I had a look at the TVTropes page and it looks like there was a lot of minor characters named for obscure characters from the comics, plus some interesting stuff like props that feature art by Jack Kirby. See the section on Mythology Gags.
I don’t think I was ever a hard core fan, but I had little recognition moments. The “A” from the Avengers logo shows up late in the film, for instance. And I was fooled into thinking that SHIELD’s flagship wouldn’t have the functionality it did in the comics. Enjoyed a shout out to the Hulk’s battle cry but even the most casual fan would’ve caught that.
This is definitely a new favorite comic book movie and well worth the trip to the cinema.
Well damn, I didn’t stay to the end end because my BFF had to go to the bathroom. Since I could only take one person, I’ll stay until the end end when I go with Sweetie (he likes to see who the caterer is anyway… )
I won tickets for tonight at the car show (Acura is apparently the car of the Avengers). A little surprised at the theatre not being full, it was mostly full but definitely not packed.
Saw it yesterday (looks at clock), day before yesterday. One of the only movies that really shows them to be superheroes. I really hope the writers for the new Superman movie take notes about the final battle.
Mark Ruffalo was great as Banner. He conveys a sense of inner peace, neccessary given his condition Joss takes his usual tropes; kick-ass female/sharp dialogue/and the other one* and has the budget and cast to show them off. My favourite scene has to be the face off between Loki and the Hulk…
[spoiler]Paraphrasing:
Loki: “What do you think you are doing? You stupid Animal! I AM A GOD”
Hulk: SMASH! SMASH! SMASH! “Puny god”[/spoiler]
*Do NOT look at this spoiler if you haven’t seen the movie
Interesting - I saw it for the second time a couple of days ago and what struck me was that the anger was constantly seething under the surface, which I thought was an amazing performance.
Fantastic stuff. Beautifully paced, lots of fun. I wish I was surprised they (MAJOR SPOILER)
iced Phil, but it IS Whedon. I was a little angry about it. Create an appealing, engaging character! Impale him! Even the WAY he died. Grah. Get another idea, Joss. :mad:
Still. Loved it. Everyone got the chance to shine. You know, what I think Whedon does best isn’t necessarily his witty dialogue. I think he’s far, far better at telling a story tightly and neatly. Not witty dialogue: concise, tight dialogue. Hell of a lot harder. And while this isn’t really a spoiler, I’ll box it anyway re Cap and Tony:
I really liked the way they showed the tension between the two men. Steve sees Tony almost immediately as being a carbon copy of his father and is startled and touched when he finds out that Howard tirelessly searched for him. Tony, meanwhile, is almost reflexively resentful of the man his father idolized. We watch them come together as the rest of the Avengers do so around them.
The things that annoyed me –
Not many, really.
Cobie Smulders didn’t sell me as Maria Hill, a woman who should have at least as much gumption as Fury. She seemed present mostly for someone for Fury to exposit to.
The SHIELDie who scrambled to nuke Manhattan. Really? Not a quibble, not a qualm, not a bit of hesitation as he pushed the button? No “I am death, destroyer of egg creams”? Yes, I guess that is why they pick these guys and it was the rational if horribly chilly decision, but it did strike me as unrealistic that anyone short of a complete sociopath would be able to press that button without a shake of the finger.
Saw it at a midnight showing, liked it a lot. Not sure I would say it’s as good as the first Iron Man movie, but it’s up there. Lots of good one-liners and moments. The Hulk/Loki scene near the end was great.
Negatives? The plot is paper-thin and the villains are lackluster. Loki’s better than he was in Thor, but he’s still no Magneto. And the faceless alien mooks didn’t do much for me. (I thought they were going to be Skrulls, but apparently they’re the Ultimate Marvel universe expy of the Skrull).
I thought the plot was pretty decent. There was a fair amount of running around fighting, but then, that is what we wanted. I also thought Loki did a great job, and would put him up there with Magneto (think Magneto edges it as his motives are better). The aliens are just there as random cannon fodder, although they do allow for a nice lead in to a sequel
I watched it for a second time last night, and I think the only have one objection…
[spoiler]Captain America didn’t really seem tough enough. He is supposed to be one of the best hand to hand combatants in the world, yet when he was fighting Loki, Loki was more than holding his own.
Being an asgardian, Loki would probably be a lot sturdier than Cap, but he isn’t know as much of a hand to hand fighter. Cap should have been much faster than him, and been looking for weak points to exploit, but instead, he came across as a bit out of his depth and needed rescuing by Iron Man[/spoiler]
The Chitari essentially are Skrulls in all but name. In the Ultimates, they are described as being known by many names across the galaxy, and both Skrull and Chitari are mentioned. IIRC Marvel had sold the rights to Skrulls to Fox when they sold them the Fantastic Four, so calling them the Chitari was just a way of sidestepping this.
I loved it - I think the best bit was that it nicely resolved the issue I had from the previews, which was what the hell the obviously underpowered Widow and Hawkeye were actually going to do in the final battle - turns out having a healthy mix of mooks* and heavies gives everyone something to do.
(Any number of the details here could be misrepresented by either my lack of understanding or by my faulty memory)
In the early stages of Loki laying the groundwork for his plan, he asks Barton (still under Loki’s control) if there’s anything he needs. Barton claims he needs an eye (I am quite certain I remember correctly that Barton was the one to introduce this element- not Loki himself).
Loki then shows up at the fancy shindig in Germany, struts through the party to grab one particular guy- it seemed this guy was not chosen at random. He puts a device over the guy’s eye, the device seems to scan the eye and send a 3D copy of the eye to Barton at a remote location.
Loki then follows the crowd outside to entertain them with his Terence Stamp impression until Captain America, not getting the reference since he was on ice when that movie came out, shows up to bring Loki down.
I don’t recall the scan of the eyeball thing ever coming up again.
Also, if Loki’s victim indeed was not chosen at random who was he? I thought I saw a name tag that said “Erskine”- the same name as the scientist who made the supersoldier serum that produced Cap.
Barton had already broken into the place where the uridium was being held (needed to stabilise the tesseract). Loki’s eyeball machine transmitted the image directly to Barton’s eyeball machine, which was already plugged into the retina scanner on the safe, so it wasn’t needed again after that.
)
Joss takes his usual tropes; kick-ass female/sharp dialogue/and the other one* and has the budget and cast to show them off. My favourite scene has to be the face off between Loki and the Hulk…