The Avengers: An expanded reaction

May 6th, 2012 by

 

I saw the Avengers  yesterday, and yep, I loved it!  It was everything I’ve come to expect of Joss.  There was action, witty dialogue, and one or more gut wrenching deaths.  I’ll go into detail under the jump.

Warning: Here be spoilers!

I’m going to do this by character.

Ironman

As usual Robert Downey Jr. takes what could be an egotistical, self centered, dick of a character, and makes him into a charming, lovable, dick of a character.  He gets a lot of time to shine in the movie, getting both epic heroic moments and hilarious quips.  He’s the star, and rightly so, if the Ironman movie had flopped, the Avengers would never have gotten made.  I particularly loved his misguided attempts to provoke a hulk out.

Loki

I’ve only read a couple of issues of Thor, but it feels like Tom Hiddleston was born to play this part.  Loki made an awesome power hungry villain with a chip on his shoulder.  He was menacing, funny, and really good at manipulating his adversaries.  I wish he’d had more scenes.

Nick Fury

Samuel L. Jackson brought the gravitas and badassitude necessary to the role.  There’s a reason a group of superhumans, including a demigod, let him take the lead.  He’s got charisma to spare, and I enjoyed all his scenes.  Though at the moment I can’t remember a specific standout moment from him.  Actually the one thing I do remember is a bit of a head scratcher.  Was it really a wise move to shoot a rocket launcher at a jet carrying a nuclear missile?

Black Widow

Remember after Ghost World and Lost in Translation came out, and we were all impressed with how good Scarlet Johansson was at playing disaffected youths?  Then she did a few more movies and we realized the deadpan monotone thing is pretty much all she does, regardless of the part?  Well, yeah she does that here too.  Yet she’s not embarrassingly bad.  That can be credited to the strength of the script.  Black Widow is given some really impressive, and exciting fight scenes, and some fun scenes where she out maneuvers everyone around her (my favorite being when she out manipulates Loki).   Scarlet does a decent job with these moments, but I can’t help wondering what someone who can’t help conveying intelligence and is better at emoting, would’ve done.  Someone like Kate Winslet maybe?

Thor

Thor was a lot of fun.  I really loved how anytime he made a prosaic speech, it was immediately undercut.

I especially liked his first confrontation with Loki, which was extremely dramatic and formal, being abruptly interrupted by Ironman pushing him off a cliff.

And I’ll be damned if now I don’t want a magic hammer that grants me the power of flight.  Can someone get on that, please.  (Side note, anytime he’s on screen I say to myself in a fake Swedish accent “Ya, ya, da’ mitey Tor.” I don’t know why.)

Captain America

I haven’t seen his movie yet, so this was my introduction to Chris Evans as the Captain.  I liked him.  I think he did a good job of seeming displaced in time, and confused by the changed world around him.  I really enjoyed his delight when he finally  understood a pop culture reference.

The Hulk

Oh boy, this is going to get me in trouble.  I loved every second the Hulk was onscreen.  He was a credible threat, an effective tool, and the center of some of the best sight gags ever.  Loved it, could of stood for even more Hulk.  But– I hated every second Bruce Banner was on screen.  Mark Ruffalo really drove me up the wall.  I don’t universally hate him as an actor, I’ve seen him give good performances, and some that I think are a little over rated.  But I really, intensely, disliked his performance in this movie.  To me it seemed like he was trying to appear spontaneous and unrehearsed, but he was trying too hard.  And all the forced naturalism (the mumbling, the tics, the pauses) came off as mannered and affected.  Now, I was the only one in the group that I saw it with who felt that way, so obviously your mileage may vary.  But I found him so grating that it took away from my enjoyment of the film.  I was particularly frustrated by his line delivery.  He was given some fantastic, hilarious, dialog, but for me it all fell flat because of his delivery.  (to be fair, the rest of theater laughed uproariously at his lines.  Just not me.)

His performance was really my only qualm with the movie.  I was so happy when the CGI green guy took over.

Hawkeye

I’ve read even fewer Hawkeye stories than I’ve read Thor.  My impression of him has always been of a lovable rogue, Han Solo type.  That is not how he came across in the movie.  He was more, grim  career military man, who can occasionally crack a smile   Of course he was brainwashed for the majority of his screen time, which didn’t really give an opportunity for his personality to shine through.

Special shout out to Agent Hill.  It was fun to see Robin Sparkles kick ass.

Overall it was an awesome movie, and I want to see it again, to catch what I missed while laughing.  If there is one thing that could make me love it more,  it’s a musical number.  Maybe a duet between Loki and Tony Stark, about hubris, and how it’s underrated.

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3 Responses to “The Avengers: An expanded reaction”

  1. Florence Says:

    I loved the movie and was completely fine with both the Black Widow and Bruce Banner casting. But now I must have the hubris number!

  2. Justin Says:

    I somewhat agree with your opinion. I LOVED The Avengers. Just a very fun and funny movie, filled with oh, so much eye candy. Where did they get so many sexy and svelte people together in one place? Seriously, I would hit every single person in that movie, even the extras. Haha… anyway, nice blog. 🙂

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