it was this or an x-men icon
May. 14th, 2012 04:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bagheera_sanI'm the last person to have thoughts on Avengers, I guess, but I saw it last week and I keep writing bits of this post in my head.
Before we went to see this movie I had a conversation with some of my friends about who my favourite superhero (or my favourite superhero movie) is (because I'm probably the one with the biggest interest in superheroes) and I had a hard time answering. In the end, my answers were: the X-Men, or or the Justice League or I dunno. One of the guys said, "So what you really like is superhero teams." I should have said, "I'm a roleplayer, of course what I like best is teams," but of course you only come up with the best replies later. But yeah, I like superhero teams. And the one thing I like better than an origin story is a "getting the team together" story.
And one of the things that struck me about "Avengers" is that instead of taking away from the many, many characters it added something to nearly all of them - it made them better and cooler and funnier than they were on their own.
That said, let's not talk about the plot or the soundtrack or the lovely action. Let's talk about characters:
The Hulk
Someone on my flist said this was the best Hulk movie yet and that is the TRUTH. I thought I'd miss Edward Norton but Ruffalo was great, and I kinda love that apparently in between Incredible Hulk and Avengers, Bruce Banner developed a sense of (fatal) humor about being a living time bomb while still retaining all his angst (dear Loki: please take him as an example.) Which is why he clicked with Tony, I guess, and this combination of humor and acceptance, more than having a common foe, is what redeems the Hulk. After the movie my friends all agreed that the Hulk was their favourite hero.
Loki
I love Loki. Mostly, however, I love mythological Loki, and Lady Loki and Kid!Loki from the comics. Movie!Loki makes me sigh a lot, especially in Thor, because he's so serious. I can deal with Loki being evil (although the genocidal thing is hard to take, the psychology behind it makes sense to me - Loki's primary motivation in the movieverse is the fact that he has been indoctrinated from childhood to hate everything he is) but if he's evil and sad all the time then there's not much about him that is Loki, for me. Avengers did good on that front, because as much as the film amazed me by not making Loki a villain only motivated by jealousy and hatred (instead it kept a fine balance between him being forced to do what he did on the one hand, and him wanting to do it on the other hand), it made it clear that he had fun all the same. He enjoys drama, he enjoys tricking people, he laughs and grins a lot and he even cracks a joke when he's defeated. Now mostly I think this is because he's less than mentally stable, but I still think a Loki who's able to laugh is likelier to not be genocidally evil than one who doesn't laugh.
Black Widow
I didn't have much of an opinion of Black Widow before this - I like that her origin is "reformed Soviet Russian spy" because it's retro and cool and I like long-lived characters a lot. If they do a Black Widow origin movie, I hope they keep some of it. The problem this character faced in the movie, however, was being the only female hero, and consequently, it was likely that Black Widow would be defined only by the fact that she is female and all the expectations that come with that (both from the feminist critics and the male and female viewers). Joss Whedon did well to include two other female characters that didn't really NEED to be there plot wise (Pepper and Maria Hill, who took the roles usually reserved for women in superhero movies: non-superhero girlfriend and generic action heroine), leaving room for Black Widow to differentiate herself from these generic roles. She IS a tough action girl, but the movie focused instead on a) her spy/manipulation skills and b) the fact that she's a redeemed villain and thus as much of a freak/emotional wreck as the rest of the team. She may not be a heavy hitter, but when you create your party, it can't consist only of barbarian fighters and wizards. You usually need a rogue, too.
Tony Stark
Tony is awesome (duh) but what I like most about him is also what Avengers chooses to showcase: he's paranoid of authorities and thus in a way he becomes the team's conscience, and the only guy who looks beyond the immediate threat. It struck me that if the movieverse ever did Civil War (the comics event in which superheroes, most notably Cap and Iron Man, fought each other over superhero registration), Steve's and Tony's roles would be reversed, if it could happen at all. Movie!Tony would never argue that the government should control all superheroes to prevent collateral damage. He'd also never agree with the Illuminati that Hulk should be shot into space.
Everyone else
Thor was not as funny as Thor can be, but very sweet in how much he tried to redeem Loki, so I'm pleased. Hawkeye was not as boring as I expected him to be, but mainly because he spent most of the movie being mind-controlled and evil. Also, he had an USB stick arrow, WTF. Fury was deliciously manipulative. Coulson's death was good. The Stuttgart scene was good. I still don't ship Pepper/Tony and her shorts were WEIRD - Pepper already doesn't behave very much like a professional business woman, but in the Iron Man movies at least her clothes suggested professionality so I could believe that she only turned into a babbling mess around Tony, but still, the final Stark/Avengers Tower scene was pretty cool. I hope someone shows Cap "Easy Rider" and makes him read "On the Road" (someone being Tony). I'm looking forward to the next movie.
Before we went to see this movie I had a conversation with some of my friends about who my favourite superhero (or my favourite superhero movie) is (because I'm probably the one with the biggest interest in superheroes) and I had a hard time answering. In the end, my answers were: the X-Men, or or the Justice League or I dunno. One of the guys said, "So what you really like is superhero teams." I should have said, "I'm a roleplayer, of course what I like best is teams," but of course you only come up with the best replies later. But yeah, I like superhero teams. And the one thing I like better than an origin story is a "getting the team together" story.
And one of the things that struck me about "Avengers" is that instead of taking away from the many, many characters it added something to nearly all of them - it made them better and cooler and funnier than they were on their own.
That said, let's not talk about the plot or the soundtrack or the lovely action. Let's talk about characters:
The Hulk
Someone on my flist said this was the best Hulk movie yet and that is the TRUTH. I thought I'd miss Edward Norton but Ruffalo was great, and I kinda love that apparently in between Incredible Hulk and Avengers, Bruce Banner developed a sense of (fatal) humor about being a living time bomb while still retaining all his angst (dear Loki: please take him as an example.) Which is why he clicked with Tony, I guess, and this combination of humor and acceptance, more than having a common foe, is what redeems the Hulk. After the movie my friends all agreed that the Hulk was their favourite hero.
Loki
I love Loki. Mostly, however, I love mythological Loki, and Lady Loki and Kid!Loki from the comics. Movie!Loki makes me sigh a lot, especially in Thor, because he's so serious. I can deal with Loki being evil (although the genocidal thing is hard to take, the psychology behind it makes sense to me - Loki's primary motivation in the movieverse is the fact that he has been indoctrinated from childhood to hate everything he is) but if he's evil and sad all the time then there's not much about him that is Loki, for me. Avengers did good on that front, because as much as the film amazed me by not making Loki a villain only motivated by jealousy and hatred (instead it kept a fine balance between him being forced to do what he did on the one hand, and him wanting to do it on the other hand), it made it clear that he had fun all the same. He enjoys drama, he enjoys tricking people, he laughs and grins a lot and he even cracks a joke when he's defeated. Now mostly I think this is because he's less than mentally stable, but I still think a Loki who's able to laugh is likelier to not be genocidally evil than one who doesn't laugh.
Black Widow
I didn't have much of an opinion of Black Widow before this - I like that her origin is "reformed Soviet Russian spy" because it's retro and cool and I like long-lived characters a lot. If they do a Black Widow origin movie, I hope they keep some of it. The problem this character faced in the movie, however, was being the only female hero, and consequently, it was likely that Black Widow would be defined only by the fact that she is female and all the expectations that come with that (both from the feminist critics and the male and female viewers). Joss Whedon did well to include two other female characters that didn't really NEED to be there plot wise (Pepper and Maria Hill, who took the roles usually reserved for women in superhero movies: non-superhero girlfriend and generic action heroine), leaving room for Black Widow to differentiate herself from these generic roles. She IS a tough action girl, but the movie focused instead on a) her spy/manipulation skills and b) the fact that she's a redeemed villain and thus as much of a freak/emotional wreck as the rest of the team. She may not be a heavy hitter, but when you create your party, it can't consist only of barbarian fighters and wizards. You usually need a rogue, too.
Tony Stark
Tony is awesome (duh) but what I like most about him is also what Avengers chooses to showcase: he's paranoid of authorities and thus in a way he becomes the team's conscience, and the only guy who looks beyond the immediate threat. It struck me that if the movieverse ever did Civil War (the comics event in which superheroes, most notably Cap and Iron Man, fought each other over superhero registration), Steve's and Tony's roles would be reversed, if it could happen at all. Movie!Tony would never argue that the government should control all superheroes to prevent collateral damage. He'd also never agree with the Illuminati that Hulk should be shot into space.
Everyone else
Thor was not as funny as Thor can be, but very sweet in how much he tried to redeem Loki, so I'm pleased. Hawkeye was not as boring as I expected him to be, but mainly because he spent most of the movie being mind-controlled and evil. Also, he had an USB stick arrow, WTF. Fury was deliciously manipulative. Coulson's death was good. The Stuttgart scene was good. I still don't ship Pepper/Tony and her shorts were WEIRD - Pepper already doesn't behave very much like a professional business woman, but in the Iron Man movies at least her clothes suggested professionality so I could believe that she only turned into a babbling mess around Tony, but still, the final Stark/Avengers Tower scene was pretty cool. I hope someone shows Cap "Easy Rider" and makes him read "On the Road" (someone being Tony). I'm looking forward to the next movie.
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Date: 2012-05-14 07:37 pm (UTC)Yes, exactly. That's what always sells me on individual relationships - do the characters bring out something interesting and good in each other that wouldn't be there otherwise? - and here it happens with a whole ensemble!