Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Pierre vs The Avengers

Pierre VilleneuveEditor's Note: As promised, Pierre has found some time in his animation schedule to give us his thoughts on The Avengers. - Jim

Avengers Assemble! The classic Avengers rallying cry is missing from the movie. And the absence of these two words sum up what was missing for me in the Avengers movie. If it was a more classic take on the Avengers, I might be one of those who think this is the best movie ever made, but there is too much Ultimates in the Avengers movie for my taste.
That kept the fanboy in me in check and allowed me to see that movie without some rose colored lenses - although I did see it wearing some 3D lenses.

Don’t make that mistake! The 3D in that movies is pointless. Just as it was pointless in the Captain America and the Thor movies. Dark movies + 3D = NOT A GOOD IDEA!!! So do yourself a favor, don’t see that movie in 3D unless you really have too.

Is it a bad movie?? No. Absolutely not. Is it a great movie??? I don’t think so either. It is a good action flick with a pretty basic plot (villain wants to conquer the world, An unlikely group of Heroes get together to stop him) and some fun moments.

Let’s start with what I did not like:

Although the Ultimates elements did not come as a surprise. Previous films already had some Ultimates elements (Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury, Ultimate Hawkeye in Thor), so it was no surprise that this film felt more like seeing the Ultimates then the Avengers. If I was a fan of the Ultimates, I most likely would not mind it. But I am more of a classic Avengers fan. The first part of the movie feels pretty much like “The Adventure of SHIELD (guest starring the Ultimates)”.

Give me a Hawkeye wearing his trademark purple suit and some Skrulls as opposed to some Chitary, and I would have been a happy guy. That is one of the things that I love about the Avengers cartoon, although the animation is awful, Hawkeye is Hawkeye in that show.

And I did find it tedious how they had to slowly reintroduce all the characters. I thought that was the point of the previous films to introduce all the characters. But I can understand how they wanted to play it safe and introduce all the characters for those who may not have seen the previous films.

I read online how they had to cut out about 2 hours from this movie. And that does not surprise me. A lot of time I thought that the transition from one scene to the next was off somehow, . As if something was missing in between. So I can only guess that we can expect an extended version of the movie at some point.

And can someone explain to me Banner’s “secret”?? How he is always angry?? If he was always angry, wouldn’t he always be “the other guy”??
I don’t get it.

And now what did I like about that film?

The first time I saw Cap, Iron-Man and Thor together, I had goose bumps.
Loved every frame with Steve Rogers/Cap. Can’t imagine anyone else in the role now. The same with Tony Stark/Iron-Man.


Loved Loki. You could feel the venom dripping from his mouth. And when he gets people to kneel, loved it. And Thor and Bruce Banner the 3rd were pretty good too.

Other then being pretty, I did not care much about the Black Widow. Oops, this is supposed to be about the parts that I like. Sorry. ;)

The movie had some good action scenes and some fun moments with the characters. The scene when Hulk grabs Loki and goes “bang” “bang” “bang” with him was priceless.


And whenever Cap throws his shield, I really get a kick out of it. When I was playing Marvel Ultimate Alliance, I would use Cap and I loved throwing his shield around.
This movie is a must see for any Avengers/Marvel/Comic fans. And from the looks of it, Marvel will make a gazillion dollars with this movie. So it would seem that Marvel’s gamble paid off.

Now if only Warner/DC could make that darn JLA movie now. ;)

(Note: This poster comes from Daniel Morpheus. click to see full size version. )

Until next time.

Pierre

4 comments:

  1. Welcome back Pierre! Now, I won't be the only comics curmudgeon on this blog! ;)

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  2. @Pierre. Welcome back! Count me in for Hawkeye's purple suit as well as Thor's winged helmet while we're at it! Like you I'm not fond of how much of a influence Ultimates has. I agree with you about Cap in the movie, but his costume was disappointing. (again Ultimates influence). With a little care and a lot less contempt, I think Caps classic costume could be realized on screen.

    In regards to Banner's secret, I didn't like the idea of Banner having that degree of control over his transformations but I took his line to mean that he's accepted his anger (and by virtue the Hulk) as part of him. So rather then seeking to rid himself of the Hulk he is instead trying to aim "the other guy" in the right direction which to be fair, is an idea that grows naturally out of his previous movie.

    @Jim. Oh come on, like you are ever truly alone in being a comics curmudgeon with me around. :P

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  3. I pretty much agree with all of this, except that I think I liked the movie more than you. Maybe I just accepted that, given the predessesor films, this was going to be pretty Ultimatey.

    But the Banner thing bugged me too. It would have worked except that, half an hour earlier, he gets angry and loses control and tries to kill Black Widow. I couldn't reconcile that with the idea that his secret is he's always angry, but more in control.

    Still, I liked it.

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  4. @Matthew Slepin - yeah, I think I sort of had it in my head that the movie would be pretty Ultimately as you put it, so that didn't really bother me either.

    Actually, I think going into any superhero movie, you should approach the experience thinking, "this won't be exactly what I know from the comics..." and then just see what you enjoy from there.

    Going with that mode, I found the Avengers incredibly enjoyable!

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