(no subject)

[labellementeuse]

WELL THAT WAS GREAT.

If I could describe this movie in one hashtag, it would be: #josstypical - for the good and the bad (although it was pretty light on bad). Snappy dialogue. Serious geek presence (Tony and Bruce bonding was fucking great). Epic moments. SO MANY epic moments. This movie was epic from start to finish. The SHIELD sections at the beginning were so epic I was like, and now they're going to introduce the big name Avengers and it's going to get MORE epic? How is the pacing gonna hold up? But whatever, it TOTALLY DID.

They did a particularly great job towards the end of highlighting all the characters' different skills and abilities - one of the central issues to overcome when you're talking comics supergroups is why the hell are these people working together? Sure, when it's the X-Men or the Runaways and they've mostly got medium-level powers, or it's a teenage group, it's easy to justify, but the tricky thing when you take e.g. Superman and Batman and Wonder Woman and the Flash is that these people all have very different scales and appropriate baddies. Batman being an incredible martial artist is great but when you're stuck in the middle of an army of aliens he's kicking ten people's ass while Supes is lasering and, uh, icebreathing etc. scores or hundreds of them. So I thought they did a pretty convincing job of what are Clint and Natasha contributing in battles? What's Cap doing? What are the different skill sets and appropriate targets of Iron Man, the Hulk and Thor?

K said the movie made her have FEELINGS towards all the characters and I really have to agree. Here are some feelings. I should add at this point that while I've read a bit of the Avengers run around Civil War and I followed Young Avengers and Runaways, that's really all I know about Marvel, so I am - I almost feel like I'm interrogating the text from the wrong perspective by not being a bitter canon bitch about it, but WHATEVER THEY WERE ALL GRATE.

NATASHA - the injustice of her not getting a movie burns at me. Yeah, Scarlett Johansson in leather pants wouldn't at ALL get the coveted straight 20s-40s male demographic, right? Bullshit. (Look, I do get that Natasha's backstory means that her movie would be in a pretty different genre to Captain America, but whatever, it's movieverse, you can jazz it up if you really were committed. Also, they're making an Ant Man movie, so any argument is invalid).

Oh look, bitterness! Back on track.

Natasha was obviously a BAMF. I appreciated all of her moments. I really liked how each time I was thinking "oh, great. Sexy torture/sexy female crying/sexy female vulnerability, my favourite thing!" they were able to parlay that into something sending up my willingness to believe in sexy female vulnerability, and how that perception leads people (including Loki fucking Liesmith) to make idiots of themselves. WELL PLAYED JOSS, WELL PLAYED. It's hard not to make a comparison between this choice and the central Buffy idea of the blonde girl who walks alone down an alley - and turns around and beats the monster up. Only instead of doing this with physical strength in this case it's mental/emotional strength and flexibility. She is so fucking smart. ugh.

CLINT - he was great, more trick arrows than Oliver Queen. I mean, for quite a lot of the part of the movie where people are getting characterisation he's off being a bad guy and I don't know that I was convinced by his chemistry with Natasha in that one scene in the cell/hospital bed (I was SUPER convinced by their fight though, they had excellent chemistry there). So I think I felt less of a connection to him because all we really got to see was him being a BAMF - totally cool, but without the fullscale emotional investment I had in the rest of the Avengers, you know, not quite so much. Fuck I love a good bowman or woman though. So spectacular.

BRUCE - Bruuuuce! So I know jack shit about the Hulk but Ruffalo did a terrific job with his material. He and Tony had great chemistry and their science nerd bonding was AWESOME. He was just the right amount of emo. And the line about always being angry was perfect and perfectly delivered. (I'm assuming this is some kind of iconic comics line, if not, they should steal it.) The Hulk was also great although they completely and obviously fudged the whole Hulk-smashes-everything problem in the final battle. There was really no reason I was very pleased they didn't go the whole "twas Beauty slayed the Beast" Fay Wray route with Natasha and the Hulk, and that if anyone had that moment it was Tony.

TONY - Oh jeeze, you know, he was exactly what I was expecting, and what I was expecting was great and that's what I got. No real surprises. They had a very light hand in his moment towards the end - they didn't need to have Cap acknowledge, okay, I guess you are the guy who lies on the wire if there's no other choice, the viewer was able to pick that up and fill in the gap themselves.

STEVE - more or less ditto; known quantity, awesome quantity.

PEPPER - loved all her cameos. Whatever Pepper/Tony in these movies is great and I love everything they choose to be and IDGAF. THEY CAN BE FUNCTIONAL IF THEY WANT TO BE, GUYS. I BELIEVE IN THEM.

MARIA HILL - Cobie Smulders! Damn, girl! Maria Hill is another character I know the barest skim of her Wikipedia page about but I did really appreciate the effort put into making the background and secondary characters heavy on the women.

THOR/LOKI - were Thor/Loki. Thor maybe could have got a little more time tbh.

COULSON - JOSSTYPICAL. fuck you, Joss, it's always so predictable and yet I never fucking see it coming. This was almost exactly the way he killed Anya and Penny, by the by. ARGH JOSS WHY DO YOU DO THAT GODDDDDDDDD. The stuff with the trading cards was well done because the viewer's feelings towards him mirror pretty closely Cap's, so you're cringing awkwardly and then you're like ARGH FEELINGS (shut up, it's 3:44 am, I can be inarticulate if I want).

ALSO YOU GUYS THERE WERE A MILLION EPIC FIGHT SCENES AND IT'S A COMIC BOOK MOVIE AND I AM TOTALLY, TOTALLY WEAK FOR THAT SHIT. Natasha hitching a ride on the fucking alien! Hulk beating up the aliens! Hulk using Loki as a wrecking ball. Cap just TOTALLY CHILLING OUT JUMPING AROUND OVER A MILLION FEET fucking argh argh argh stopit (other thing fudged: oxygen levels at that height? whatever, he's a super soldier). At least they didn't suspend him for an agonising 25 minutes like Mission Impossible part a billionty last year did. THOR AND THE LIGHTNING BLOCKING UP THE PORTAL. Cap and Natasha just being constant unbelievable BAMFs. Clint having a nest. Every time Clint fired his fucking bow, did I mention I fucking love superheros with bows? (I need an Arrowette movie so bad ...) I would watch an entire movie about SHIELD. Also there were a lot of great one-liners in this film that were mostly super in character. (I wasn't sure about "He's adopted" although it was hilarious, so I give a pass on that.)

There was amazing energy at the (jam-packed) Embassy tonight, it was really fun to watch it in that kind of audience. OMG IT WAS GREAT OKAY.

Comments

[the_antichris]

NATASHA - the injustice of her not getting a movie burns at me.

Ugh, yeah. Like, I know Electra did badly, but when a dude superhero movie does badly, it's not a reason not to make ANY MORE EVER. I hate how eagerly they jump on excuses not to make movies about women. And her movie could have been so great! But instead she gets shoehorned into the pile of crap that was Iron Man 2.

I kind of felt it was too #josstypical in parts, but overall WHATEVER I LOVED IT.