Avengers! AvengersAvengersAvengers--

Avengers.  Oh yeah. 

Unlike most of the world who turned out for opening weekend last week (sad face) I had to wait soooo long (a week!) to see The Avengers.

ButIjustsawitandtherewerethesegiganticflyingturtlemonstersandohmygoodnessalltheshinycolorsbutintheverybestwayanddiyouseethegiganticflyingturtlemonsters??!!

Whew.  I just had to get that out before I tried to formulate a more coherent response to this movie.

JOSS WHEDON RULES THE WORLD!!!

Umm.  'cough.'  Think I'm good now.

The worst part about a movie like this is the waiting and the hype.  You want it to be good, you so desperately want it to be as good as everyone says but until you sit down and the lights go out there really is no surety that it's as good as you want it to be.

So I went.  I sat down.  The lights went out.  And as I waited through the commercials (btw, I do think Prometheus deserves the best trailer of the year award.  Because every time I see it I get utterly pumped for it--and it's not even high on my list of movies to see in theaters.  And Dark Knight Rises--which I do intend to see in theaters--its trailer seems weak and puny comparatively.  Go figure.) I was hoping and wishing that Joss Whedon wouldn't let me down.  Not that he ever had--but there is always a first time for everything.

Happy to say it still hasn't happened.  :)

The movie--to put it plainly--rocked.  It rocked so hard it made real rocks feel unmanly for not rocking this well.  It had style.  It had panache.  It had heart. 

And it had gigantic flying turtle monsters.  From space.

(try saying that in the 40's announcer voice: Gigantic Flying Turtle Monsters: From Spaaaace!!!)

I know some people will argue that the monsters were more eel-like than turtle-like, but my first view of them was of the head and flippers which were undeniably turtle like. 

I know that if I talk about the big fight at the end some people might get in a miff because they haven't seen it yet (I'm so so sorry) so I'll just do a quickie paragraph with a lot of space before and after it so you can skip the semi-spoilers.












Geek out moment!  So when the GFTM showed up I was bouncing up and down in my seat because it was the coolest thing I'd seen in a long time.  This kind of makes it sound like the rest of the movie wasn't cool--but the GFTM was so amazingly designed and it looked like it was swimming midair and it was soooo cooool!!!  And then when the Hulk smashed it (hee.  fun.) I was kinda sad because although I knew it was a good thing it was dead--no more killing New Yorkers--it was just too cool to die.  But then I saw something to make my heart swell up so much I must have annoyed the person behind me with all my bouncing: GFTM had friends.  :)










Okay.  No more spoilers.  I think. 


Perhaps I should list a breakdown of all the truly excellent things that Joss Whedon did in the Avengers.

Character Development (of course. No Joss movie is complete without character development).  Every character got their time in the sun--some more than others as pertaining to what we needed to know about them: ie Black Widow and Hawkeye.  We got to see each character being themselves and really that's what we wanted to see.

Humor (of course).  So many good moments of both subtle and not-so-subtle.  (and if you haven't seen Avengers already--although I shouldn't have to tell you this--stay to the very end.  The very end.  I do think it's the best joke in the entire movie)

Action.  There was so much going on all throughout the movie and there were so many different main characters that it could have easily become a confusing explosion fest where you're not quite sure who's fighting whom or where or even why.  It didn't.  And that's a testament to good planning and execution on behalf of the pre-vis staff and Joss.  And although I think I've seen more amazing action sequences in my life this movie still ranks really really high.  Besides--Gigantic Flying Turtle Monsters.  (thank you weta)

Everyone truly did an amazing job bringing their characters to life and weaving them together in this very intricate and difficult movie.  I don't think I can say enough good things about it.

I can however mention a few things I wish had been a little different.  I'm quibbling really.  There's no glaring holes or horrible decisions so all I'm left with are little bits of things that weren't quite spot on.

For one: Captain America.  Why did this character get so little development?  Or personality?  I know he's the staid boy-scout type who's a personification of all that is good and right; I'll admit it's hard to move a character along an arc when they seem to have already arrived at 'perfection.'  But it bums me out that we didn't get to see anything out of him as a person.  At least, not like the other characters.  In fact the closest thing we see to character development wasn't even directly about him.  (okay, another spoiler moment, but not really all that big in terms of importance.  Seriously this will ruin nothing)




In the big fight scene at the end we see a blond women run for cover into a building and then look out the window in shock at the explosions and aliens etc.  Pretty standard.  Then a few minutes later we see the same woman again inside a building with lots of people who are about to be incinerated by the aliens.  Captain America is there in time to save the day etc etc--but!  When he is outside the building and the hapless civilians are evacuating we see the same blond woman again staring meaningfully/gratefully at Rogers--and he takes a second to look back at her.  This moment isn't long, mind.  It was extremely quick and as not-a-thing-like as possible.  But it was so a thing.  And then!  And the very end of the movie we see a news feed of that same blond girl!  And she's very thankful and cute and sincere etc etc.  Now if you're me you start getting suspicious at his point.  (actually you got suspicious back at the pause)  This is three separate times we've seen this same 'random' civilian.  That to me means it isn't random and we just saw a love interest go walking by.  Any comic book fans able to yea or nay me?





So as we can see--this was development.  Not really his development--at least not yet.  But still I'm a bit disappointed we weren't given more.  (quibbling, I know)

As for more quibbling I could say some of the scenes were a bit rushed.  Some of the dialogue too expository/should have been more expository to really get the point across.  But there was no time where I winced at a line and despaired at the writing.  (George Lucas I'm looking at you!)  But then it's Joss.  I didn't expect there to be any real trouble.

I could geek out all day long.  Tell you my favorite moments.  In great detail no less.  But I'll save that for a time when I don't feel so awful for 'spoiling' things. 

But all the same--Gigantic Flying Turtle Monsters!  From Spaaace!!