The Avengers - someone buy Josh Whedon a drink. And get him twenty tickle models....

[mabus]

I posted a thread about whether The Avengers would live up to the massive hype.

Damn. It exceeded the hype more than I could ever fathom or imagine

I really didn't think it would THAT good.

(SHIELD was getting on my nerves the more they were included in these movies, and their bravado was REALLY getting on my nerves. If you guys are so know-it-all awsome, fix the problems your damn selves! ....luckily, it's ALL explained in the movie, and built on in wonderful ways.)

First off, for the horny among us (which is most of us )

Scarlett Johanson's first scene - her, tied to a chair in a Russian warehouse, in black pantyhose ....and no shoes.
Heart, stop....stop! Oh, wait, then she starts kicking the shit out of the thugs who grabbed her, many close-up pantyhose feet shots, and finally one
with her walking away, camera near floor.

I really WILL buy Josh Whedon a drink if I ever saw him!

NO, NO, NO!!! Barefoot lovers! No, don't be sad! Gweneth Paltrow, first scenes, button down shirt, really short shorts....and bare legs and bare FEET! Woo hoo for you guys!

And, she actually has a role and does a great job as an actress! I liked that when Coulson walks in, she doesn't just SIT THERE all silent, she fully engages him.
Feminists, rejoice, the women here aren't just window dressing, they're assertive, intelligent, and for the guys, hot!

And while you're in the theater being all turned on by all this, the rest of your nerd brain will kick in and you'll have orgasms at the fact that:

-The Screenplay is wonderful, witty, dense, and you'll be laughing half the time, and on the edge of your seats the other.
But the humor isn't forced, stupid humor, it's earned and the audience laughed for half the movie. There was one scene where everyone started cheering.....
haven't seen that in a movie theater forever!
-The actors are not only all excellent, but stick to their character. I was afraid Tony Stark would lose his wit, that Captain America wouldn't be as heroic.....oh no, Cap is like "Yes ma'am," "No sir," while Tony Stark is even more at ease and feisty than he was in Iron Man 1 or 2. Bruce Banner's guy was great - liked him better than Ed Norton.
-Everything is authentic to the comic books - and I mean everything - no added stupid characters, stupid plots....

Now, the one thing you think they changed, they didn't. The bad guys are not called the Skrulls..........but they are the Skrulls. 20th Century Fox owns the Skrulls, so they had to name them something else...but they're the Skrulls.

I was amazed how EPIC this movie was. The trailers certainly didn't give that away. (Many movies, the trailer show all the good parts. This whole movies was "The good part." )

In fact, as I watched this movie, a thought kept popping in my head: You could take any 10 minute section of this movie, and it would equal a full length whole 'nother typical movie.

Thor fights the Hulk in one scene. It's magnificent. That would be a whole movie any other time. (This WAS a made for TV movie, and the fight here dwarfs that entire old movie by a landslide.)

It'll take me a year to process how miraculous this movie was.

If you like comic books, you've waited your whole life to see a movie like this.....

 

[RobAce]

mabus, I think you hit it spot on. The Avengers is simply the best superhero movie EVER. Honestly, to me this ranks up there with Goodfellas, Star Wars and Lord of the Rings. And in some cases exceeds all of those movies.

This IS the movie I have waited my whole life to see, and I already want to see it again.

BEST. MOVIE. EVER. And it came out in my lifetime. I am so happy.

Rob

 

[SadCuzNotTcklsh]

Hulk stole the show if you ask me!

 

[mabus]

The great thing about it is.....I heard early on it would center around Captain America, use him as the central hub character, since he is new to it all.

Earlier on, people where either afraid Robert Downey Jr. would be the leader/steal the show/be the main character, since his Iron Man came first.

AMAZINGLY, jaw droppingly, EVERYONE is the main character! NO CHARACTER gets shafted/short changed AT ALL!

For those who haven't seen it yet (but will!) you can't comprehend this until you see the movie, BECAUSE EVERY OTHER MOVIE does what I stated above.

The fact that a huge ensemble piece like this, with this many big name actors got made, AND THEN to have them all get equal screen time, is literally a miracle by
Hollywood standards, and if Marvel hadn't made the movie itself, it would never have been done....EVER.

AND AND TOP OF ALL THAT!!!!!!!! Pant pant pant!!! The scenes with the characters just TALKING to each other is just as enjoyable/exciting as the big action scenes, which is also
very rare in movies.

 

[mabus]

Two sad things though:

-This is the best movie this year. Chronicle was also great. Batman will probably be deep and entertaining.

None of these movies will get nominated for Best Picture.

People who know me are literally amazed and stunned when they ask me all excited if I'm going to watch the Oscars each year...and I immediately say "NO."

Why bother? It's a bunch of lesser, artsy fartsy films, usually liberal propaganda pieces, that the wine and cheese crowd fawn over, and the general public doesn't even watch.
Or if they did, they wouldn't enjoy them that much.

I remember seeing No Country for Old Men in the theater. I liked it. The audience, which was only about a dozen people, really didn't like it. They were from young to very old.
They were all grumbling when we left the movie. The audience for Avengers cheered and laughed the entire time.

SPOILER ALERT:













-The last character in the film, after the initial end credits, was Thanos the Titan.

He is my favorite Marvel villain, and the Infinity Gauntlet story one of my favorite ever.

But sadly, Silver Surfer, Dr. Doom, Spiderman, etc. are all owned by 20th Century Fox or Sony, and therefore can never be in a Marvel film.

Which I think is shit, why not share characters AND actors? Doug Jones can be Silver Surfer for both Fox and Marvel, and each respective company would just reap whatever profits each respective movies makes.

DUH!

But no, corporate greed wins that battle.

But how are they going to do a sequel to the Avengers, wen the big baddie Loki and the Skrulls bowed to, was Thanos?

 

[-Hari-]

Yup, best film ive ever seen by miles, I watched it last night and tonight and im watching it Wednesday night too

 

[GEORGIATKLER]

Stan Lee is giving Hitchcock a run for the cameo money. I enjoyed the film. I wanted someone to use the "Roadhouse", "I thought you'd be bigger" line on The Hulk, but I guess it was not meant to be. The film did not disappoint or drag or lose focus. I guess Halloween costumes will be MARVELous again this year!! I do look forward to Batman and Spiderman next flicks.

 

[DianaBanana88]

Im trying to wait to see the Avengers until the theaters calm down a little so i dont get killed lol. from what i've heard from my friends it was amazing so i cant wait to see this. Iron man, hulk and thor were all really good superhero movies so putting them all in one movie has to be something special.

The dark knight rises is another one i cant wait to see.

 

[ticklishdanny]

really really great movie, i'm glad i went to see it yesterday, it went past my expectations

 

[Sandrock74]

I saw it today and I loved it! I couldn't help but giggle like a little kid when Thanos appeared at the end of the movie! He's been on my top 3 list of favorite villains since I first became aware of him back in the 80's. I hope he gets some cameo appearances in Iron Man 3, Thor 2, and Captain Ameirca 2 leading up to him being the big threat in the Avengers sequel. Thanos is a universal threat kind of villain, obsessed with death and wanting to die himself...what a movie that would make!

 

[-Hari-]

Im trying to wait to see the Avengers until the theaters calm down a little so i dont get killed lol. from what i've heard from my friends it was amazing so i cant wait to see this. Iron man, hulk and thor were all really good superhero movies so putting them all in one movie has to be something special.

The dark knight rises is another one i cant wait to see.

This is the first film ive seen that I think I prefer watching in a packed cinema, its just that its so funny at times that the entire room fills with laughter, it adds to it in my opinion

 

[roxita]

I watched this movie in 3D, and wouldn't recommend it. Why not? Well, my experience was that during the fast fighting-scenes the 3D didn't manage to keep up and became blurry.

Definitely going to watch it again, this time in 2D. And Johansson's boobies during the first fightingscene were all over the screen.

 

[-Hari-]

I watched this movie in 3D, and wouldn't recommend it. Why not? Well, my experience was that during the fast fighting-scenes the 3D didn't manage to keep up and became blurry.

Definitely going to watch it again, this time in 2D. And Johansson's boobies during the first fightingscene were all over the screen.

I've given up on 3D, I haven't experienced this blurriness like you say but I just don't ever even remember that its 3D after 10-15 mins into the film so I don't see what's so special about it other than its stupidly expensive. 2D all the way, as it should be.

 

[c7_assassin]

Sometimes I feel like everyone else in the world is on glue, or I must be. This is one of those times.

You guys really thought it was that good? Like, when it doesn't get nominated for best picture, that's robbery? Face facts here: The plot was nonsensical, the villains were ineffective and lame, Robert Downey Jr. did get more screentime than anyone else, and Scarlett Johanssen delivers her lines like she's channelling an oak tree. The story was plodding, the action was confusing, and the rest was just fanboy masturbation.

Although Joss Whedon does like to shoot his actresses barefoot, so I give it a C+.

 

[jonny86]

I was fairly unimpressed as well. Johanson's first scene was amazing and I think I now have a fetish for short red-heads now.

Maybe I'm one of the only ones here who isn't a fanboy. I was invited by a coworker and simply wanted to see a good movie. If I had paid for it, I wouldn't have had any regrets (my coworker paid), but at the same time I wouldn't care to watch it again. There was WAY too many aspects and parts of the movie where you had to be a fanboy to actually get. A good movie will have some good/funny parts that only those who have seen the comics will understand, but there was way too much in this movie.

 

[Ticklerguy4u]

I saw it and I really loved it. I wasn't expecting that I would but I agree with mabus on everything he said about it. Gweneth Paltrow did look hot in those shorts and Whedon gave us a long wide shot when she walks across the room. Gotta love that. It is definitely not a movie for little kids because most of the dialog deals with science and gamma rays they probably couldn't understand or care less about or anyone who isn't into comics or was into them when they were younger. Sorry, but there are plenty of f*ked up super hero and video game movies that cater to the non-fans by wasting hours of details on who they are and what they do. This wasn't one of them.

 

[ZenTickling]

This is the first film ive seen that I think I prefer watching in a packed cinema, its just that its so funny at times that the entire room fills with laughter, it adds to it in my opinion

Ditto.

I can't believe they pulled this movie off. I thought for sure it was going to suck.

 

[pfromptown]

Hmmm. I haven't seen it yet (I'm also waiting for audiences to thin out a bit, I hate going to the cinema at the best of times) but I find it hard to believe that it will be better than the two Nolan Batman films, which are, for lack of a better term "A bit more grown up". The Avengers looks like it will be breathlessly entertaining and funny but not much else, really. I do appreciate the fact that they've hired Whedon to direct it, because it tells you that they do care about the fanboy contingent of the audience (Which I do not consider myself a part of), but it really looks a movie made explicitly for them, and Joe Bloggs might miss the point of some of it. Of course, I'll have to wait until I've seen it to confirm my suspicions...

 

[mabus]

The movie had some deeper elements, about freedom.

I'm fine with darker takes on movies, and am a HUGE Nolan-Batman fan, so I aim nothing negative at him, .....but sometimes "superhero" movies
need to be FUNNNN, and bright and full of adventure, courage, bravery...

Huge example of this was Superman Returns.

They take out the color from his outfit (color will affect the mood of a movie - Sam Raimi got Spiderman right, because there was wonderful color in it.
Batman needed to be darker, which is fine...it's the DARK Knight.)

But Hollywood...being stupid, said OH, YEAH, let's do that to the other guys too!
sigh.....NO NO NO NO.

So they take Superman, give him a love triangle, make everyone depressed, have little to no humor, make everyone cynical as well, take all the color out,
have only one good action sequence..... you end up with Superman, the creepy stalker in space.

The Avengers is full of color, humor, but it's plot inclusive - it's not humor for humor's sake. This isn't fucking Jar Jar Binks running around, useless to the plot.
You can't take the humor out of the movie, because many instances are major plot points.

I liked that Captain America believed in God, and said so in a bad ass way, I liked that they kept the patriotic aspect, even though he knew the country had changed.
I liked Loki's speeches on humans not needing freedom - hell, mankind's history is centuries of oppression and rule by the powerful.
I liked the lone man standing up against him, because in history, it's usually only a few who stand up against tyranny, and they usually die or suffer greatly.

There were many scenes that carried deeper meaning than just surface level superheroics. I liked Tony Stark's engaging with Bruce Banner.

I think everyone said Hulk stole the show because in two movies (I know the Ang Lee version kind of didn't count, but anyway....) The Hulk has been the loner,
bad guy by the movie universe's outlook...and here he is being able to actually help out and be heroic. Be part of a group, and not alone. It makes you feel good.

 

[pool234]

I was pretty excited about this movie when I knew it was coming out and it definitely didn't disappoint at all. There was plenty of action, and it was coupled with a good (for Marvel) storyline and some character development as well. The actors did a great job highlighting character conflicts and personalities.

I just hope Joss does get back to remaking Firefly!