ViewtifulJC
Banned
Joss Whedon is the new Kurosawa!
Avengers >>> Dreams
Avengers >>> Dreams
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Marvel's The Avengers |OT| (Dir. Joss Whedon) [Spoilers unmarked]
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After sleeping on it and getting over the initial high after watching the movie, my thoughts are that the movie is amazing - possibly the best comic book movie ever made - but is not without its flaws. Because of this, I give the movie a 9/10. It's great, even excellent, but there are some big flaws that are difficult to overlook.
Since everyone has already gone over why this movie is so great, I'll just skip to the bad. Keep in mind that I'm not a big comic book fan, so I'm not familiar with all the lore behind these characters. I haven't seen Captain America or Thor, but I know of the characters just from popular culture.
1) Loki is a joke of a villain - just completely weaksauce
Somewhere earlier in this thread, someone rated Loki and Thor on the tier only below Hulk. I would not have known this at all watching the movie. The worse thing Loki did, other than killing a bunch of agents when he first emerged, was scan someone's eyeball at the dinner party. He also killed that one agent, who proceeded to have a bunch of funny one liners as he was dying. Then the dying agent shot him with a big gun, which got a bunch of laughs, but it didn't do anything to Loki except knock him out of view right?
He also occasionally taps people with his staff, converting them to his cause. I also had no idea that his staff supposedly "causes negative emotions" or something like that, the movie doesn't convey that well at all.
Other than that, Loki pretty much talks a lot and stands around, when he's not being thrown and bashed by the other heroes. It's clear that he's somewhat invulnerable, but he never really exhibits any power. He's literally in captivity for half the movie. I was never really scared by him, nor did I especially hate him. I don't understand his motivations either. Overall, I don't think this movie did a very good job of presenting the villain, evil, big threat that we're supposed to care about.
2) Samuel L Jackson's character sucks and his acting is bad
I can't be the only person who feels that Samuel L Jackson feels somewhat out of place or is a horrible actor. I feel the same about his Mace Windu character in Star Wars. He's just so bland and I don't see the character he's playing, I see Samuel L Jackson playing a role in a movie. Like he's just playing one really long cameo instead of being convincing as a character worth showing so much in a movie. I'm not old so I haven't seen all the movies he did in the 70s or whatever, maybe he's a good actor in other movies. Maybe the Nick Fury character just sucks. Wow you have an eyepatch, great.
3) Jeremy Renner
Same with Ghost Protocol, I just don't understand why Hollywood keeps putting him in these roles. Just really awkward. Also, Hawkeye himself isn't a very cool character. It just feels like he's playing around with a Nerf bow and arrow set the entire time. Legolas is much cooler.
4) The plot and last act is almost identical to Transformers 3
The "huge threat" of the movie is really weird and doesn't pay off. On top of Loki being a horribad villain, he threatens earth with an army and it's just like no more than 60 generic monsters on flying jetskis and 3 big mech whales. That's his big plan? The biggest threat to earth is actually the nuke that SHIELD wants to blow up Manhattan with.
Also, the entire time I was watching the last act, I kept getting deja vu and wondering why everything seemed so familiar. Hours after the movie it hit me...
The last act of Avengers is basically:
Those screenshots are from Transformers 3, not The Avengers. Surprise! Basically the last act is almost exactly like Transformers 3. There's a big portal in the sky, powered by a beam of light from an object, right above a generic big urban city. On the other side of the portal is an evil race threatening to enslave humans and the hero(s) have to figure out a way to destroy the object powering the portal on the ground to close the portal effectively beating them. I think Avengers does it better than Transformers 3 (which was a movie I didn't like), yet it just seems so cliche at this point. Especially the fighting in a generic big city part. We've covered the same ground in Transformers 1 and 3, the Spider-man movies, etc., where there's a lot of opportunity to slam into big buildings and cause tons of destruction, there are endless amounts of cars to flip around, etc. This isn't really that big of a complaint, I just hope they take the opportunity to come up with some more awesome, unique, and epic sets in the next movie.
5) Nick Fury and Agent Hill's lame ass conversation at the end of the movie
This has to do with point #2, but what the hell was that? Fury and Hill walking around the bridge talking about what's going to happen now that the team are living out their lives separately and what if something else threatens the earth, and Fury having to explain to her in a five minute conversation that they'll....reassemble when that happens. I mean, really? Did you have to close the movie with this conversation?
For a movie that has such great dialogue and writing that struck the perfect balance between fun and the seriousness of more serious movies like Dark Knight, scenes like this pull is back into the "oh yea, this is another cheesy Marvel comic book movie."
6) Captain America never gets to shine
He has one cool team combo move with Iron Man during the city fight, but otherwise it seems like this character just isn't very awesome. I mean, so he just throws his shield once per fight and instantly loses it because it's not a boomerang, and the rest of the time he just does normal martial arts fighting? I don't even remember what he did when he went into that one building and saved a bunch of civilians, I think it involved a grenade of some sort but don't remember, it was that forgettable.
Conclusion:
All in all, it was a very solid movie, with great action, effects, and writing, and the best superhero movie I've ever seen, but it's not perfect. 9/10
Addendum:
Idea: Avengers x Transformers crossover movie. Your welcome, Hollywood. I expect the check in the mail shortly.
ScreenSplitter
Member
I've read up on... the new villain, and his backstory doesn't seem that difficult to explain. He likes to kill shit. Lots of shit.
-COOLIO-
The Everyman
if a new villain would make for a great story then yeah, ive got no problem with it. i also wonder what a contemporary comic book villain might be like
ViewtifulJC
Banned
Manos: The Hans of Fate
Banned
The man just raised the stakes for writing a review here.
ScreenSplitter
Member
The whole idea of Avengers is that it cohesively binds together familiar characters in a crossover environment. You know what happens when third parties create new Marvel villains?
Expendable.
Member
He's keeping me on my toes!
Good Job Bob
Member
not about you or anyone specific. was skimming through and there are some really negative complaints that i don't understand. maybe they're trolling, i dunno.
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The Everyman
The whole idea of Avengers is that it cohesively binds together familiar characters in a crossover environment. You know what happens when third parties create new Marvel villains?
im not to fimiliar with the entire marvel universe, nor that game, but im willing to betting that marvel hasnt always produced gems when it comes to characters.
theres also a big difference between what a creative team for a ~200 mil budget movie could achieve as opposed to the creative team for a psp game
That was kind of my thought.
TrumanBurbank
Member
Cool review, Korey. Agree on all points expect Loki. I thought Hiddleston's performance made the character memorable.
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The Everyman
ya, i admit the transformer similarities were glaring but a portal to an army of bad guys is a solid setup for a final act
and loki was indeed played by a badass actor. he was just as good in thor. his creeping smile abilities are second to none
I understand your confusion. You probably think I'm talking about old lame dried up Spielberg. No, dude, I'm talking about OG '75-'82 Spielberg. The guy who strutted across American cinema like Mick Jagger. That man shit entertainment and pissed joy. That's what I'm talking about! Movies that leave a smile on your face and an extra smile in your heart. A fucking heart smile!
Like my man Coulson said, "Maybe we need a little old fashioned right about now". Damn right, Son of Coul. Bring it.
The Anti-Monitor
Banned
Marvel has dozens of awesome villains out of which Thanos is not only extremely memorable, but remarkably non-stupid outside of comic book standards. The reason they will be using him instead of crap like Chaos King is that he is a villain that has proven his value.
Why the hell would they risk creating a new villain? There are probably three similar villains to whatever new they did, better to play it safe and use a character with a good pedigree.
Why the hell would they risk creating a new villain? There are probably three similar villains to whatever new they did, better to play it safe and use a character with a good pedigree.
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The Everyman
if there's more good marvel villains and good stories for them then definitely, by all means, but a new villain would also be great if there were a story in mind to go along with him/her.
Maybe Avengers 3 we get Kang the Conqueror
bigboss370
Member
can someone tell me why the tesseract needed a power source to...power it up (and open the portal)?
isn't the thing itself pure energy/endless power?
isn't the thing itself pure energy/endless power?
Disagree on points 3 and 4. Jeremy Renner is awesome, and so what the end act is similar to transformers? It's also similar to Half Life."A portal where aliens invade" is a common plot device.
Also, again, Jeremy Renner is awesome. He was awesome in MI4 and he's still awesome in this.
Also, again, Jeremy Renner is awesome. He was awesome in MI4 and he's still awesome in this.
It's pure energy, it needs a jolt before the energy can be tapped. It's like starting a car.
Hot Coldman
Banned
Other way round, the Tesseract was powering the portal machine.
Spiritreaver
Member
Your name is Korey too? *bro fist*
shanshan310
Member
Great review Korey. I really felt something about Loki was lacking as well; he just never seemed very threatening or bad. His motives weren't good enough to make me feel empathy, or evil enough to make me feel anger/ fear. He was just kind of meh with some funny lines.
Avengers 2 should be Kang or Ultron.
Renner is indeed awesome. I'm tired of people talking about how ugly he is. So what if he looks like a bulldog? What's wrong with bulldogs? We used to love ugly actors in this country. Roy Scheider wasn't a male model. Lee Marvin was an ugly son of a bitch. Gene Hackman wasn't a pretty boy. Bring on some bulldogs, I say.
LaserBuddha
Member
Despite what I've said I can get behind this. It's a good way of describing the oddly high enthusiasm felt when watching it.
I would stop well short of equating it with Spielberg, though. I'd equate it on a quality level with one Spielberg's weakest films, War of the Worlds (a movie I still really like).
The Avengers is a movie I will watch more times than others that I hold in higher regard.
Knux-Future
Banned
I thought the whole point of Loki was that he was more of a behind the scenes guy rather than a big tough guy?
While I do question having him basically be the face of the bad guys (In Thor it made sense but here he needed a more imposing part to play aside of....they should have went with the Skrulls).
But I actually liked the idea of having a villain who may not be able to fight toe to toe with the heros.
That was probably the worst part of Iron Man 1 and one of the better parts of the Batman/Joker dynamic.
Better execution was probably needed tho.
But DAT CREEPY SMILE SON.
While I do question having him basically be the face of the bad guys (In Thor it made sense but here he needed a more imposing part to play aside of....they should have went with the Skrulls).
But I actually liked the idea of having a villain who may not be able to fight toe to toe with the heros.
That was probably the worst part of Iron Man 1 and one of the better parts of the Batman/Joker dynamic.
Better execution was probably needed tho.
But DAT CREEPY SMILE SON.
shanshan310
Member
The thing is though, Loki didn't seem like he was the one running the show. Plus he just wasn't that evil.
Hey, he wasn't that bad looking at all.
Hey, he wasn't that bad looking at all.
Not enough FOOT DIVE! FOOT DIVE! FOOT DIVE! HARD KICK! YOU WILL BURN! FOOT DIVE! FOOT DIVE! HARD KICK! PROTON ARRAY! FOOT DIVE! FOOT DIVE! BOW BEFORE DOOM! YOU HAVE NO HOPE! FOOT DIVE! FOOT DIVE! FOOT DIVE!
i liked the way the movie showed that he had a lot of pent up anger and that wanting for people to worship him. he was still nothing more than a pawn for Thanos but it was nice to see that he was able to take on most of the Avengers one on one.
But see, you get it. Being behind the scenes (like Joker) can be scary. Joker is insane, and does things to cause real harm to people. Being not scary is fine, but it doesn't make for a very awesome movie.
Like I said, he's literally in captivity for half the movie. In the first scene where all the heroes are duking it out in the forest, he's just standing there in the background waiting to be captured. It was part of his plan...but still. Just...bad writing for a villain.
Avenger's is awesome despite a non-scary villain, not because of it.
Seconded. Although I take more umbrage with the claim that he can't act. He gives powerful deliveries, all of the time. He gave to Hawkeye more than I ever expected anyone to even try. I thought his character was going to be the weakness of the movie (well him and Loki), but I was pleasantly surprised by Hawkeye, Loki and Cap. They were all so unique/distinct.
Disagree. But I wince anytime I read or hear the words, bad writing. I'd like to see specific examples of how one would write a better villain. It takes a hundred pages of properly paced speech and action descriptions to lay out even a serviceable antagonist. I'm working on a doozy of an antagonist problem myself, and I envy what Whedon/Marvel did with Loki in this movie.
Essentially, if THAT SUCKED, then I don't know what I can hope to accomplish.
I wonder then if people thought Hannibal Lecter was terrible writing because he was stuck in a cell/in restraints for most of Silence of the Lambs?
Dont forget the end part where he just sits around in the hole after the Hulk smash and doesnt go for his sceptre. He "wakes up" just in time for the money shot. Cheese!
it was smart to have him under mind control just top see him do spec ops stuff against SHIELD and i liked the fight with Widow.
That's my point though, the man can act, and all we hear about in movie threads is how ugly he is. Who gives a shit? Go look at the TDKR vs Avengers thread. "I cant stand his face" over and over in there. Since when do all leading men need to be runway models?
Escape Goat
Member
You gave it a 9/10 but your "review" is all the things that you didn't like. Could have fooled me with your rating!
EXACTLY. So for the ENTIRE last act (the entire scene that took place in NYC), he was standing, and then laying, there in Stark's apartment. What was he doing, watching the game on Stark's 90" plasma?
Wait, I seriously don't remember what he did before Hulk smashed him...was he outside doing something? He yelled out "send in three more mech whales!" or something like that right? That's all I remember him doing.
LaserBuddha
Member
I was kind of sad that they didn't develop his character at all, since he had so much presence on screen.
In general I don't like the casual approach to casualties thing in superhero movies, since it often doesn't jive with the central ethos, but I quite liked it with Hawkeye and Widow just kind of brushing it aside with a 'you think about it you'll be in psych forever' and then everybody else just ignoring it for the rest of the movie.
*shrug* It's not that kind of movie!
*shrug* It's not that kind of movie!
Is there a need for an explanation? It's Germany.
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The Everyman
they didnt understand him and did what came naturally
He stabbed Thor and rode around on a Chariot blowing shit up. Then Hawkeye blew his ass up.
As for his actions post Hulk ass whipping, thats the point. He was done at that point, and the only remaining threat was the portal.
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