Avengers assemble
Note: This contains spoilers. If you care about that sort of thing, I've employed cuts around it all. Now enjoy!
Getting back into the groove here in Connecticut. These weekend trips to Philadelphia always discombobulate; the driving, the crashing at my parents' house, the whirlwind trips to pack in as much family, friends and fun as possible. This was easier when I was 27. Hell, that was almost five years ago.
But I'm still a trouper. Thursday night we hit the road and went to a midnight screening of "The Avengers," meeting up with our friends from the comic book store we shop at in Philly.
Rosemary slept in the car for half the trip so she could stay up. I am a night owl anyway, so I knew I'd make it once I finished the drive, but I powered myself with a Robeks acai smoothie and McDonald's frappe for sugar, energy chemicals and caffeine.
"The Avengers" was worth the trouble, and then some! Perfect superhero film. Brilliant. Awesome. Great pace and storytelling, sweet moments for each character. Kudos to Marvel Studios for successfully executing this years-long ride of movies to get to this moment, and delivering a movie as good as or even better than the first "Iron Man." Classic stuff. This is how it's done!
I'm not even a Joss Whedon fan, and I saw his narrative tricks and fanboy humor build and build. But what makes him the top fanboy director is that he pays attention to character, knows a good story, gets at the root of what a character is and how he works, and he is funny. Puts him head and shoulders above the Kevin Smiths and Zack Snyders of the world.And it takes Whedon's touch to make the postscript -- a wordless scene of the team noshing on shwarma after their apocalyptic battle like you and me after a night of clubbing.
Great job making Hawkeye cool; focus on his 8 billion skills as a world-class assassin before getting all crazy with the arrows. (Though the arrows were great; and a boss move of putting all the gadgets in the high-tech quiver rather than the arrows themselves.) Scarlett Johanssen was watchable and enjoyable, for once. I call her Cool Whip because, like the dessert topping, she's nice to look at but has no flavor. But she packed it in this time, even though she's still not my pick for Black Widow. Captain America got to flex his soldiering muscles as well as his brawn, Thor is at his pained-god best, and even Iron Man realizes what it takes to be a hero.
But the film belongs to the Hulk. Mark Ruffalo did the best acting; like a Clint Eastwood, he conveys a whole character's life in a minute of screen time. And making the Hulk both a frightening, unstoppable freak-show behemoth, and comic relief, was a fantastic touch that led to an interaction with Loki that had me hooting and hollering in my seat.
Seriously, this movie had everything: action, comedy, pathos, wit. There also was loads of sex appeal, though it was all from the steroid-armed male actors.
So, well done, everyone. Not since the new "Star Trek" in 2008 have I left a film feeling so juiced, so happy to experience something so amazing and masterful on screen. And this year is shaping up to be as good as that summer of a thousand movies.
"Dark Knight Rises" and "Prometheus," you're next.