On Sunday, Partner and I finally joined the ten trillion
people who have already seen the new “Avengers” movie. (We didn’t go
on opening weekend because 1) we don’t like being trampled, and 2) we don’t
like excited children screaming along with the movie.)
We both liked the movie a lot. Well, naturally I liked it: it contains a very large number of my imaginary
Hollywood boyfriends. We get Robert
Downey Jr. doing his wise-guy genius Tony Stark (although he lost a few
points in my book for mooning over the gooey Gwyneth Paltrow); we get the
mountainous Chris Hemsworth
as Thor, everybody’s favorite thunder god; we get Chris Evans, with his huge
shoulders and chest and arms and his hurt/childlike eyes, as Captain America;
we get the rumpled cuddly Mark Ruffalo
as Dr. Bruce Banner, who occasionally transforms into a very large green CGI
creature called the Hulk; and we get Jeremy Renner, all muscled up
and deadly-looking, as Hawkeye.
This is not to slight the rest of the cast, who are just as
good, if not quite as attractive as the above. Scarlett Johansson is the
gymastically adept Black Widow, clever and funny and just as deadly as Jeremy
Renner; Samuel L. Jackson is
the determined Nick Fury; Clark
Gregg is the shy-yet-forthright Agent Coulson, who’s been with us through
all or most of the Marvel movies which have brought us to this point; Tom Hiddleston is the
aristocratically evil Loki, Thor’s (adopted) brother and the cause of all our
sorrows; Stellan Skarsgard (whom
I loved in “Pirates of the Caribbean” and in “Mamma Mia”) is a scientist and
old pal of Thor. Stan Lee (he’s
90 years old this year!) makes his traditional cameo, of course, and what would
a Marvel movie be without that? (And even Natalie Portman, Thor’s
girlfriend in one of the previous movies, makes an appearance via photograph.)
The movie has a bouncy plot full of government agents and
alien invaders and renegade demigods. Never for a moment did I feel confused
about the plotline: even when the fighting is going faster than the eye can
follow, you can still pretty much tell what’s going on. It defies belief every
few minutes : can you really hit the ground like that and not get hurt? If a jet figher splits in half, would the
pilot really have enough time to eject? If you’re flying a huge invisible
gunboat/battlecruiser, don’t you think knocking out one of the engines would
make you crash? But none of these matter. It’s fun. Just go with it.
Much of the credit, I think, goes to Joss Whedon (of “Buffy the
Vampire Slayer” and “Firefly” and “Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog”). In this
movie, he’s created a world where impossible people live and impossible things
happen, but it all seems very calm and tranquil. Most of Manhattan gets blown
up in the movie, but – you know what? – it looks like that most days anyway,
especially after a good parade, or after they have one of those big street
fairs on the Avenue of the Americas.
(Apollonia and I were talking about the movie last week. She
wanted to see it, mostly because of Jeremy Renner, who is one of her spiritual
boyfriends too, evidently. Then she found out that Gwyneth Paltrow is in it,
and this soured her a bit. But her big question was: “How much do I need to
know before I see this one? I didn’t see ‘Thor,’ or ‘Iron Man,’ or ‘Captain
America.’ Will I be completely confused?”
(I didn’t know the answer last week, but I do now. You don’t
need to know a damned thing. This movie is self-propelled. All you need to know
is that there all of these crazy-ass superheroes, and they’re all over the
place, and they don’t get along so well, but in a pinch they do pretty well.)
I’d tell you to go see it, but judging by the box-office
receipts, you already have.
So go see it again.
I just might see it again myself.
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