The Avengers

I wanted to write about my reaction to The Avengers trailer about a week ago, but I had trouble because there aren't all that many interesting ways for me to say I AM EXCITE, MAY SHOULD GET HERE FASTER.  So, there you go: it's a fabulous trailer, and I have high expectations for the films.

I think it's both interesting and worth mentioning that Marvel has basically taken a backwards approach to The Avengers franchise; usually, you get the ensemble film and THEN the spin-offs.  Do to necessity, perhaps, Marvel gave us the spin-offs first, and now has the herculean task of bringing together half a dozen disparate, egotistical, arrogant and powerful characters.  Some things we should note that Marvel did particularly well in preparing for this task, which are also all reasons why The Avengers has more potential to be wonderful than to fall on its face:

- Giving the characters worth caring about their own films.  Let's be honest: Black Widow, Hawkeye, Agent Coulson and Nick Fury are pretty awesome characters, but none of them are strong enough to carry their own films.  And Marvel wisely didn't try; instead, they built them up through other, more interesting movies.  The Thor movie is sort of the exception, and I think it suffered because Thor himself isn't a very interesting character, but the argument can be made that that film was more about Loki than Thor anyway. 

- Hiring fabulous writers that (most importantly) have experience with ensemble casts.  Joss Whedon writes really good dialogue, and he has shown in multiple venues that he writes distinctive voices for multiple characters really well.  Zak Penn, the other credited script writer, worked on one of the best comic book movies of the last ten years (X2), and fabricated two sequels that, compared to their originals, were veritable works of genius (Norton's Hulk and Elektra, the latter of which I will defend until I die because I actually thought it was fun).  He also wrote X-Men: The Last Stand, and regardless of what you thought of that particular film (I liked it), the dialogue was as solid as its predecessors.  These guys know what they're doing.

- The casting is perfection.  I've already written about how impressed I am with Chris Evans' Captain America (read my review here), and at this point it pretty much goes without saying that Robert Downey Jr. = Tony Stark (similarly to how Patrick Stewart = Professor X).  Chris Hemsworth as Thor was one of the only interesting things about that movie, and Mark Ruffalo certainly can't do worse at being Bruce Banner than anyone already has.  And if I need to mention Sam Jackson's Nick Fury here, you really haven't been paying attention.

- Not introducing a new villain.  I've just convinced myself that the purpose of Thor was actually to introduce Loki, rather than Thor himself, and all of his daddy issues, which means that The Avengers won't have to dedicate valuable time to introducing a brand new villain.  What I hope this means is that we'll get to spend more time seeing how all these egos learn to play nice together, which is honestly more interesting to me than villain backstory.  Which leads me to my last point:

- We're essentially done with backstory.  All of the establishing is done.  We know everything about these people that we need to, so we can get right into the meat of the story.  It really, really bugs me when filmmakers waste time, or spin out a movie longer than it should be; hopefully, with The Avengers we'll get no wasted space.

Captain America, also I'm really sorry

Google is telling me I haven't posted sine July 19, and I'm really sorry about that (to all 12 people who read this).  The truth is that the last movie I saw in the theaters was Captain America, and it was probably the best movie I've seen this year so far, but then all the newspaper and magazine and "official" reviewers also really liked it and I didn't feel like I had anything unique to say about it.  But I realized I do, so here it it:

One of the biggest reasons this movie succeeds so profoundly is because Captain America is kind of a silly hero, especially considering the position of cynicism most people have in regards to patriotism.  But this movie is utterly unapologetic about this; it owns the Cap, in all his patriotic red-white-and-blue glory, and somehow never manages to make him feel silly or unrealistic.  It's not making fun of him, it's celebrating the ideals someone can have and the heights those ideals can aspire you to.  Literally the only reason Steve Rogers can BE the Captain is because he believes in duty, honor, and always doing what you can to do what's right.  Chris Evans shines here because he's earnest and boyishly idealistic, even after his transformation from Uncanny Valley lightweight into hulking muscle (which, despite what Ebert may think, is 100% real Evans).  I was skeptical when I first heard about the casting, but Evans really owns it.

(Side note: God bless Atwell and whoever wrote her part, because bitch is AWESOME.  She handles a gun as well as anyone, and she has a spine of steel.  She may be in a skirt the whole time, but you never forget that here is a woman who can punch you in the face just as hard as Tommy Lee Jones.  She ROCKS.)

Not to say that there aren't humor moments in the film; there totally are, and they work.  Hayley Atwell especially has marvelous comedic timing and one of the best deadpans I've seen.  She and Evans bounce off each other in a romantic but not sickening way, which brings me to the next thing I think makes this movie great.

It is a period piece set during World War II, and the filmmakers have embraced this past just the aesthetics.  The sensibilities are there, too - no one gets naked in this movie.  People have Heroic Kisses, but there's no sex, and I appreciated the stream-lined quality this gave the film; the Cap is here to do a job, y'all, and that job is SAVING YOUR ASS.  The effects are great on this score, also, as the filmmakers had a tricky job to do with the tech in the movie.  Hydra and the Red Skull are dealing with some pretty advanced stuff, but it keeps a measure of that 50's quality - yes, it's science fiction, but it doesn't look like it's from space or 2,000 years from now.  It's all Tesla coils and blue lightning (a neat callback to the future Iron Man thrusters, but that's a discussion for another day) and even the machinery works.  It's very Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, and I mean that with the most sincere flattery.

Which brings me to Hugo Weaving, who I pretty much want to play bad guys all the time.  As the Red Skull he's skulking, whiplash smart, and utterly terrifying...despite having a candy apple colored face.  The facial effects are kind of silly, and it's a testament to how well Weaving plays the articulate gentleman bad guy that he can overcome the visual and still be a chillingly sociopathic Nazi science genius.

So that's why I liked Captain America.  Well, that and all the REALLY COOL action sequences.