The Avengers

Evan and I (and a lab mate of his) went to see The Avengers this week. Of course we did. We're not stupid. It's the biggest movie event ever - we had to see it. Trailers for this week included The Dictator (which I got), Frankenweenie (which we both whiffed on, but seriously, why was this in front of The Avengers?), The Dark Knight Rises (we tied), and Brave (which I got. Game, set, match). Anyway, because I think everyone should see The Avengers, I'm not going to talk about the plot at all, but here are the things that I noticed about the movie.

- If Jesus had come back last weekend, even he would have seen this movie. And probably laughed at the God joke. (“There’s only one God ma’am, and I’m pretty sure he doesn’t dress like that.”)

- Joss Whedon does Joss Whedon things. The first time we see the Black Widow, she's tied up and without shoes. Whedon usually has his women barefoot at some point, but that's not to say he's regressive. In fact, he writes some of the strongest ladies in fiction. Then he takes away their shoes.

- Speaking of women, there are 4 that I can think of. In order of screen time: The Black Widow, Nick Fury's lieutenant (Maria Hill, played by Cobie Smulders), Pepper Potts, and a small role at the end of a woman enamoured with Captain America after he saves her life. None of them talk to each other, so this movie actually fails the Bechdel test. Yikes.

- Cobie Smulders looks a lot different from How I Met Your Mother. Maybe that's what a uniform and having to put your hair up does. I don't know from personal experience (not having long hair, nor being in two major fictional universes).

- This movie is funny! Most of that is because of Tony Stark (Sherlock Holmes with an American Accent. And he switched his vice from cocaine to alcohol), but some of it comes from The Hulk. And there's one supremely awkward conversation between Captain America and his #1 fan: Agent ("Phil") Coulson. He even has a vintage set of trading cards.

- The special effects are really good. Except when they're not. There are two scenes that are obviously CGI and Green Screen Ahoy, but other than that, most of it’s awesome.

- I was a bit tentative because Evan had heard a review stating there should have been more action. I don't really know what that's about. There's a lot of action in the middle and at the end, and the beginning has little bits and pieces of it to keep us interested. Plus, the funny's spread liberally throughout, so that's cool.

- The film is about two and a half hours. You won't notice it until the movie ends and your knees are stiff from sitting too long. It really flies by.

- Speaking of flying, how do so many things defy gravity? There's a huge flying ship, but it reminded me why airplanes have wings (because the pilots need music to listen to).

- The soundtrack is passable. It seemed to be going really well during the first act, but then it kind of petered out. The credits song is by Soundgarden, but not very good at all. I've been listening to some Equilibrium that would've been much better.

- The climax to the movie is what the end of Transformers: Dark of the Moon should have been. Both of them had tons of action, but in The Avengers, it was continuous. In Dark of the Moon, it was broken up by a whole lot of sneaking around. Sure, fights abounded, but there was too much in between to make it a really good climax.

All in all, this is definitely a theatre movie. It's possibly the best movie we've seen as part of the Mindless Movie Marathon. It has tons of everything we're looking for in a mindless movie. And then some!