Introduction:
So we had not just one, but
two Iron Man movies. There was a fun
Thor flick, and a not so interesting
Captain America movie. There were
even a couple Incredible Hulk flicks.
All this was leading up to the big mash-up that was The Avengers. Now, I was a X-men
reader myself, and never got into this area of comics. So I was coming in
pretty fresh to all this. Well, I did know that one of my favorite directors
was writing and helming – so this should be a good one.
Summary:
You can’t keep an evil god
down, and Loki (Tom HIddleston) is a pretty mischievous god. Using a series of
tricks, traps and a army of trans-dimensional beings, he’s going to rain the
hurt onto the Earth. Why? Because he figures it’s about time someone with a
huge horned helmet ruled the puny humans.
That’s where agent Nick Fury
(Samuel L. Jackson) comes in. It’s time to gather the superheroes he’s been
recruiting for one battle royale to save the planet. So Iron Man (Robert Downey
Jr.), Captain America (Chris Evans), The Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), Thor (Chris
Hemsworth), Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) and Agent
Coulson (Clark Gregg) join forces, sometimes not so peaceably, to battle
monsters in New York city and cause as much mayhem as possible. Will the Avengers be able to save us all, or
will Loki triumph?
Good Points:
- Does a neat job of tying all the previous plots together.
- Moves at a perfect pace with a great balance of action and humor
- Each hero gets plenty of time to shine.
Bad Points:
- Joss Whedan’s dialogue has some detractors
- Your favorite hero may not get enough screen time
- The plot has a number of holes that an alien army could march through
Overall:
Well Joss Whedon delivers a full-blown
fun comic book hero mash up. His trademark wisecracking dialogue is back and
makes the film a lot of fun. It’s got more brains than the Transformer films, and it’s more fun than Nolan’s Batman trilogy. So all in all, it’s my
current favorite of the Marvel flicks. Besides it gave us Cobie Smulders
kicking ass with guns and martial arts!
 |
| Robin Sparkles doubts the veracity of your claim. |
Scores
(out of 5)
Visuals: 5
Sound: 5
Acting: 4
Script: 4
Music: 3
Direction: 4
Entertainment: 4
Total: 4
Curious about a full review,
sent me an email and I’ll make additional thoughts to this review.
I think you're being too nice to this film. I thought it was pretty bad.
ReplyDeleteWe'll have to agree to disagree on this one Tom. I had a great time with it. I do know some folks who were familiar with the comics really disliked this movie. I can understand that. But as a newbie to the "Avengers" universe, I thought they did a really good job of bringing everything together.
DeleteI thought the flick delivered on expectations with a good cast and enough plot to make some sort of sense. One doesn’t go to a film like this seeking philosophy or insights on the human condition. One goes expecting a rousing smash-‘em-dash-’em by comic book superheroes. When I saw this in the theater, though, the one part of the movie actually to get audience applause was not an action sequence. It was when Scarlett Johansson dismissively remarks, “Love is for children.” This probably says more about modern audiences than it does about the movie.
ReplyDeleteIt really does. It goes back to the feeling I've had lately where every big budget adventure film has some kind of dark/revenge/hate filled plot line. I think the popularity of Nolan's Batman trilogy has made the studios think that all movies need to go in that direction. It was one of the reasons why I enjoyed "The Avengers", it wasn't dark, brooding and dreary the whole time.
DeleteBut then I see how the audience responds to the dark, brooding, dreary elements and realize I'm in the minority on this one. I was just happy to see Johansson and Smulders running around in leather and kicking ass. I'd cheer for that any day. ;)