I have been in NYC (i.e., home) for the past two weeks and it has been glorious. This included seeing the Van Gogh exhibit at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, seeing Christina Ricci in A Midsummer Night's Dream, going to a Feist concert at Radiocity Music Hall (a place I haven't been since I was a wee thing who was impressed by the Rockettes, even if they were disturbing a classic Dickensian Christmas tale), and, of course, seeing The Avengers.
You're about to hear about my Avengers feels. Be prepared for: the kind of feels that get capital letters, keysmashing, tin hatting, and other madness.
I'm just gonna put this on the table first and foremost: I think it was shitty of Joss to "kill" Coulson. I think it was a bad move strategically, artistically, and ethically.
First, Joss has used the trick of killing off the minor/minor-ish fan favorite character before--often to very great effect. As heartbroken as it made me, I'm not gonna deny the complete mastery of the scene where Wash dies in Firefly. It's a tour-de-force of writing and it's easily one of the best moments Joss has ever created. But it's become too pat, now. We all expect it of him and it loses its meaning when your audience is expecting it. Wash's death was so magnificently tragic specifically because we didn't think he ever would--now we assume he will. Honestly, I was sure he would kill of Coulson or Hawkeye. It's no longer the leveling artistic tool it once was.
Secondly, it didn't work the way he obviously wanted it to. He wanted the moment with Fury and the trading card to be the moment where we realize that Fury actually is more shady than he's seemed up to this film. It was supposed to be the moment when you question his very humanity. But the cards themselves, the stealing them and splattering blood on them, doesn't work for that purpose. It's weaksauce. It would have been far more effective--for the very purposes Joss set out for--to have Coulson live and to have Fury choose to lie about his death to the Avengers to inspire them to unite. That's some actualfact moral grey.
Thirdly, I think Joss--the guy who forgot to include Pepper Potts in the original version (so I've read) until RDJ reminded him that she's, oh yeah, an essential part of Tony Stark/Iron Man's character--doesn't understand the appeal of a character like Coulson. He gave us Hill as a replacement for that role in the structure, as Fury's right-hand-man, as if she could just jump into those shoes right away. Her character has a lot of history in the comics, sure, but this is a different Marvel universe from the comic books. The audience allegiance is with Coulson. It's like killing Beckett and swapping him out for (though I eventually liked the character and always loved the actress) a hot female version. It assumes the audience is (a) all male and (b) that easily swayed. Both are wrong and insulting. It's not even fair to Hill's character to make her jump into that void when there didn't need to be that void. Joss has made this mistake before--he thought Xander was the audience stand-in, he thought Nelly was an audience stand-in, etc etc. He doesn't understand that the audience's affections don't flow where they're supposed to go, they move on their own. He frequently creates characters whose worth he doesn't recognize (though their actors often do): think Victor on Dollhouse, think Captain Hammer in Dr. Horrible, think Anya/Spike/Oz/Doyle/etc in Buffy. These are all characters he didn't get but we did. And he was wrong here again.
OK. Coulson's death, aside, I also have strong feels about other things.
I actually dug Tony/Pepper this time. I've always like the snark between them but this was the first time I bought them as a romantic couple. And the fact that there's been time for Pepper to bond with Phil in the interim between the films....that's just icing on the cake.
Re: Hawkeye....don't get me wrong, I adore his character. I always have, in any of the verses. But couldn't there be a bit more, I dunno, grace to his archery? His bow literally jiggled when he opened it. That is not cool looking, that's jiggling. It's akin to Santa's belly. We just saw some beautiful cinematography with archery in The Hunger Games, what gives, Avengers?
But I loved whoever was choreographing the fight scenes between Natasha and Clint and between Natasha and....anybody, really. This franchise and ScarJo herself are doing wonderful things with visualizing the essence of her character. She was always intimidating in frozen panels in the comics and I wasn't sure that would translate into film, the way the Hulk has never translated into film before. But she's got a subtle swagger and vicious variability that is everything I could want for her character.
Speaking of the Hulk, though, I was definitely swept away in my Hulk feels with this film. I never thought that would be true, but there you go. Hulk Feels. I has them.
I especially loved the way Tony and Bruce's friendship--probably the clearest development in the film--is based on equal parts philosophy and frontier-science. It speaks a lot to both of those characters that they're pushing the edges of what humanity is capable of and that they have both been slapped back cosmically for it. Yet, what became apparent in this film is that there's a way that accepting the price of innovation becomes its own virtue and, eventually, gift. There was a richness to that relationship that I didn't expect, not in a million years.
I can, to paraphrase As You Like It, suck shipping from a film as a weasel sucks eggs. It's a gift. And I don't think the film was anywhere near the Steve/Tony finish line that I love (the one where even the comic had to admit that them getting married would have prevented the Civil War), I think it laid some really strong foundations for shipping in the future. Those of us that sail that ship don't do it because they want to snuggle on first meet, right? We like the slow burn. And we've got a decade of films to burn through still. There's time.
Also, to be clear: I fully expect the next director to fix Joss's mistake re: Coulson and explain that he has not been dead, that Fury was being super-manipulative there. I expect it and will believe it till someone proves me wrong.