The Avengers (no spoilers)

[rowyn]

Early this morning, Lut and I were getting ready to go out to see The Avengers.

Lut: "I'm really looking forward to this movie."
Me: "It should be good. I don't want to get my hopes too high."
Lut: "Yeah. The Hulk was not that great a movie, and neither was Thor."
Me: "Right. I don't want to assume it'll be as good as Iron Man. I'll settle for 'better than Thor'."
Lut: "That's not a high bar to clear."
Me: "Exactly." I paused, thinking about it. "You know what would be a high bar to clear? As good as The Incredibles."

*

We both enjoyed the movie a great deal. It's a strikingly well-done ensemble piece, with a large cast of minor and major characters, all of whom have the opportunity to shine. Probably its greatest strength is its wit: there are a lot of snappy retorts and funny lines. Joss Whedon does a superlative job of capturing the characters: they feel like themselves*, and they feel fully-realized. Making five films that are essentially prequels for this one helped tremendously in this regard.

'As good as The Incredibles' would be pushing it. The plot felt like set dressing to me: serving its purposes in getting all these great characters on stage and giving them opportunities to be great. Which I enjoyed! But the story itself could not have stood on its on. A plot summary would not make you go 'Oh wow!'

Watching the movie will, though. Well worth it. I'd see it again, which I do not say about many movies.

* With the possible of exception of Nick Fury, who really feels like Samuel L. Jackson. Not that this is necessarily a bad thing -- I love Samuel L. Jackson and never read the Nick Fury comics -- but Lut, who is a fan of Nick Fury, found it jarring.

[ETA: comments may have spoilers.]

Comments

[hotspurre.livejournal.com]

If you're going with a canonical Marvel Fury (a commander of an elite fighting unit from WWII who has had his aging slowed,) yeah, he can't be anything other than white. I distinctly got the impression they were not, which means he's probably in his 40s, and that definitely makes it more reasonable for a non-white character. He could have earned his chops in the first or second Gulf war, for example, or had been in Black Ops.

Heh. With Colson I had a feeling throughout the movie that he hadn't actually died. Or, if he died, he was revivable. He was playing it a bit too cagey about Fury using his death to bind the heroes together, and it is completely something both he and Fury would do. One of the other agents (Hill, I think?) called him on the cards, and that only made me more suspicious. The fact that we didn't actually see the med team pronounce him dead, we just got that from Fury's mouth... yeah, I suspect very strongly we'll be seeing him again. The bastard. :)

In fact, I fully expected the Easter Egg at the end of the movie to feature him. Still, I was excited by the first, and incredibly amused by the second.