Saw it. DUG IT!!! More later.

"The Avengers"... What's it about?


Quote:

Jack Lipnick: It's supposed to be about big men! In tights! Both physically and mentally! -"Barton Fink" http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0101410/quotes?qt=qt0983366

Review to be posted in a few days. Tight-lipped till then (except that it was so freakin' cool!).

ed symkus wrote on Apr 29^th, 2012 at 10:37pm:

Review to be posted in a few days. Tight-lipped till then (except that it was so freakin' cool!).

Rut, ro. That's what I was afraid of. I'm sure it tries achingly hard to be "freakin' cool!" - but, it is any GOOD?

ed symkus wrote on Apr 29^th, 2012 at 10:37pm:

Review to be posted in a few days. Tight-lipped till then (except that it was so freakin' cool!).

was there a teaser after the credits. will spider man and the avengers merge? there was a spiderman issue wherin spidey tried to join the avengers. it was a classic.

i missed the beginning but did like it alot. it pissed me off that they only used cnn and msnbc for cuts to news broadcasts. what about fox??

kirok wrote on May 7^th, 2012 at 11:58pm:

i missed the beginning but did like it alot. it pissed me off that they only used cnn and msnbc for cuts to news broadcasts. what about fox??

Glad you liked it.......... It is my understanding that the studio did use Fox in the original cut but it tested poorly with the audience.  It appears that the inclusion of Fox as a credible news source was the tipping point in the audience's willing suspension of disbelief.

the real wtf moment of the avengers was..
spoiler.
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spoiler  spoiler    spoiler     spoiler

iron man takes a nuke intended for nyc and flys it through a stargate to destroy the alien mothership. why on earth would the u.s. military not see and perhaps try that option. a squadron of our jets could do the same thing. especially before deciding to exercise the option of DESTROYING NEW YORK CITY???
i know the knee jerk reaction of some of you will be "jets don't fly in outer space" my responce is "neither do the jets on ironman's suit!! nor the nuclear cruise missile!!"

kirok wrote on May 7^th, 2012 at 11:58pm:

i missed the beginning but did like it alot. it pissed me off that they only used cnn and msnbc for cuts to news broadcasts. what about fox??

You're right, Fox News certainly belongs in a comic book fantasy. Good catch.

Saw it the other night, really well done. Hats off to Josh Whedon! Great insights into the characters, lots of action, humor and great cinematography. A must see for the Marvel fan! :)

Sorry folks, I did not like this movie.   Admittedly it was a good movie since it delivered plenty of action for a summer movie, but the story was lacking a hero's perspective and it was way too long (based on the lack of a solid story).   I find it odd that plenty of friends have called this a "great" movie, but have acknowledged the same problems with the story as I have.   Quite frankly the story was quite dispassionate (except for Captain America's role) and was lacking a real hero you could root for which made the fight sequences meaningless to the audience.  

If you could tell me who the main character/hero of THE AVENGERS was, maybe I would like it a bit better.

Well, I think that one of the things that makes THE AVENGERS fairly remarkable is that it's an action-adventure ensemble piece, with most of the main characters learning how to function as a team - Stark and Thor must learn to trust other people, Rogers and Banner themselves.  None take the lion's share of the plot, and the closest thing to a speech that sums a character's journey up is "I'm always angry", but that's skill; the audience feels all of this happening amidst the action even if it's not totally laid out.

http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t214/Karen_Tom/Movies/Spoiler.jpg

did you not see my spoiler alert?

Quote:

Kirok: did you not see my spoiler alert?

No, you're cool and so is Ridley Scott. It's the rest of the internet that's really sucking at not giving away details. I was crushed reading about his upcoming "Prometheus". A pre-review article commented that Ridley Scott was being mum on the story, but before I could shield my eyes, they went on to give a MAJOR end of story detail away! :o

When is Prometheus opening in Boston? Where are all the cool people going to see it?

(a) Friday

(b) I'm thinking Jordan's Furniture, although the premium screens at Boston Common & Fenway will likely be nice.  Arlington Capitol (where it will likely bump Men in Black 3 from the main screen) if I want a less-expensive viewing, as the Capitol's evening price for 3D movies is cheaper than the megaplexes' matinees and the quality on screen #1 is quite competitive.

r. f. just said i was cool and i will be watching it in 3d in worcester showcase north on monday. it will only cost me 2 bucks!
*plus free popcorn and soda. hah

Finally catching up with this, I was reminded of those all-star 'Monster Rally' movies of yore like HOUSE OF FRANKENSTEIN/DRACULA, ABBOTT & COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN, DESTROY ALL MONSTERS/PLANETS etc.. Younger generation folks got a warm-up with the FANTASTIC FOUR & X-MEN films. One lesson learned is that more isn't necessarily better. Of course, it DOES appeal to the 12yr old in all of us who just want to see MORE things blow up BIGGER! Another example of bowing at the altar of Cool.

Certainly, THE AVENGERS is a decent film. It has fine effects, a solid cast and some witty writing. But, the result is also not equal to the sum of its parts. Too scattered, too un-focused and too lacking in drama to be anywhere near "the best superhero film ever made" as many have hailed it. IRON MAN, SUPERMAN, THE DARK KNIGHT and SPIDER-MAN II come readily to mind that are all demonstrably superior.

THE AVENGERS starts off slowly with the old Seven Samurai gambit of roping together a gang to fight a common enemy. Worse, the roper, Nick Fury, is played by Samuel L. Jackson in his sleepy STAR WARS prequels 'earnest' mode. Jackson is too fiery an actor to be bottled up with sincerity (he does perk up a bit in the latter scenes). Even with a generous 142 minute run-time, we still only get a cursory backstory for the characters and their early scenes together don't gell. Robert Downey Jr.'s Iron Man and Mark Ruffalo's Dr.Banner come off best. Then again, they are a couple of the better actors out there now. Ruffalo's Banner is about the best I've seen. However, The Hulk still comes off looking like a cartoon character. Going back to Ang Lee's HULK, CGI still has issues trying to depict the creature - maybe, it's the bulbous green skin?

It takes too long for the thin story to get going and all the colorful self-hip dialogue and splashy effects only go so far. The hoary putting supporting characters into Zombie-like trances thing (only to snap outta it "just in time") is something younger Marathoners laugh at during screenings of 40s Serials or 50s B movies. Of course, THE AVENGERS has modern production values and a hip cool attitude, so it's ok, here. Right. And, the all-powerful energy source cube that if it falls in the wrong hands the world will be imperiled? Innovative.

Yes, it's a comic book, so nobody expects incisive plotting, but a bit more humanity would have helped. (and that human element is what makes the quartet of films mentioned earlier far superior) More problematic to me was using Thor and Loki (Hiddleston does wonders with the cliched role) as the central plot points. The mix of Mythology and High Technology was uneasy at best, downright silly at worst. All the "I'm a God" stuff never fits in well. Sure, Loki uses Aliens as his army, but they are a undistinguished band of metallic Transformers wannabees which look like rejects from Michael Bay's drafting table.

It was good to see folks like Harry Dean Stanton, Jenny Agutter and Director Jerzy Skolominski getting nice supporting bits. Clark Gregg's Coulson is one of the few characters in the film with a heart, and not just quips and CGI action chops. In the inevitable sequels, it would be nice to emphasize the former attribute over the two others.

Jay Seaver wrote on May 29^th, 2012 at 10:46am:

Well, I think that one of the things that makes THE AVENGERS fairly remarkable is that it's an action-adventure ensemble piece, with most of the main characters learning how to function as a team - Stark and Thor must learn to trust other people, Rogers and Banner themselves.  None take the lion's share of the plot, and the closest thing to a speech that sums a character's journey up is "I'm always angry", but that's skill; the audience feels all of this happening amidst the action even if it's not totally laid out.

Just because it's an ensemble, doesn't in and of itself make it "remarkable". And, it isn't all that unusual even in the superhero subgenre as witnessed by the trio of FANTASTIC FOUR films and the X-MEN franchise. If they worked remarkably well together, now that would have been something.

I just don't agree that the film doesn't do a good job of putting the team together. Besides, the sleepy Samuel Jackson's Nick Fury as the nominal ring-leader, there are precious few scenes of The Avengers actually coming together as a unit. There's the laughably strained "bickering" sequence, and that chaotic battle sequence at the end, but you never feel them congeal as a unified force. That the film works at all is a tribute to the skill of some of the acting and writing of individual parts, not the ensemble.

Maybe, in the inevitable sequel(s)................