Universal Dork

Well folks here I am with the official scoop on The Avengers. I’m sure most have already either read how awesome this movie is or like me saw it yesterday on opening night!! Well I here by give it the Universal Dork stamped seal of approval! The Avengers delivered the goods more so than I expected. In this day and age I’m highly critical of most things Hollywood serves us up-because it’s usually a bunch of weak ass bullshit! Especially comic book movies these days, they usually kinda suck with the exception of The Dark Knight and if they don’t suck they are heavily flawed. However, put a director behind it who truly cares for the source material and you can get something incredibly mighty. This is the case with The Avengers. It could have been a complete disaster had nearly any other wack ass Hollywood hack director got their grimy little hands on it.

But alas, it was worth the wait for Joss Whedon’s vision. I really never doubted him but I was surprised when the movie exceeded my expectations. Streamlined with a simplistic story, within the first few minutes of the movie know you’re in for a treat. We’ve got a superhero sandwich here and Whedon knows how to serve it up fresh giving us quite possibly the best versions of all of these superheroes to hit the silver screen yet.

The first Iron Man movie was a heck of a good time, Norton’s Incredible Hulk proved to be a bit of a failed experiment the second time around with it’s cheap CG version of the green goliath and The Abomination, Iron Man 2 was instantly forgettable and unnecessary, Thor was passable but once again failed with bad CG, a rather stale lead and story, then finally we got Captain America which to me was the best of the bunch leading Iron Man perhaps only because of Cap’s incredibly interesting back story. The Avengers on the other hand doesn’t feel cheap or rushed. It’s exactly what you hoped it’d be and a little bit more.

We finally get us some Nick Fury in more than just thirty second cameos. Sam Jackson shines as the movie’s glue as he not only forms the team but also manages to get in on the action as well and show us why exactly he’s SHIELD’s main man. The rest of the crew were excellent as well and when they all finally appear together it feels much more special than anything marvel has ever done cinematically. It’s a riot to see them interact and argue like a bunch of unruly teenagers. The screen just doesn’t seem big enough for all of their “super” egos so when they do finally work as a team it’s well worth the trouble getting there.

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The movie never tires, it’s jammed to the brim with action, humor and some great character development. Let’s face it you gotta have some humor when listening to Thor babble or look at Steve Rogers hanging around in his red white and blue duds all day. They are quite a funny bunch of misfits actually. With that all said I think it’s time to give my two cents worth on The Hulk. I never thought I’d say it but I am kinda glad Ed Norton decided to sit this one out. Mark Ruffalo was the best on screen movie Banner yet. He brings a sort of desperation to the film and looming sense of unease as we wait nearly up to the third act before we finally get to see the green guy in action. I think this time around they almost got the Hulk perfect too. Almost. He’s easily the most realistic and convincing Hulk we’ve seen on film. He looks leaps and bounds better than the Norton version, which I recently watched again and just couldn’t get past the wretched CG green giant. This Hulk at least feels like he’s got some weight on him, rather than some flimsy “Roger Rabbit” computer generated cartoon leaping on screen with real actors. You can tell Whedon wanted to get him right this time around. I can’t say it’s my dream “movie Hulk” as you can still tell he’s a purely CG creation but a guy has got to give up at some point, as I have given up and accept that Hollywood has a formula they are sticking to special effects wise and it’s just NOT going to change. So I accept this Hulk if only because of the comparison to my last two movie representations.

Lastly I would like to point out a few things I think could have been better. Though I thought that Loki was a sufficient villain he wasn’t a very interesting one. A bit on the bland side I personally would have rather seen Baron Zemo or The Red Skull return and put together a “Masters of Evil”, just villains that are a little more captivating and frightening. Loki being a bit of an on screen bore didn’t get much help either from the Whedon created Chitauri alien race and personally I would have liked to have seen more of them in the movie as I think they could have put a little more fear into us movie goers hearts as villains. I never really believed that Loki was all that hell bent on the mission at hand. In a second installment I’d love better villains-give us Mister Hyde, Goliath, The Wrecking Crew, Titania and The Absorbing Man!

My only real big problem with the film was actually the Chitauri in the final act of the film. This falls on the fact that our heroes were doing a lot of battle with them in the city and for some reason Whedon decided to CG them entirely. They were roughly the size of an average human so why not have real actors there playing them? It at times looked a bit funny seeing these real actors battling CG aliens in hand to hand combat. I don’t want to spend anymore time on this topic, but hey Joss, just so you know nothing is better than the real thing. If you don’t have to CG it don’t do it. Remember “I am Legend” with Will Smith? Nuff said….

The Avengers regardless exceeded my expectations and put a big smile on my face. Joss Whedon did it and once again it was well worth the wait. Now it’s just a question of what’s next?!