Is it time for us nerds to start anticipating THE AVENGERS, directed by Joss Whedon?

http://i274.photobucket.com/albums/jj242/donaldparsley/ohnoes.png

^ love this guy

Stan's playing chess in the news clips near the end, claims none of it happened.

anyway this was fukkin sweeeeeeeeeeeet. funnest superhero movie ever probably, crowd was going insane. i always knew whedon had a great chance to hit a home run on this - its just sooo squarely in his wheelhouse, especially making the character stuff 'pop' in a movie this crowded. its so easy to imagine how this could've been a boring disaster, where the only thing you can appreciate is all the computing power onscreen (see: Battleship). everyone otm about hulk, ruffalo was awesome, scarjo was surprisingly awesome and Widow ended up being an interesting character

Pretty good! I was impressed that Whedon didn't suffer from the X-Men problem of too many people in tights and not enough dialogue. Every character had something to do. Whedon even had the lightness of touch to make Cap America's boringness work for him.

I could watch a whole movie of RDJ and Ruffalo bantering.

Demerits were few: the invaders from outer space were spectacularly underwhelming -- basically Return of the Jedi's imperial scouts on speeders; and the Thor-Hulk meet-cute.

I'm also confused by how powerful these Asgardians are supposed to be. If Loki's a god then how the fuck does he stay in a plexiglass cage? Unless he did it on purpose, which I suppose makes sense if he's the god of mischief or whatever.

I thought the first act had some fat that could've been trimmed, but I went along with it knowing it was setup.

traditionally the writers fudge their godliness according to the story's needs (thor goes toe-to-toe with iron man when he should be demolishing him) - but yeah loki allowed himself to be locked up in there, he could've escaped any time. I was pretty shocked at who Loki killed on the helicarrier!

Hulk sucker punch almost certainly the biggest laugh of the movie, along with Cap's punching bags.

for some reason the audience whooped at RDJ's Shakespeare in the park quip

Hulk sucker punch almost certainly the biggest laugh of the movie, along with Cap's punching bags.

My audience dug Hulk vs. Loki more than either of these.

the first Hulk punch is like an appetizer for the moment with Loki

Hulk vs. Loki got the crowd so worked up that I didnt hear what Hulk said after ("puny god" apparently)

post-credits SPOILER: there's no way THAT CHARACTER will look cool onscreen.

he's not a cool character that's for sure

yeah, he's gonna be tough to pull off for a lot of reasons. Though I thought the bit of his face we saw was cool!

hoping to fuck you guys are talking about MODOK
do not tell me yet

maybe producers can cast Tom Cruise for the teeth.

fingers crossed next movie is just extended Captain-Marvel-acid-trip/cosmic cube-sequence

or MODOC

Mobile Organism Designed Only for Killing!

so what would MODOK do, if his memory got too full?
he'd find the power source, and then he'd pick what plugs to pull

http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_kvhnfe0JXg1qziacgo1_400.jpg

http://www.blogcdn.com/www.comicsalliance.com/media/2009/06/modokexgirlfriend3.jpg

ahaha who wrote that

Elvis MODOK is the best:

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-SkgBeU7WL98/TWbn4huX5TI/AAAAAAAAAOE/eAV7gPfe_4I/s1600/MODOK02.jpg

http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2007/12/06/ghost-of-van-lente-past-supervillain-team-upmodoks-11/

is MODOK shooting hamburgers at people there

I thought the first act had some fat that could've been trimmed, but I went along with it knowing it was setup.

ha, i found myself thinking 'i bet i somehow end up watching the three hour dvd cut'

Holy shiiiiiiit, this was fun. Recommended to everyone not named Morbius.

this was a lot of fun. great lines, enjoyable action (something that's largely been missing from these Marvel films imo - they too often descend into a CGI monster slugfest), some good character stuff tucked in the corners.

AO Scott's review is basically "this is pretty okay, except for all of the superhero stuff" which I guess is fine. Longworth's review is even stranger in that her issue is that we know they're not going to die. I kind of get it, but I think she's missing the point. Also she inartfully swears a number of times in the review, and it irks me that the Village Voice's film criticism has stooped to blog-level.

This movie was the signal to me that I really need to stop going to Marvel movies. Felt pretty assembly-line to me, save for a few bits of Whedon comic punch-up.

This was awesome. The Hulk was great. ScarJo was pretty good, and Renner is just a badass. Can't wait to see him in the upcoming Bourne flick.

May see this again just for the Hulk scenes.

i can't imagine this could be any better. that's both blessing and curse. it was a good time

re: final shot setup for the sequel with surprise baddie: i want to talk about this, worth creating a spoiled thread?

I don't really see the point. It's been released pretty much everywhere now, so if you click on this thread it's a given that it's at your own peril.

I think the smartest move Marvel could make to sustain this momentum, along with the inevitable Thor 2, Cap 2, Iron Man 3, Hulk #whatever, is to have a no-effects, plot-driven, script-driven Widow/Hawkeye movie firmly in continuity. A little Nick Fury cameo, Samuel-Jackson-as-Judi-Dench, but mainly an espionage film that expands the franchise beyond costumes and superpowers. A Marvel U film that involves the two non-powered Avengers would be cool.

Yeah, I'm ready to start talking about T****s too, in this thread or another one.

And Hulk-Loki was the biggest roomwide laugh I've heard in a cinema in a couple of years.

Aside from Hulk, if audience reactions to characters' first appearances on screen are an indicator of their popularity, the audience I saw it with LOVES Thor. When he landed on top of that plane*, they went nuts.

Might see it again tonight. It's playing a local drive-in on a double feature bill with John Carter, which people here seemed to like and I didn't see.

*sorry, "Quinjet."

this was as good as it could have been imo

I don't think that's true - a few scenes were straight garbage (worst offender being the Loki/Cap scene in Germany, which felt like a Team America outtake, plus the scenes that try to make Fury "dark" or whatever) and despite the ridiculous runtime there were still major plot holes (esp. the unexplained rift btwn Act 2 Hulk and Act 3 Hulk).

Big surprise that the two characters Whedon does the best job with are the lady asskicker and the rageful nerd.

Aside from Hulk, if audience reactions to characters' first appearances on screen are an indicator of their popularity, the audience I saw it with LOVES Thor. When he landed on top of that plane*, they went nuts.

what would the audience have done if after all that thunder, ominous stormheads, and threatening music there appeared....Storm?

Was this shot in 3-D? Or retrofitted? I've noticed that the vast majority of movie reviews now ignore the 3-D entirely, so I can't tell if it's something I should avoid or not, given it's rarely done wel.

I mean, even Roger Ebert has stopped complaining about 3-D in his reviews and doesn't note it anymore. I can't tell if that means he saw it flat, saw it in 3-D and didn't mind, or saw it in 3-D, hated the 3-D, but has given up noting that the 3-D was too dark, bad, etc.

it's a conversion job. One of the better ones i think

Which means 2-D is fine, I guess.

So how many shot in 3-D films have there really been lately? The vast majority seem to be conversions.

Guess Prometheus is next big one

Amazing Spider-Man was shot in 3D. Had no idea Prometheus is 3D.

3D in avengers was exceptional imo, surprised to hear it was a conversion

I've heard it's a very good conversion, but I think the quality of any 3D varies greatly from theatre to theatre.

Why are all these films conversions? You'd think nu-3D has been around long enough that these projects would have been 3-D from the get-go. Unless conversions are significantly cheaper, in which case that makes perfect sense that they would cut corners.

Hulk Loki utterly killed our crowd, Hulk Thor got almost as big a laugh

I'm not sure. I wonder if it had to do with the tight schedule so they didn't have time to work out how to film everything on 3D cameras and it would be faster/cheaper to do it after filming.

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2012/02/the_avengers_why_i_m_boycotting_marvel_s_movie.html