TGW Review: The Avengers
NON-SPOILERY
You know those movies that show all of the best scenes and funniest lines in the trailer? The Avengers is nothing like that.
The Avengers is a funny, action-packed, cohesive love letter to the super hero genre. It also manages to convey a serious sense of danger and urgency, without becoming overwhelmingly dark.
The Basics
Captain America, Black Widow, Hawkeye, Iron Man, and Thor must overcome their vast differences and team up to stop Loki and his invading army from conquering the world.
With five years of teasing from Marvel Studios; a huge cast of A-list talent; a collection of characters who shouldn’t be in the same room; and a story too big to tell in a movie, the opportunities for this film to suck were numerous. Fortunately, Joss Whedon & co were up to the challenge.
The Good
Badass Moments All Around!
Every single character has many moments to shine. With a cast this big, it would be easy to push many characters into the scenery. That didn’t happen. I’m hard-pressed to pick a favorite moment because there were so many great moments.
Bringing the Funny
In typical Whedon fashion, this movie is just as humorous as it is intense. In that way it reminds me of my True Lies (one of my all-time favorite action flicks).
Fun with Clichés
One of Whedon’s talents that runs throughout everything he’s ever done is his manipulation of clichés. He is a master of taking what the viewer expects, and then suddenly turning it on its side. Where lesser writers will fallback on “classic” story elements, Whedon works like a magician and always keeps you guessing. That’s one of the things that made Cabin in the Woods (2012) so exceptional.
Nothing is Wasted & Everything is Earned
This story is tight! There’s no fat on it. Every line either establishes a character, or pushes the story forward. Even the post-credit scene is a call-back joke to an earlier line that seemed like an irrelevant throwaway line.
3D
I strongly dislike 3D, but I didn’t mind the 3D in The Avengers. For the most part it added depth like a diorama, instead of flying at the audience like a pop-up book. With the exception of one brief moment, I was cool with the 3D.
Sam Jackson
Mr. Jackson is not known for subtlety. In The Avengers his performance in remarkably understated, and I thought it was exceptional. I’m not sure who made that decision, but whomever made that call deserves a cookie. If I’m remembering correctly, his most badass moment is devoid of dialog (or pretty close to it).
Suspension of Disbelief
The best praise I can give any super hero story (comic, or movie), is that my suspension of disbelief went unbroken throughout. Will that be the case after multiple viewing? I’m not sure. But while I was watching The Avengers, I was completely invested in the story, and it never made me question the narrative.
The Not-So-Good
As much as I loved The Avengers, I do have some minor gripes.
One Big Cliché
I don’t want to give anything away, but there is one big alien movie cliché that Whedon used to wrap up the film, and I found it slightly disappointing… But I also understood why it needed to be that way. I still wish it wasn’t.
3D Serpent Thingie
There was one moment in the third act where the 3D disrupted my viewing experience. That giant metal flying serpent thingie from the trailer flies into the screen (kind of over the camera), and my eyes/ brain were not ok with that at all.
Further Exploring the Idea of Freedom
Early in the film, Loki talks a bit about humans and freedom. It’s a concept that Whedon plays with a lot. In The Avengers, he starts to dig into this idea, but never really does anything with it, other than expand on Loki’s motivation. I think it was a missed opportunity to add extra meaning to the overall story.
The Ugly
Nothing serious to report here…
I Want More!
The DVD is going to have something like 30 minutes of extra footage, and I can’t wait for it.
The Bottom-Line
If you haven’t seen it yet, just go. This is what mainstream comic heroics look like at their very best.
There are two credits scenes.
The mid-credits scene sets up the next film (if you’re interested in who that character is, click here). You have to stay to see this as it explains something that happens in the beginning of the movie.
The post-credits scene isn’t necessary to see, but it is both very funny, and delightfully Whedonesque.
Lastly, if you liked the humor and storytelling in The Avengers, you really ought to watch some of Whedon’s early work. Buffy, Angel, Firefly, Dr. Horrible & Dollhouse are exceptional shows that are smart, moving, funny, and very entertaining.
Arrested Development Returning!
Of the many cancellation atrocities committed by Fox, the termination of Arrested Development is one of the worst (next to Firefly).
After nearly six years off the air, the Bluth family is returning with new television episodes and a movie, with their very specific brand of uncomfortable humor. In doing so Arrested Development will join the ever-growing list of excellent shows that Fox prematurely cancelled, only to bring them back in some form. That list includes:
- Firefly
- Futurama
- Family Guy
“Series star Will Arnett seconded Hurwitz’s pledge on his Twitter feed, @arnettwill, while, er, standing next to co-star Jason Bateman: ‘I’m peeing with @batemanjason at the moment … and we can confirm that we are going to make new AD eps and a movie.’”
Maybe one day we will see new episodes of The Tick, Dollhouse, Human Target & Terminator the Sarah Connor Chronicles… But I’m not going to hold my breath.
At the moment, Fox isn’t confirming the resurrection of Arrested Development. If this doesn’t happen, I will be pissed.
(Source)
Ignore Stephen Baldwin, Restore Joss Whedon
This video was made in response to that ridiculous ”Restore Stephen Baldwin” video.
Dollhouse Sent to the Attic
Apparently Fox announced the cancellation of Dollhouse five days ago and I missed it.
Boobs increase readership... sometimes you've got to pander to your audience
I’m annoyed. Not because Dollhouse was canceled; I expected this.
What really bothers me is that this show never had a chance, and they kept it instead of giving Terminator The Sarah Conner Chronicles an opportunity to shine. Terminator had a devoted and growing fan-base, much like that of Firefly. Dollhouse, while it has devoted fans, they don’t have the same passion, simply because it isn’t as good as Firefly or Terminator ever were.
Making this even sadder, is the fact that Dollhouse finally started hitting its stride in the last three or four episodes; it was starting to shine. Too little too late.
Fox should have canceled Dollhouse last season and let Terminator live for a little while longer.
Dollhouse will eventually air its remaining episodes, then it will be sent to the attic.
Dollhouse Rocks the Proverbial Socks
Last week’s premier of Joss Whedon’s Dollhouse captured my interest. I enjoyed it a lot, but it didn’t blow me away like the pilot of Firefly. Episode two is a totally different story.
With the characters and premise fresh in my mind, Joss & co. just dove in headfirst. The episode started typical enough and then BAM! The most outrageous plot twist. I think I had the same facial expression that leading lady Echo (Eliza Dushku) had when the reveal came. I think I was just as shocked and confused as she was. It’s rare when I can watch a scene where I feel the same way as the character in the scene.
The rest of the episode was exceptionally thrilling and clearly planted the seeds for future plot threads and conflict.
I can’t wait to see where this is going.
I have no intentions of spoiling it if you didn’t already see it.
Check out Dollhouse on Hulu: http://www.hulu.com/search/Dollhouse?sort_by=relevance&type=episode
The first episode is on there now, I expect the second one will be up soon.
Fox Marketing Strategy – Dollhouse & Terminator the Sarah Connor Chronicles
I just got back from a night out and the first thing I did was watch my DVRed Dollhouse.
I really enjoyed it. It raised a lot of intriguing plot lines and introduced some cool character with a lot of morality problems. I know that Joss Whedon writes character driven stories, so I can’t wait to see how he creates a character driven show with so many characters who’s personalities are regularly wiped clean.
I haven’t watched Terminator yet… it’s really late and I wanted to write a post before I go to bed.
Earlier today I had a brief dialog on the comment board for Occasional Superheroine (one of my latest favorite geek blogs).
I wrote:
Now that I am thinking about it, I think Fox realizes that Joss has such a loyal fan-base that they might be able to turn these shows into successes through them alone, even on a Friday night.
They probably figure that the crazy Firefly crowd will rally around the show regardless of the night/time, and then they will stick around to watch Firefly alum Summer Glau on Terminator.
That’s the only explanation for this that makes any sense to me at all.
After seeing the way that Fox was advertising both shows together during Dollhouse using short commercials featuring Dollhouse’s Eliza Dushku & Terminator (formerly Firefly’s) Summer Glau, I am convinced that Fox is trying to squeeze a hit out of two Friday night shows by using the notoriously loyal Joss Whedon fan-base (In a future post I will write more about Joss Whedon’s fans, the Firefly revival, and the Browncoats. It is an amazing story… but I think I’ve written enough about Joss & Firefly in the past three days to last for a while.).
I couldn’t find the actual commercials, but here are the outtakes:
Personally, I still think it sucks that Fox is slotting these two shows on a Friday night, but if it keeps both on the air I will be content.
DVR rocks my socks!
Fox Gears-Up to Repeat History
Joss Whedon’t new show Dollhouse starts tonight and I really want it to live a bit longer than Firefly did.
One of the big reasons that Firefly died so quickly was mismanagement by Fox.
Joss & co. shot an exceptional two hour pilot for the show. It properly introduced viewers to the Universe, its complex character, and the main plot lines. Sadly, Fox decided not to show the pilot until the day it cancelled the show. Instead they showed other episodes. They were great, but viewers never had the chance to properly get to know the characters and were constantly confused even though they enjoyed the show.
To further add to the confusion, Fox’s pre-airing marketing blitz used key footage from the pilot. When viewers started watching the premier, it didn’t look like what they had seen in the commercials and trailers.
Dumb, right?
Well checkout this commercial for Dollhouse and Terminator the Sarah Connor Chronicles:
Seriously, WTF are they thinking?!?!
This is how I imagine the pitch for this playing-out:
“OK, so we have these two modern sci-fi epics. Let’s just ‘Charlie’s Angels‘ them up. I mean make them look really 1970′s cornball! Let’s washout the colors, set it to outdated music, misrepresent the shows, and use quaint marketing language that was abandoned two decades ago for good reason. That ought to appeal to a demographic that will be utterly uninterested in the show while simultaneously pushing away the people who will actually want to watch it!”
Please Fox! You’ve already dug the both of these shows a grave by slotting them for Friday night. Don’t slay them with stupidity.
