Well, I finally watched The Avengers, the latest installment of Marvel’s super heroes movies. It’s the long awaited movie, bringing several previously standalone super heroes together: Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, and the Hulk. Chris Evans, Robert Downey Jr, and Chris Hemsworth reprised their roles respectively, with Robert Downey Jr pretty much stole the show, or probably because Iron Man had the longest gap between his last movie and this one, and thus it felt more exciting seeing him again vs the other heroes. Anyway, here’s my quick impression, and yes, I will spoil the movie.
The story itself is a continuation of the setup from Captain America and Thor movies. Loki made a deal with some alien to use the energon cube, I mean that blue-cube-source-of-energy-thingy, to open a portal so the aliens can invade earth. Pretty straight forward, and the motive were already set for Loki, for revenge against Thor. Thing is, the last time we saw Loki, he fell from Asgard to the abyss. So how did he survive? I guess the “abyss” is space? Anyway, Selvig, the scientist from Thor movie is now investigating the energon cube from Captain America movie, and Loki used the situation to transport himself to earth. At the same time, he brainwashed Selvig and Hawkeye to work for him. Nick Fury then decided to assemble the heroes to get the energon cube back.
It started with Black Widow getting Bruce Banner. With the Hulk having 3 actors now with 2 non-related movies a long while back, it’s hard to relate to the character in this movie. By the way, at the end of Thor movie, Thor destroyed the bridge and thus stuck in Asgard. So how did he manage to go to earth again? And if he could, why didn’t he visit his girlfriend already? Yeah. Oh well, Iron Man is cool as always. As usual, Tony Stark arrived with the eye candy, showing how his landing pad automatically removed his Iron Man armor while he’s walking. Total geek fest. Captain America is pretty much a direct scene continuation from the end of his movie.
What’s great about this movie is the interaction between the heroes, especially Downey Jr as Tony Stark. The other heroes seemed stiff, but Tony Stark is just being Tony, making jokes and insulting everybody. It works great, and thus imo Downey stole the show. They also did a good job in balancing the heroes’ screen time. In movies with multiple main heroes, there’s a threat of having certain heroes taking a back seat. It didn’t feel this way in this movie. Even Hawkeye and Black Widow took quite big parts instead of standing by over the sideline.
How about fan service? This is something that many western movies sometime missed completely. Well, they are in the movies, enough to make fans happy, yet not too much that it makes the movie a bit corny. The best one I remember was when Iron Man and Captain America were fighting the aliens side by side, and Iron Man fired his repulser beam to Captain America’s shield and have the beams deflected to the surrounding aliens. That’s so awesome that the audience was cheering and clapping. Another hilarious part was when Hulk confronted Loki. Loki boasted how he’s a God, and the Hulk simply smashed Loki around like a toy. Again, the audience cracked up. It’s too funny. They did a really good job slipping these things in the movie. Another fan service is the Iron Man mark VII suit, which can fly on its own, matching itself to Stark’s bracelet and armored Stark on the fly, literally. It’s no extremis, but I’ll take it.
Any downside of the movie? Well, Shield is pretty much useless, i.e. they had the energon cube stolen under their nose, and their flying fortress were wrecked and did nothing during the invasion itself. The after credit scene can be hilarious and a huge eye roller at the same time.
Future storyline? It’s clear that Stark is going to use his tower as the Avengers Tower, and Thanos is going to be the next villain. My wishes? To have the X-Men and Spiderman franchise tied together with the Avengers. I want to see the live-action version of the Stark-designed Spiderman suit. Alas, Spiderman is pretty much Sony’s.
In short, The Avengers is a quick and fun action movie with enough toppings to please fans. It’s a great movie to distract me. Thumbs up, recommended. But enough distraction, back to making Accel World AMV now. 😉
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