An exciting Avengers cinematic adventure thing

[calapine]

So last week I went on an Exciting Adventure, a Quest if you will, to consume toffee popcorn and watch The Avengers.

In brief: not a great movie, but a fantastically fun and entertaining one.

Those first twenty minutes or so, arg. I was sitting there thinking something not too dissimilar from this: "Tesseract's a nice word. This is a bit like when The Dodecahedron was the MacGuffin in Doctor Who. Except less fun. This is what people spent a billon dollars on? Fandom loves this?! Omg, am bored. Bored, bored, ooh, Samuel L Jakcson, bored, ooh Black Widow, bored, bored, Black Widow again, bored." It was a very sad time.

Suspect I'd hate Nick Fury if played by most actors. Cause he is like just so EDGY and IGNORING OF AUTHORITY and PRIVACY LAWS. Luckily he's played by Samuel L. Jackson so the dickishness comes off as being quite cool.

Natasha Romanoff's scenes were the only things I really cared about in those first twenty minutes. Granted, I was v predisposed to like her so probs she'd have had to have been utter rubbish for me to diss her, but the recruiting Banner scene was neat though not nearly so nifty as her interogation scene.

I'd also like to know if subtlety ran over Joss Whedon's kitten? Cause it was taking some killer hits. You know Loki's a bit like Hitler? Did you? DID YOU? ARE YOU SURE? MAYBE YOU'D LIKE US TO SAY IT AGAIN? (Also, Loki, you ain't no General Zod.)

Fortunately, just before my eyes rolled out of my head Captain America showed up and the rest of the movie was basically a non-stop fun ride of fun that went fight, fight, banter, fight, snark, banter, fight, fight, fight, banter, snark FIIIIIIIGHT, banter. AND LO IT WAS SHINY.

It really is ridic how little plot there is. But after that dodgy start, the entertainment factor is well above where it needs to be for me to care.

I could have done without the heavy-handedness of gelling the team together through shared anger at Coulson's death though. Subtlety was already dead, Whedon, why d'you have to race back and forth over its corpse?

And my other main gripe was yes, yes another woman should join the squad. And she should be superpowered enough to take on Thor or Iron Man or the Hulk. I knew going in I'd have this gripe, so I wasn't too hrrm, and it was slightly mitigated by Romanoff's fight with the archer dude (Clint? he was pretty faceless to me, ALAS) was a nice change of pace from the Superpowered Battles of Demi-Godlike powers, but still. SUPERPOWERED WOMEN PLEASE. Thank you.

And, yes, the Black Widow was my favourite. Normally I don't rate Johanssen, for the rather spurious reason that she's a mouth-breather and it distracts me way too much. But no mouth-breathng this movie, hurrah! And I loved it was made clear she wasn't a soldier but a spy and an assassin and we got to see her do some v cool spy/assassin type things, none better than those interrogation scenes. I loved them, I loved that no-one else on the team waould have been the least bit good at all at them and that it is a brilliant, bloodless way of getting the info she wants and relies on her intelligence and intuition and subverting her enemies' expectations.

And she was the only one actually getting on with the mission in New York and focussing on taking out the rift generator thing rather than smashing as many enemy dudes as poss. Also that shield jump thing was cool.

Incidently, I totally shipped her with Banner. I shall make a sad-face if fandom fails to provide. A V SAD FACE.

Banner was quite good, and I loved how very powerful and scary they made the Hulk, but the real revelation was Captain America. I went in expecting Strong Dislike (he wears the American flag, ffs. Which I've just realised I really don't care about when it's Wonder Woman, so that's one up for hypocrisy) but no! He's just lovely! And I properly want to see his movie now. I blame Flash Gordon, a favourite of mine cause his superpower is basically just being a really nice, trusting guy to everyone he meets and eventually they sort of give up in the face of his niceness and agree to try and get along. And the Captain America was a bit like that. Also he was snarky at Stark kind of a lot so that totally got me on his side.

I still hate Stark. I quite like Pepper Pots though and I do want to see Black Widow's other scenes, so I am almost certain I'll be able to stick with the bloody Iron Man movies on next attempt.

The last battle was AMAZING. The team shot where they're in a circle and the camera swings round was EVEN COOLER IN CONTEXT. And that bit where it moves from hero to hero, up and down buildings as they're doing their stuff? *GLEE*

Also, a win for the Hulk and his impatience with Villainous Monologuing. And his willingness to punch his own dudes when suddenly there are no more enemy dudes to smash.

Most lacking was Thor for me. I loved his movie and enjoyed him here, but I didn't feel like he really connected with anyone on the team, which was a shame. And I am thoroughly indifferent to Loki. He had a couple of good lines but, yeah. Which is Quite Annoying, cause so often I am v keen on the villains and I know fandom is yay at him and I wish I could join in, but no.

And Maria Hill, I think her name is? Excellent. I loved she even got her own wee moments of awesome with the driving skills and the sharp-shooting.

In conclusion, they did say there's going to be a Black Widow movie, didn't they? DIDN'T THEY?