The Avengers Movie Review!
I just saw The Avengers!
Thor, Iron Man (Tony Stark) and Captain America (Steve Rogers)
Totally great film about people and relationships. Very good character development, solid story, great entertainment.
This film was made with great care and it showed. The film is not corny in the least. There are many ways that Marvel has gone about this and one of the ways is that the violence is not cartoon comic book. Both good guys and bad guys die in the film including scores of civilians. This is a part of what is a conscience decision by Marvel to show that violence has consequences; those consequences are real and not always reversible.
The character development is very good and sets up the chemistry and conflict between the characters, even so a little more development for some of the characters was in order and I hope that we will see it in the blue ray version. The characters have great attributes as well as great flaws. Captain America, whose real name is Captain Steve Rogers of the United States Army, having been asleep for over 60 years is not pleased with the cultural decline in society. For Steve Rogers World War II was just a few months ago. He killed a lot of Germans and watched them kill his friends. He lost the love of his life. Now he is in pain wondering what his sacrifice was for and if society is worthy of it. He is in a very dark place.
One thing I could not help notice more and more of in Stan Lee films, references praising Western Civilization and slapping the progressive secular left. Those of you who do not follow politics may not know, but the Clinton's screwed Marvel creator Stan Lee out of millions of dollars. Stan Lee used to be a fund raising dedicated Democrat. After the multi-million dollar mugging Lee is now a genuine "Traditional Warrior".
There were many references to Western Civ but there were a few that really stood out:
Agent Phil Coulson to Captain America: We updated your uniform.
Captain America: Isn't the whole "red white and blue" thing a little outdated for your new modern society? (Remember Captain America was asleep for over 60 years and he makes several comments about what he thinks America has lost in the time he was asleep).
Agent Phil Coulson: With everything that has happened, and everything that is about to happen, we could use a little dose of traditional.
SHIELD Agent Phil Coulson with Thor
Interestingly enough, perhaps the film's greatest hero is Agent Coulson (played by Clark Gregg) who is likely the greatest role model in the film. Here is Agent Coulson from a previous Marvel film:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1uD5_ovwqg]
Getting back to the culture war...
Captain America speaking to Agent Romanov in reference to Thor and Loki: There's only one God, ma'am. And I'm pretty sure He doesn't dress like that!
Tony Stark mocks Obama: I am the only REAL green energy project going on right now. (Without exception all significant green energy contacts and loans have gone to Democratic Party donors and campaign bundlers. Dozens have taken our money and promptly gone out of business but the donors have paid themselves incredible amounts of money and donated much before and after back to the party).
SHIELD Director Nick Fury
The debate on arms control with Nick Fury was superbly written. My description does not do this conversation justice as the debate is Nick Fury vs Thor, Captain America, and Dr. Banner all while Tony Stark is being a smart ass.
Thor: You are making weapons with The Tesseract. Why?
Fury: We had no choice. Thanks to you we learned that there are other worlds out there , other threats.
Thor: Surely Asgard is no threat to humanity!
Fury: Agreed, but Asgard isn't the only "other world" out there is it?
Thor: Via mannerism begrudgingly agrees.
Fury: We have seen just a sample of what other worlds have and we are ridiculously... NO we are hilariously out gunned. Can you seriously expect SHIELD to do nothing?
Natasha Romanova (Black Widow) and Clint Barton (Hawkeye)
At the end of the film after SHIELD and The Avengers stop the invasion a Democrat Senator from NY (ahem hello Hillary) blames the Avengers for the invasion and demands that they pay for the damage.
For those who like action The Avengers has that in spades. There were several references to previous films such as Lord of the Rings, Flash Gordon etc, but my favorite reference was to Droopy Dog. Many of you might not be old enough to remember what happens when someone gets pushy with Droopy Dog (hint: Replace Droopy with The Hulk and let your imagination run with it).
The acting was very good, especially from Mark Ruffalo who plays The Hulk. Any actor who can take something as fantastic as The Hulk and bring it right down to ground level and make it totally believable deserves an award. All of the actors made their roles believable, which is also a testimony to some fine writing and directing by Joss Whedon.
The only flaw in the film was the plot hole where Dr. Banner learns to embrace and control his anger thus learning to control the Hulk as best he can. It is Tony Stark that helps him take this new philosophical approach. This starts to happen in the film but they did not do enough of it to make it more obvious to explain how Hulk went from almost out of control on the carrier to in control at the invasion. The past of The Avengers' two master assassins Natasha Romanova (Black Widow) and Clint Barton (Hawkeye) was just teased and it is implied that the two characters will get the attention they both deserve in Avengers II or the upcoming film Nick Fury, both are already in pre-production.