THE
(MIGHTY)
(MORPHING)
AVENGERS!!!!
I have stepped out of the shadows...yes, Elder is back! Ican't believe it's been almost two months since I wrote an article...whoops!Had some crazy ass times in the past couple months, though. But, I am here, andget used to it!
THE AVENGERRRRSSSS! Yes, everyone's favorite group ofskull-smashing, wisecracking super men and ladies finally got their big screentreatment. And I gotta hand it to Marvel - their campaign worked off. They'vebeen setting the wheels for this mama for years. First came The Hulk, then The IronMan, then The Caps, then The Thor, now this. And what a thrill ride!
Boiled down version: Loki is the villain in this one; he comesback from getting his ass whipped in Thor to once again stir up trouble, thistime with a pointy stick and a little cube of energy called the Tesseract. Hehas been hired by this random alien race they never really explain to retrievethis cube for them. They never quite explain what the stick is, just that itmakes everyone it touches look like they were just pooped out by a Frost Giant,and then in addition, puts them under Loki's command. Until snapped out by agood hard hit to the face - as seen in the cases of old man scientist andHawkeye. Gotta throw a shout out to the archer man. Archers have been giving mebroners for about 10 years now. They rape so much in Age of Empires II; theythe best! So I have a special affinity for Hawks on that account alone. Apartfrom that, he's pretty much a huge cock. But I digress...Loki comes down, putshis stick to scientist and Hawkeye, and retreats with them and the cube whichapparently is the key to unlocking godly power. In the process, he almost takesout Bell's Palsy-afflicted Sam Jackson, and the whole theater would havemourned. But he didn't, and instead, Robin Scherbatsky goes after him! Yes, CobieSmulders is in this; I squealed. Loudly. And for the rest of the movie she wasonscreen got giddy...in my pants. Which reminds me: Rock of Ages looks so good.So gay, but so good. I urge any who like musicals and Alec Baldwin in aridiculous hairpiece (which might only be me) to see it when it comes out!
SOOOO! I kept sidetracking myself. Loki escapes, and nobodywants the cube in the clutches of that evil queermo, so the Avengers startforming. We get everyone together, and boom! Fight on. That's the basic plot ofthe movie. So..now onto the review! Weetsa!
We open up to a classic set up for a sexy scene. Hot girlbeing tortured. Oh yeahhh. Well, except she's not really being tortured - justslapped around a bit. My personal Friday nights. Anywho. She escapes, usingsome awesome chair action on the Russian mafia, and proceeds to call good oldAgent Coulson, that annoying guy from all the other Marvel films. Flash over tothe Hulk man, Bruce Banner as he is known in that puny human form, who for somerandom reason is kicking it in India, being a doctor. Which is weird, becausethrough the whole movie, it makes it known he's a physicist, not a medicaldoctor. Hmm..but, simple little thing. The only beef I had with the movie wasthis (besides the lines): Hulk goes nuts on Black Widow for some reason (can'tremember why), and almost kills her. But then, in a big moment before the hugebattle scene, he says that he is always angry, thus that he always has controlof his power...so therefore, he was just being a giant asshole to Black Widow,and no one says anything to him about it!
On that note though, Hulk had several bad-arse/funnay asheck moments in this, including both the biggest crowd pleasers: punching Thorduring a moment of complete stillness in a little revenge move, and thenwhack-a-moling the ever-living stuffing out of Loki. He was definitely thehard-hitter they had in their climactic battle in the end. And Ruffalo did agreat job! Always loved him as an actor, but though I really wanted Ed Norton,he came through in the clutch...hard.
But back to the review...Iron Man comes in around this time,after we meet Banner, and hoo boy, does Downey kill it! First Iron Man movie isstill my number three superhero movie ever, and it was mostly due to this man.He keeps the magic up 5 years later! And Gwenyth Paltrow, dear lady, you havenever looked better. Ps, I know you had to love the hell out of her! Lawl. Shewas foxy as can be. Had some entertaining dialogue between her, Downey, andAgent Boy, some prevarications from TONY STARK (who built his suit in a cave!),and finally he decides to get off his metal butt and go help the cause. YayyyStarkie! Sadly this is our last glimpse of Paltrow - boooo!
Who do we encounter next but the now-unfrozen relic from thepast, Captainnnn America! Who's all huge and bulked out and punching a punchingbag super hard. Oh he mad. He busts it open and spills its little beans on theground, he so mad. It's kinda interesting...I never saw the CA moviebeforehand, but they really build the Captain up to be this updated buffoonwho's way out of the loops (since he's from the World War 2 era now in the IraqWar era) and who spouts outdated, overly patriotic trite. And yes, in case youcan't tell, my least favorite character. Strong, but not that strong - notsuperhero strong, basically. Essentially, he is nothing without the shield. Theshield is way cool and has a great name - vibranium! But, on the note ofweapons, I was a little disappointed that he was the only one of them to use agun - and he doesn't use it with good accuracy! So much for a super-solider. Hisbest moment is when he takes charge of the Avengers, which makes sense for himto do it...but I still wanted Stark to lead the crew. Ah well. Just my biasestalking.
There's a pretty cool scene, though it gets cheesy at theend, when Loki and Hawks team up to steal this random metal that's needed topower that cube. They crash this part, steal it, and then zoom out...but notwithout getting stopped! People all around are trying to stop them, and one oldman stands up when all others are cowering and is like 'we won't let you bullyus, you big green horned man you!' Course, Loki gets mighty pissed, and so he'slike 'yeah, you might be the weakest, littlest guy here, but you must be madean example of!' Right when he is about to blast him, the heroes come in, Capand Iron Man, and boom shakalaka, he is captured! They go up in a plane, andold billy boy Thor comes a-rocking the skies with his lighting hammer! Thenarguably the coolest part of the movie happens - Captain America, Iron Mano,and Thor all have a big time showdown in the middle of some forest. They alltry to kick each other's arses, but it ends up in a pretty big stalemate. Yeet!
So this is the film's weak point here...the transition. Theycapture Loki, and then have to deal with his mind games as he tries to trickthem into releasing him (as he obviously does). There's a LOT of cheesy/cringybanter between the lot of them as personalities clash - Cap hates Iron Man, hehates Cap, IM and Hulk have a major bromance going on, Scarlett J. is so out ofplace (I honestly have no memory of her throughout the whole movie). So theyall argue, then Hawkeye and his bad crew come and attack the flying shipthey're on (even though it's invisible - hmm!). Hulk transforms (but not in agood way!) and Thor has to come whip his ass (probably my second fave scene!Gotta love the internal conflicts). Afterwards, Loki escapes his little prison,and traps Thor in it - well, the thing has an opening that drops whoever is init straight down to earth, and it's here we learn Thor doesn't fly. Whoops. Plungeto earth, ahoy! And Hulk follows suit shortly after tearing a jet apart inmid-air. That's the way to go out - in fiery style!
So now we come to the big boy battle! Loki opens up a portalto the other world, and in comes swarms of baddies! I swear this part tookabout an hour in and out of itself - which is ridiculous. This is just onelongggg battle, punctuated by a few awesome moments - the aforementioned Hulksmash of Loki, Loki's bafflement his stick does not work on Stark's littlechestplate, and the first big old dragon dropping out of the sky. Those wereall either oooo moments or lol moments - sometimes a combo! Nick Fury, aka SamJackson's, superiors decide the alien attack is getting out of control, so theypull a Watchmen and send a nuclear bomb toward New York. Only my man Iron Mancan fly, so what does he do but rocket his sexy metal ass way high in the air,grabs that sucker, and pilots it right into the portal! Bibbity boppity boop,the earth is blowed up!...Nah, not really. You really think a superhero movieis going to end on a downer? Happy times abound! No one major dies...except theAgent Coulson. Forgot about him. He had some weird obsession with CA, which wasreally funny. But still, sad when he died. He kinda got punked by Loki, butdelivered a final blow in his death twitches! What a hero!
Joss Whedon has produced arguably my two favorite movies ofthe years. But he is not a perfect filmmaker. He is a niche man through andthrough. Good action scenes excellent comedic timing (and he is helped out anass ton by everyone's fave ex-coke head, Robert Downey the 2nd), but somehonestly cheesy dialogue and a few awkwardsupposed-to-be-cool-but-ended-up-lame moments. The action was superb, though,and it is I would say, my 4th favorite Marvel movie, behind the first twoSpider-Mans, and Iron Man. I'd say a very very good 9.5/10 for this here Whedonvehicle!
P.S. Just saw Battleship today. And I learned five thingsfrom it
1. Horsies live in Hawaii and are very distracting to aliens
2. Rihanna cannot act
3. Alexander Skaargaard is a terrible over-actor
4. Liam Neeson is, and forever will be, the most bad-ass manin the movies
5. Getting tasered for a chicken burrito is worth it if youget some hot puss out of it
DON'T GO SEE IT!!
No comments:
Post a Comment