Avengers

[howeird]

Saw The Avengers in 3D last night. I guess it would have helped if I had been more of a Marvel comics fan. I was raised on DC, and Marvel came around after I was past my comic book phase. 

I enjoyed much of the acting. Whedon did a good job directing his characters in the human. non-action scenes. I especially enjoyed Mark Ruffalo as Dr. Banner, except he kind of blew his last important line by not appearing to be the least bit angry. Robert Downey Jr. had Stark down to a T, including the Black Sabbath T. We got treated to a lot of Scarlett Johansson's butt in tight leather, an added bonus. And the last thing we see in the film is Cobie Smulders's fine bubble butt sashaying away from us in form-fitting pants. Both women also gave good acting performances. Clark Gregg was the ultimate company man, and Jeremy Renner is almost believable as the commando leader, except he's too short. Chris Hemsworth as Thor and Chris Evans as Captain America were not given a lot to work with. Hemsworth made the best of it, Evans mainly came across as a stuffed shirt. Tom Hiddleston as Loki has a scary smirk, but was otherwise unconvincing in the Global Dominator role. Samuel L. Jackson phoned this one in. So did his makeup artist.

Most of my friends tell me The Hulk stole the show, but as far as I'll go is his scene fighting the bad guy was amusing. He's all CGI, and they gave him far more strength in that scene than he had demonstrated to that point. I think Iron Man had the most and best tricks/lines/CGI/plot movement. 

There are two Easter eggs, the first comes right after the beautifully crafted main credits, and was gratuitous. The second comes about 10 minutes later after everyone within 500 miles of the production was listed in ugly 2D B&W text, and was kind of cute, but could have used some dialog. And it was in 2D.

Lots of violence, lots of effects, some superb fight choreography. Plot holes one could drive a mother ship through. Many snippets of excellent dialog. The Stan Lee cameo toward the end is priceless, made me laugh out loud. 

Worth matinee.

Comments

[lemmozine.livejournal.com]

When did you stop reading comics? Marvel's been around since '39, in its modern form since '61, according to Wikipedia.

I read comics from around '64 to '68 as a kid. Picked up a few as an adult. Like Groo, the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers. Somewhere around this house I have a complete set of Howard the Duck that needs to be sold.

[howeird]

My comic reading was from about 1958-64. Let's see when the Avengers characters first appeared:
Iron Man 1968
The Incredible Hulk 1962 (I do remember reading some of these, but the TV show really made me a fan)
Captain America of course goes back to WWII, 1941, but I was not a fan
The Romanov version of Black Widow never had her own series, she first appeared in an Avengers book in 1966
Hawkeye slipped into Avengers a year earlier, but didn't get his own book until 1994
Nick Fury Agent of Shield #1 was 1968, but was discontinued after 18 episodes. He got another shot in 1989.

If they end up being in my price range, I would be interested in the Howard The Duck set. When I was in the Peace Corps, two of the staff came back from a trip to Malaysia with three issues, which they gave me (and I still have) but they wrote comments all over them. Funny comments, and they may even not have been drunk when they wrote them.