Woo, just watched the Avengers. Great action, not as funny as the first movie but still got quite a few laughs. Lesser Quicksilver is the one who dies, the movie also clearly serves as a curtain call for Barton. Wanda's powers are suitably impressive, creepier telepath and better telekinetic then any X-Men movie has come up with by far. Vision however was not quite up to all the hype. Just a heavyhitter at the end of the day. Downey and Olson had the best performanes. Ultron is a funnier villain then Loki, easy.
So the whole "Beware of Unmarked Spoilers" in the title is obviously still in reference to the first one...should it be changed?
I reckon people will be/should be spoiler tagging for AoU.
Go to sleep! Go to sleep! Go to sleep!
I somehow remember the first avengers being better, but I did like a lot about this movie. It was just missing something. 4/5 stars.
I just returned from the cinema so here are some initial thoughts.
So glad I didn't watch any trailers/spots/etc.
Loved experiencing everything for the first time not knowing what to expect.
My verdict so far: I really, really enjoyed it. Maybe even more than the first one (minus that magical feeling seeing all of the heroes together on screen for the first time, can't replicate that).
Liked all of the character interactions. Dat witty Whedon dialogue. Of course, if you're not a fan of that type of dialogue, this is is gonna annoy the shit outta you because it's all Whedon all the time.
Action was awesome.
Holy shit when the entire city started floating in the finale and stuff.
Strucker was barely in the movie eh? If I had expected him to have a big role, I might have been disappointed.
Ultron was...partly menacing, partly funny. Don't know if I wanted him to be funny, I prefer srs bizniz villains.
Although I did like his "OH FOR GOD'S SAKE" when the Hulk yanked him out of the jet.
When Fury and the goddamn Helicarrier showed up I had a stupid grin on my face. Biggest Damn Heroes moment.
And then Rhodey shows up! #WARMACHINEROX
Really didn't expect him to have more of a role besides the party at the beginning (which was hilarious) but it's cool to see him kick ass as War Machine. Yes, War Machine; not Iron Patriot.
The music was decent too. Brian Tyler and Danny Elfman tag team!
Themes weren't as overt as a John Williams score or anything, but the Iron Man 3 and Thor TDW themes as well as the Captain America cues were there in places. And of course the Avengers theme. Kinda important to a soundtrack lover as I am since a lot of the Marvel movies seem to change composers like underwear and the new ones throw out anything from the previous movies.
So the scepter was the Mind Stone after all. I was wondering why it would look like a Tesseract-ish stone in blue and everything but then it was just the outer shell for the actual stone.
I guess they didn't intend it to be an Infinity Stone in the beginning and just retconned it in a way that made sense?
What else...
Oh yeah, Widow and Hulk. Are a thing. Didn't expect it, but okay. The awkward lab geek gets the hot redhead, I can root for that.
That Avengers facility at the end! New recruits! Can't wait for Falcon to join the Avenging properly next time around. Scarlet Witch was pretty awesome too.
And Hawkeye's role was bigger this time. Whedon wanting to make up for last time? But who expected him to have an entire family?
So is he gonna pull a Brian O'Conner and retire now?
Aaaaand then the stinger:
"Fine, I'll do it myself." - Thanos
I lol'd. (I mean really, Thanos' plan so far of having other people do his shit hasn't worked out so well...)
So yeah. Good shit. I noticed the reactions for this one are a little more diverse than the overwhelming positive reaction for the first one but I enjoyed the fuck out of Age of Ultron.
Superheroes being awesome and heroic and everything.
Apart from, you know, creating Ultron who almost destroyed the world with an entire city put on rocket boosters and loads of lives were lost that were indirectly theirs or at least Stark's responsibility and then Iron Man and Hulk laid waste to a skyscraper under construction with the amount of dust kicked up possibly damaging people's lungs in the long term and did I mention the city on rocket boosters already because someoneprobablyneedstobeheldaccountableforthatandpayfordamagesatleastand -takes deep breath- Yeah.
Now that my media blackout has ended, I can finally go through this thread and see the discussions I have missed
Ghost X said:
Who was the person disrobing in the cavern pond thing.
miss the old team. Thor, Hulk, Hawkeye and Iron Man
but I really like the new additions Especially the Vision. I'm just pissed that
Ultron is forced to kick the bucket and not stick around for another fight like Loki and Thanos...I enjoyed the movie all in all but was disappointed with the loss of Ultron and the disbandment of the original 6.
--and I'm not talking about Joss Whedon's line to the audience through Quicksilver as he died. (Although I think that it was a nice way to leave Quicksilver to the X-Men, and keep Scarlet Witch for the Avengers).
What surprised me the most was the new Avengers line-up:
• Nick Fury - Black Guy
• Maria Hill - Girl
• Captain America - White Guy
• Black Widow - Girl
• War Machine - Black Guy
• Falcon - Black Guy
• Scarlet Witch - Girl
• Vision - ...British A.I.
So, aside from Captain America as the existing leader (and disregarding Vision's actor because his character isn't human) we've gone from the Avengers being a team of 5 white guys and one girl to.... the polar opposite of that.
Additionally, the Avengers HQ has moved out, and leaving the main bulk of NYC believably free to the Defenders & Spider-Man in a way that'll make a lot more sense than it would've otherwise.
So then we look at: Who's still on the way before Inhumans hits?
• Ant-Man - White Guy
• Doctor Strange - White Guy
• GotG2 - White Guy, Green Girl, Plant Being, (Not)Raccoon, Green Guy
• Spider-Man - White Guy
(Infinity)
• Black Panther - Black Guy
• Captain Marvel - Girl
(War)
Overall, it looks like Marvel's committed to maintaining strong diversity in their upcoming everything and that makes me really happy.
Hawkeye's reveal was well done, and set up for making his & Natasha's friendship a lot better. It also did well to show him as being the humanity of the team in a way that made him feel relevant and not auxiliary, and of course gives you the red herring that he's gonna get Coulson'd. (Also, his kid being named Nathaniel Pietro Barton was a nice touch that wasn't heavily focused on, just shown).
I quite liked what they did with Natasha & Banner, and it brought a lot to both of them. The parallels to what she went through and what he deals with being more similar than he wants to accept helped to give a lot of weight to her background, and make Hulk's exit feel a lot stronger than it would've without it. I think that it gave Black Widow a lot going forward as Cap's right-hand that I hope that they draw on.
I enjoyed the premonitions of Hel with Ragnarok in Thor's visions, though I think that the reflection pool was supposed to have been somewhat more developed and hooked into the Wakandans -- given the footage that we didn't see in the film.
On that note, I liked Claw's development and setup as a billionaire and missing his arm. Andy Serkis was fantastic and I look forward to seeing more of him again, since he got set up really well as a badass when confronting the Twins.
I think that everyone getting a chance to kick the shit out of Ultron was really satisfying -- even if I was extremely sad that they didn't keep flying the city up and turn it into Asteroid M. I think he was a really well done villain, and watching Thor, Iron Man, & Vision zap him down was my new favourite team-up moment (1-upping the Theta Protocol revisit of Thor's Hammer + Cap's Shield).
I just love Vision though. Oh man:
- His inception as a step down the path that already caused issues but in the right direction was interesting, and the way that he and Ultron work as foils - especially in their final confrontation. It's also interesting because he's the first non-human being that really feels vastly... beyond human - both in the way that he views humanity & Ultron, and the level of powers that he has.
- The way that he builds his costume piece by piece, taking inspiration from everyone and the fact that his phasing powers were shown, but weren't focused on heavily was really well done.
- Mjolnir.
Also, in the very end of it all -- I believed that Cap & Stark are really friends, which is what I needed to know before Civil War happened.
Oh, and the whole harassing Cap's "Watch your language" comment for the whole film was just fantastic (as was Thor Vs. Iron Man for the coolest girlfriend competition).
Lastly, I liked the "pan around everyone fighting together" moment a lot better than I did in the first film. It's definitely a different beast than the first film, and it feels like it's a step FROM a chapter into the unknown rather than INTO one that's built up. Not a criticism, but they feel different enough that I have a tough time comparing my feelings on one towards the other.
Quicksilver running past Mjölnir in slo-mo going "Oh hey" trying to grab it and being yanked away was hysterical.
I also loved Hawkeye: "The city is flying. Okay? The city is flying, we're fighting an army of robots...and I have a bow and arrow NONE of this makes sense."
Edit: Interview with Kevin Feige confirms that Time and Soul stones are unaccounted for which by extension confirms the theory that the Aether in TDW is the Reality Stone.
• "Jane is better."
• Literally all of War Machine's moments.
• If an elevator lifts the hammer, is the elevator worthy?
• Hawkeye aiming at Quicksilver/Wanda mumbling that no one would ever know.
• "Playing hide the Zucchini."
• All of the Cap's language banter.
we need to talk about that party scene at Avengers Tower because it was hilarious and it's pretty much my favorite thing about Whedon's writing: how the characters interact with each other, the banter, the jokes (Rhodey and his story, the group trying to lift the hammer etc etc). I could pretty much watch an entire thing with just that: no action, just character interaction.
That's really the best thing about all these characters coming together.
I am in desperate need of sleep, but let me just say that I enjoyed this movie very much. It felt kind of awkward in the beginning, with some awkward dialogue, but it quickly found its pace.
And, my entire theater erupted into one unanimous, "Oooooooh," with lots of cheering and laughter when
Vision first picked up Mjolnir and handed it to Thor like it was nothing.
I, however, sadly had that moment spoiled for me right before I left for the theater. I made the mistake of scrolling through Twitter, saw a post that said, "Vision is worthy."
At first I just kept scrolling and didn't think much of it, but then
Well, sort of. Certain casting news for upcoming movies are pretty much confirmation for "this one's not gonna kick the bucket".
Whedon obviously went through every clichee in the book to hint at Hawkeye kicking the bucket in this one. Except I knew Jeremy Renner's gonna be in Civil War. Then Olsen revealed she's gonna be in that one too. The core Avengers obviously still have contracts up until Infinity War. So that leaves Quicksilver as the only one unconfirmed for any future movie.
"GEE, I WONDER WHO'S MOST LIKELY GONNA DIE IN THIS ONE."
