that "What's next" line to the other stuff towards the end there. Black Widow, I knew about from Wolverine comics (I think?) and enjoy that she's a badass without seeming to be a Mary Sue (she couldn't fly the fighter towards the end, anyway).

Hawkeye is still a mystery to me, I confess. I turned to my fiancé and said "who's that guy?"
he said "What guy?"
"the guy with the bow"
"Oh, that's Hawkeye."
"And?"
"He's a guy with a bow."

Saw the Avengers on Saturday. It was decent. I'd say it's better than the first X-Men movie, and about as good as the second Spiderman movie.

I don't get the deal about Loki, though. I thought he was an awful villain -- quite possibly the only detractor from the film. He was like a younger, whiny Severus Snape. I generally don't care for comic book heroes, but he made the Green Goblin look like an actual competent threat. Give me Magneto or, hell, Heath Ledger's Joker over him.

Now, I liked Black Widow. She and Iron Man were probably my favorite characters in the film. I didn't get the inclusion of Hawk Eye, though. He seemed like her male double with a bow and arrow that could've just been a gun with a silencer. I thought he was pretty useless as an addition to the team, tbh. Anyone -- hell, even throwing Wolverine in there (well, not really, considering how sick of Jimmy Logan I am) -- would've been more interesting.

The humor was a nice touch, though. A few of the non visuals were a bit too much, IMO. And I didn't really get the explanation behind the controlled Hulk, but whatever. It was cool. I'd give it 2.5 stars out of four. Def better than what I thought Joss Whedon could bring -- I'm not a fan of his, tbh.

Saw it today. I had my doubts, since I've never liked the Avengers comic book (even when Wolverine was in it), have actively hated Cap'n America and didn't really care for Hawkeye, Black Widow, Hulk or Nick Fury. Not necessarily a Joss Whedon fan either, for that matter.

That said, it was a nicely done movie.

There was finally a Bruce Banner that I could believe, and I liked that they let Hulk talk. (His one line was the best in the entire movie.)

I like that Black Widow could be a kick-ass woman, be feminine and effective without having any other luggage piled on her. If Hollywood could do the same thing with Wonder Woman, it would be a massive improvement.

I didn't even hate Cap. All his overboard (IMO) patriotic stuff was nicely tempered by his need to get and keep the team working as a team.

I also liked that while they were superheroes, what they did took a helluva toll on the humans. Even Thor was a bit beat up afterward.

As for Loki, the actor was having great fun with it. And, honestly, he wasn't the big threat of the movie, he was the stooge for the alien invasion. For that, he was perfect.

They also did a good job of pulling together the elements from all the movies into one. I haven't seen all the movies, but I could pick up what came from where. I'm thinking about seeing the Cap'n America movie and I would probably see the Hulk one if it had been the same actor in both.

All-in-all, I thought it was a worthy effort. I might pay for the theater release of a sequel if much of the team remains the same. And when my housemate buys the movie (which she already said she will), I won't feel the need to leave the room when it's played.

I was hoping for a more, ummm, worthwhile story line, but the action was suprerb