The Avengers [renamed]

[SteveDave]

This week I'm off work ill (feeling a little better but can't be bothered getting out of bed today) & I've watched Captain America, Thor & The Incredible Hulk in that order. I liked them all surprisingly. The fight scenes are pretty much interchangeable

Spoiler alert

(indestructible thing in final fight gets destroyed)

[close]

but all worthy of my time. I like the way they used the Super Soldier Serum(tm) in TIH & the way it was described in CA pretty much revealed why what happened to Tim Roth happened.

In closing I might have to go to work tomorrow.

[phantom_power]

There is a glowing review of this on Den of Geek:

http://www.denofgeek.com/movies/1328470/the_avengers_review.html

[Mister Six]

This week I'm off work ill (feeling a little better but can't be bothered getting out of bed today) & I've watched Captain America, Thor & The Incredible Hulk in that order. I liked them all surprisingly. The fight scenes are pretty much interchangeable

Spoiler alert

(indestructible thing in final fight gets destroyed)

[close]

but all worthy of my time. I like the way they used the Super Soldier Serum(tm) in TIH & the way it was described in CA pretty much revealed why what happened to Tim Roth happened.

I did a similar thing the week before last, rolling through the films with my girlfriend, who hasn't seen any of the Marvel flicks, but does have a knicker-wetting crush on Robert Downey Jr. It made me reassess a couple of them quite a lot, actually. Shall I do a list? Yes. Yes, I shall. From best to worst (with spoilers, of course):

Iron Man
Still the leader by a country mile. It's pretty much flawless: the cold opening is great, the dialogue sparkles and the action scenes are - if not the best of the Marvel Universe pics - still thrilling. I also like the fake-out bit where Tony attempts to use the 'freezing in the atmosphere' trick to kill Stane, but it fails; most movies would probably have made that the climax.

Iron Man 2
When I saw this in the cinema I, like almost everyone else, found the SHIELD scenes needlessly overlong and distracting, but on a second viewing they seem rather shorter and better integrated than I remember. Jason Hammer is a great character, and Mickey Rourke just eats up the screen. His character dies stupidly quickly in the final fight, though. Actually, that's my biggest (and only, really) complaint with Iron Man 2: Stark and Rhodey are so efficient at defeating everything that there's never any sense of danger (unlike in the first film, where the final battle does feel pretty epic).

Thor
A great flick - just a really enjoyable, campy action romp. Perfect tone, entertaining action scenes, a good integration of 'magic' and real-world stuff and some gorgeous imagery. Shame the final battle feels like such small-stakes stuff after the massive Ice Giant fight at the start, and I don't think that Thor's character progression actually makes much sense. He falls in love with Natalie Portman and becomes a new man in the space of, what three days, tops? Bollocks. He falls in love with her because she's the female lead, and that's what happens in these movies. And he becomes a better man because that's the kind of effect that falling in love has on a character like his in a film like this. You can see the machinery of the script clanking and whirring away at that point. But the rest of it is perfect, and really funny.

The Incredible Hulk
There's a big drop-off between Thor and this flick. The first time I watched The Incredible Hulk I was a bit tipsy and I guess that made me a pushover because I recall thinking it was a really fun action film that just lacked some heart. But watching it stone-cold sober with a girl who has absolutely no idea about the story of The Incredible Hulk shows how badly scripted it is. There's almost no serious dialogue or explanation for anything that happens in the first 40 to 50 minutes, for a start.

Yeah, the intro sequence kind of tells the story of what happened, but if you don't know anything about The Incredible Hulk then you'll be waiting almost an hour to find out: a- That Bruce and Betty were properly in love; b- that Betty's dad is General Ross; c- that Bruce was in South America for years and years; and d- that the US army wants to capture Bruce to dissect him. The whole plot is shoved right to the back end of the movie, so if, say, you're a girl who grew up in China with no cultural osmosis regarding Marvel Comics,

On the plus side, it has by far the greatest action scenes of any superhero movie thus far: Hulk and Abomination both have a superb feeling of weight and physical presence, and there's some really creative use of props (BMW boxing gloves!) and Hulk's size and strength (blowing out the explosion by clapping his hands). But the rest of the movie is a damp squib.

Captain America
Still shit. Steve Rogers' dramatic arc ends the moment he becomes Captain America, and the film never quite figures out what to do with him after that. The action scenes are all mundane; the romance sub-plot completely forgotten about for much of the film; the villains aren't particularly memorable and most of Roger's transformation into a war hero and leader of men happens in a montage! It's awful, and I can only assume it's the result of about 300 rewrites and production notes. They should've thrown out the script and started over.

[Nuclear Optimism]

Ah, but Captain America has Agent Smith doing a Werner Herzog impression.

[madhair60]

I like Captain America, but the montage bit is fucking ridiculous.

[Dead kate moss]

Remind me of the montage, I've forgotten a lot of the movie.

[madhair60]

It basically goes from rescuing Dum Dum Dugan et al into a montage of CAPTAIN AMERICA DOING COOL SHIT like he DRIVES A BIKE OUT OF AN EXPLODING BUILDING and BLOWS UP A TANK WITH HIS FACE or something.  Then it goes straight to

Spoiler alert

Bucky dying off a train

[close]

.  I do like the movie but I wish they'd fleshed out his development as a hero a little bit more.

[BritishHobo]

I found Captain America and Thor to be really quite generic and dull. While I enjoyed Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk, the more recent two just felt like going through the superhero motions - overcoming character flaw, punching out bad guy, wooing poorly-fleshed-out female love interest - with no real tension or excitement involved in either. To be honest as a result of that I'm pretty underwhelmed for the Avengers, though Joss Whedon's role still keeps a small hope alive.

[Tiny Poster]

It basically goes from rescuing Dum Dum Dugan et al into a montage of CAPTAIN AMERICA DOING COOL SHIT like he DRIVES A BIKE OUT OF AN EXPLODING BUILDING and BLOWS UP A TANK WITH HIS FACE or something.  Then it goes straight to

Spoiler alert

Bucky dying off a train

[close]

.  I do like the movie but I wish they'd fleshed out his development as a hero a little bit more.

I believe the idea is that they're going to expand on that wartime montage in future sequels.

But it gave me the gist, he's a fucking super-soldier after all.

[Mini]

A good piece by Tom Hiddleston in the Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/filmblog/2012/apr/19/avengers-assemble-tom-hiddleston-superhero?CMP=twt_gu

[Nobody Soup]

I thought thor was way worse than captain america. a lot of that is down to the marvel backstory though, captain america's origins was always one of marvels more creative and surprisingly sensitive stories and it made for a better plot basically, the supporting cast was also a lot better.

Thor was just stupid, he's only good once you've forgotten how silly it is that a norse god is dicking around planet earth and his love interest is a wet blanket whereas peggy carter was sauce personified

[Mini]

Thor is not a character. Even less so than the rest of them.

[phantom_power]

Thor isn't a Norse god. He is an alien that Norse people mistook for a god. If you can have a man who goes all big and green when angry you can have aliens

[Tiny Poster]

I find it even more silly to think of him as an alien than as a god, actually. So I pretend he's an "extra-dimensional being" or some bollocks (only in the films though).

[phantom_power]

Either way I thought Thor got the balance between the more ridiculous aspects (Asgard, Ice Giants etc) and the more realistic earth-based stuff just about right.

[Tiny Poster]

I'd agree with that. If anything, I wanted to see more arseing around in Asgard.

[phantom_power]

I like how they just went with it and didn't try too hard to explain it away or apologise for th silliness. It's like Branagh thought "If Shakespeare can have fairies I can have Ice Giants"

[Nobody Soup]

instead of embracing the silliness I saw it as a masochistic exercise in how closely it could stick to ridiculous and unfilmable source material. [nb]knowing full well it would make $$$ anyway.[/nb]

[The Roofdog]

Anyone seen this yet then? Pure fucking joy from beginning to end. They got the Hulk so right it made me cry. Won't say any more as none of it should be spoiled.

[Mini]

Looking forward to seeing it tomorrow (today), have spent the week watching all the individual Avengers' movies in preparation.

[holyzombiejesus]

Did the last Hulk film make much money. Maybe because of the 70s TV show, I've always considered Hulk to be one of the most popular 5, probably 4, superheroes. Why do all the films tank? Is it because of the reliance on a CGI character for most of the film?

Whilst I'm here, any news on Ant-Man?

[Tiny Poster]

So, despite an ok first act, this lives up to the hype. Easily the best Marvel film since Iron Man - I have no idea how they'll top it.

And yes, The Hulk is THE FUCKING HULK in this! He got two applause breaks from the audience last night.

[Dead kate moss]

Does The Hulk talk?

[Tiny Poster]

Uhh...

Spoiler alert

as much as The Hulk should. Lou Ferrigno does the voice

[close]

[Dead kate moss]

Spoiler alert

Ok cool.

[close]

[madhair60]

Saw it tonight.  Easily the best Marvel movie, had a huge grin on my face the whole way through.  Laughed out loud many times, had a consistent feeling of butterflies throughout, in that "this is awesome" way.  The post-credits bit made me go "YES" and clap.  Ten out of ten.

[Ja'moke]

Saw it last night. As someone who isn't massively in to Marvel, and hasn't even seen the Iron Man movies or the Thor one, I bloody loved this. Everything just...worked. Iron Man probably had the best lines, but as others have stated already, the Hulk steals the show. Are there plans for a new Hulk movie with Mark Ruffalo involved?

[MojoJojo]

Fuck... really wasn't expecting rave reviews, how am I supposed to see this with a baby?

[spolier] I'm off Monday+Tuesday next week, and baby at nursery/minder. Yay! Just hope Mrs. Jojo isn't too annoyed[/spoiler]

[Tiny Poster]

Saw it last night. As someone who isn't massively in to Marvel, and hasn't even seen the Iron Man movies or the Thor one, I bloody loved this. Everything just...worked. Iron Man probably had the best lines, but as others have stated already, the Hulk steals the show. Are there plans for a new Hulk movie with Mark Ruffalo involved?

Apparently they weren't going to bother after things with Norton went sour, but the reaction to Ruffalo's Hulk has been so positive that they're been "in talks" about giving him his own film. It's pretty amazing that Hulk stole the show, given that the film has Proper Movie Star Downey Jr getting loads of one-liners and Tom Hiddleston's fantastic (and not hammy) turn as Loki.

Spoiler alert

"You mewling quim!"

[close]

And in answer to holyzombiejesus - yes, the last Hulk film did pretty well at the box office.

[Jumble Cashback]

I can very much recommend seeing this at an IMAX screen.  I don't think I took my eyes off the screen once for the entirety of the film.  Normally, I'll sneak a quick look at whoever I'm with to make sure they're not utterly hating the film, but, when the film  finished, I realised I had been completely and utterly immersed from start to finish.  The 3-D feels a wee bit unnecessary at times, but that is far outweighed be the times when it pulls you in just that little bit closer and makes you feel like you're genuinely experiencing the film on a slightly higher plane.

It's true that that the first act isn't fantastic (perhaps a little too much action up front), but it's enjoyable enough to keep you watching and everything thereafter is just pure fun.  It's not the greatest story ever told by some stretch but it is exactly what it has promised to be - a huge, upbeat, joygasm of a superhero movie.  I was going to say that, if you're not really into Marvel superheroes, then there's nothing in it for you, but Ja'moke's testimony has proven me wrong - and I couldn't be happier about that.  Every time I think back on this film I enjoy it more and can easily see myself watching it again and again.  It is beautiful, wildly enjoyable and completely the essence of Marvel.