The Avengers
May. 11th, 2012 08:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
daibhidcOr, as it's apparently known in this country, Avengers Assemble (although they apparently didn't make that decision early enough to make an actual Avengers Assemble logo, or even borrow Marvel UK's one, so they just bashed it out in a metal-effect font and called it a title screen.)
Apart from that niggle (and a couple of other niggles), awesome!
The opening scene of Loki stealing the Cosmic Cu ... er, the Tesseract was briliantly done, although it took me a second to realise he was using the spear to mind-control Erik Selvig and Hawkeye, and this wasn't related to the suggestion he was inside Erik's mind at the end of Thor. And then we get the assemblage scene, with an explanation as to why the Avengers were mentioned at the end of Iron Man and Hulk but nothing had been done since except rejecting Tony before Iron Man 2; this is Nick's pet project and the SHIELD brass aren't so keen on it. A clever point is that they all have a reason to be called in for this situation; Cap has past experience with the tesseract, Tony is SHIELD's on-call supergenius, Bruce is an expert on gamma radiation and Natasha is Hawkeye's partner. And then Thor turns up, of course, because it's Loki.
And of course the heroes don't get on: the man of the past and the visionary of the future; the freewheeling industrialist and the scientist who has to maintain control; the soldier and the spies; the men of science and the Norse god... The scene where they nearly come to blows is nicely done, especially the underplayed role of the spear in exacerbating feelings they already have.
The Heli-Carrier was nicely realised; it actually looked like an aircraft carrier, not a big chunky box with propellors. This meant, of course, that it unavoidably looked a bit like the HMS Valiant. And some beautiful character moments; I laughed at Steve excitedly announcing that he'd finally got one of the obligitory Whedon popculture references, and the idea that Bruce controls the Hulk by always being angry was an interesting one.
Another nice touch: the subtle suggestion that the Hulk had deliberately aimed himself at an abandoned warehouse, a nod to Greg Pak's concept in the comics that no-one has ever died during the Hulk's rampages, because even when the Hulk is a mindless brute, Bruce's supergenius mind is constantly calculating how to avoid that.
The actual Big Fight Sequence was, I'm afraid, a little disappointing. The heroes all got a chance to show what they could do, but basically they were fighting faceless mooks. Innumerable faceless mooks, so it didn't really feel like they were achieving anything by doing so. As, indeed, they weren't; as soon as Tony sets off the bomb and Natasha closes the rift, all the Skru ... er, Chitauri[1] fall down, problem solved.
(My opinion of this scene may be marred by the fact I had to go to the loo half way through, and missed at least one key moment where the tide of battle turned. I may have a different opinion in six months when I get the DVD.)
The final scene of Stark Tower (or, presumably, Avengers Tower) with its damaged sign was nice. And I loved the after-the-credits scene, although I'm not the casual audience would have got it (the big guy is Thanos, and the reason he grins when the Chitauri tell him fighting Earth is "to court death" is because that's precisely what he's into.)
So what's next? Iron Man 3? Captain America 2?
[1]And thanks a bunch for that, Mark Millar; at least I can spell Skrulls...
Apart from that niggle (and a couple of other niggles), awesome!
The opening scene of Loki stealing the Cosmic Cu ... er, the Tesseract was briliantly done, although it took me a second to realise he was using the spear to mind-control Erik Selvig and Hawkeye, and this wasn't related to the suggestion he was inside Erik's mind at the end of Thor. And then we get the assemblage scene, with an explanation as to why the Avengers were mentioned at the end of Iron Man and Hulk but nothing had been done since except rejecting Tony before Iron Man 2; this is Nick's pet project and the SHIELD brass aren't so keen on it. A clever point is that they all have a reason to be called in for this situation; Cap has past experience with the tesseract, Tony is SHIELD's on-call supergenius, Bruce is an expert on gamma radiation and Natasha is Hawkeye's partner. And then Thor turns up, of course, because it's Loki.
And of course the heroes don't get on: the man of the past and the visionary of the future; the freewheeling industrialist and the scientist who has to maintain control; the soldier and the spies; the men of science and the Norse god... The scene where they nearly come to blows is nicely done, especially the underplayed role of the spear in exacerbating feelings they already have.
The Heli-Carrier was nicely realised; it actually looked like an aircraft carrier, not a big chunky box with propellors. This meant, of course, that it unavoidably looked a bit like the HMS Valiant. And some beautiful character moments; I laughed at Steve excitedly announcing that he'd finally got one of the obligitory Whedon popculture references, and the idea that Bruce controls the Hulk by always being angry was an interesting one.
Another nice touch: the subtle suggestion that the Hulk had deliberately aimed himself at an abandoned warehouse, a nod to Greg Pak's concept in the comics that no-one has ever died during the Hulk's rampages, because even when the Hulk is a mindless brute, Bruce's supergenius mind is constantly calculating how to avoid that.
The actual Big Fight Sequence was, I'm afraid, a little disappointing. The heroes all got a chance to show what they could do, but basically they were fighting faceless mooks. Innumerable faceless mooks, so it didn't really feel like they were achieving anything by doing so. As, indeed, they weren't; as soon as Tony sets off the bomb and Natasha closes the rift, all the Skru ... er, Chitauri[1] fall down, problem solved.
(My opinion of this scene may be marred by the fact I had to go to the loo half way through, and missed at least one key moment where the tide of battle turned. I may have a different opinion in six months when I get the DVD.)
The final scene of Stark Tower (or, presumably, Avengers Tower) with its damaged sign was nice. And I loved the after-the-credits scene, although I'm not the casual audience would have got it (the big guy is Thanos, and the reason he grins when the Chitauri tell him fighting Earth is "to court death" is because that's precisely what he's into.)
So what's next? Iron Man 3? Captain America 2?
[1]And thanks a bunch for that, Mark Millar; at least I can spell Skrulls...
