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

how was Tom Hiddleston?

He was very good - he has a particularly fine scene with ScarJo and gets to lay down a few excellent bits of monologuing. Certainly up to the high standard he set in Thor.

yes this wasn't great and if i didn't know wheedon had done it i wouldn't have been able to tell by watching really, there's just so much machinery that comes w/ this that it's difficult for anything even suggesting humanity to come out, it doesn't have that looseness of the first iron man movie, though it's never as flat as um every other marvel movie. i actually really really enjoyed the final battle, genuinely giddy at points, strong ditto to 'this movie gets hulk right'. ruffalo was good, hiddleston really was good, there are several moments where the standard superhero villain performance note is to go ott and he keeps it contained, an inside joke w/ himself. the moments he does go cackling evil are played as moments of weakness. eg that awesome moment w/ the hulk. the assemble the samurai sequence was really dull esp considering this was an avengers movie and i usually enjoy any assemble the samurai sequence. also the 'whenever superheroes meet they must FIGHT' rule was observed here, w/ weak returns.

I'm waaay late to this party, and I've only just watched Iron Man & Iron Man 2. Loved the shit out of both, RDJ just superb as always but it was the first Marvel movie that I've enjoyed for a long time.

Anyway, after seeing the rather giddy teasers at the end of both movies am now definitely going to go see Avengers.

Film's making ridiculous money already by all accounts.

this was my #1 pick in this little fantasy box office draft i'm in and i'm giddy at the basically guaranteed $400 mil+

no prize for winning i'm just a competitive dork

$178.4 million in non-US markets so far: http://gawker.com/5906119/the-avengers-has-earned-1784-million-and-it-hasnt-even-opened-in-the-us-yet

When Nick Fury said "The Tesseract is where it belongs" I was sorely tempted to shout out "It belongs in a museum!" but I'm not that kinda guy and also the cinema was full of youth who probably wouldn't have got the reference.

this was hell of fun btw

booked tix for imax 3d for friday night, psyched

where is this supposed IMAX in Dublin?

it's the 'isense' 3d showing at the odeon up at point village.

Agree with the boosters - fun+++, didn't flag, real laughs, ruffalo offers fine reading of the hulk and a well-balanced ensemble. Renner/Hawkeye the only meh-ish element for me.

is this renner person, like, a famous person

oh yeah, that screen is a wee bit disappointing. The whole isense business (it's meant to be a 3D sound thing) seems like sort of a con

well i'm prepared for that, i mean it's the point tbf

just as long as you're not going out of your way

nah it suits the group, so while we're headin that way etc.

Did i miss a standalone schlubby hulk movie btw?

nah the last one was Edward Norton, who was too much of a dick to appear in this movie

ruffalo hulk was so, so great.

this was really fun, super satisfying, and i would go and see it again, but I don't feel like this review is exactly wrong: http://www.popmatters.com/pm/post/157875-whedons-avengers-reaches-apex-of-averageness-true-believers/

Our local critic, a fan, is disappointed.

Everyone talks too much. The pace lumbers. The story clunks.

from whedon? what an utter shock

You notice all the little details that should have been invisible, such as the way Hawkeye never seems to run out of arrows

um actually he does

or how sparsely populated the streets of New York City are during an attack by an intergalactic army.

they run away! there are classic shots of people in new york streets running away from intergalactic attack!

Whedon's really cornering the market on "don't get me wrong, there were tons of smart, fun, exciting moments, but..." reviews this year.

Everyone talks too much. The pace lumbers. The story clunks.

from whedon? what an utter shock

― some dude, Tuesday, May 1, 2012 9:33 AM (6 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this. whedon has lots of great ideas but he seems to have a hard time executing them effectively. i recently watched serenity and it wasn't terrible but felt like a lot of missed opportunities. i found myself enjoying the plotting but kind of re-directing the film in my head. the cheesy mise-en-scene had a lot to do with this--it looked cheaply lit and kind of underconceived. i wonder if that's just the low budget showing through (although, compare it to e.g. carpenter's assault on precinct 13 and you can see what a director can do with a few dollars and some crappy sets).

watched a boot of it yesterday cos i was stuck in the house. Enjoyed it.
Was struck with thinking that Hulk's inarticulacy in the common understanding probably had a lot to do with the actor playing him in the tv series being a deaf mute - Lou Ferigno. I know there was a point where the intelligence of Bruce Banner was present in the body of the Hulk, in the comic anyway, not sure how long that lasted.

& Captain America's wings just being drawn or whatever on the side of his mask. There have been live action things where they have been freestanding haven't there? Does seem a bit impractical.

What powers does the Black widow have? think I heard about her having similar healing properties to Wolverine/Bucky and her being young in the early Soviet Union but not sure what else. Is everything else training?

Ferrigno is mostly deaf but not mute.

was gonna say

i was checking the imdb credits a while back and ferrigno does the voice of hulk in this!

also if we're gonna get into a grey/green/red hulk conversation regarding the intelligence levels of banner/hulk we're gonna need to start talking peter david and this conversation gonna get NERDY

also holy shit at that bit of trivia

the original black widow is just a batman-type, no powers. Dunno whether they went with a Russian Super Soldier thing for her in the movie version.

sorry head still full of cold, he growls quite a bit in the tv series but I don't think he says anything coherent does he? Which isn't the same as him being a deafmute of course.
But I wonder if a more articulate actor might have made something else of the part. Method acted his way through the rage etc.

But she has that Nick Fury anti-aging serum thing, right?

xpost

you wanna hear Ferrigno talk watch Pumping Iron

King of Queens!

ok so yeah this was entertaining. plot is completely threadbare - loki steals tesseract, nick fury assembles avengers to get it back, they get it back - just enough to hang 3-4 massive action setpieces on. but the interaction between the avengers really greases the proceedings and, as pointed out above, it's a very funny movie. not in that usual "throw em some one-liner chuckles" way - the crowd at my screening was roaring with laughter + delight. absolutely recommend seeing it w/ an audience.

this thing's gonna make 900 gajillion dollars.

well, also 'loki allows himself to be captured / loki gets released'

it seems like they ought to have another one in the pipeline already

sadly, they have to do more sequels to the individual characters' movies first

the crowd at my screening was roaring with laughter + delight. absolutely recommend seeing it w/ an audience.

I wonder how much of this is just sheer delight that their childhood dreams are realized i.e. Hawkeye and Cap America interacting.

nah, it's really funny. I can't imagine most of the crowd at my screening had much familiarity with the characters beyond maybe seeing a few of the previous films

yup. my wife usually hates superhero movies but she was cracking up throughout. it's not nerd delight, it's general audience delight.

Ferrigno was also the voice of the Hulk in the Ed Norton joint.

I wonder how much of this is just sheer delight that their childhood dreams are realized i.e. Hawkeye and Cap America interacting.

It's this. It's basically a pr0n movie with all your favorite pr0n stars all getting their one-on-one scenes.

bears repeating: fanboys are the worst

going friday

It's basically a pr0n movie with all your favorite pr0n stars all getting their one-on-one scenes.

― jungleous butterflies strange birds (Eric H.), Thursday, 3 May 2012 17:25 (54 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

there are so many places that analogy breaks down

well, no. there's one.

jeremy renner looks so lame and miserable in this cast, hanging out with all the megafamous people with superpowers with his stupid little bow and arrow and mountain climbing outfit

well, no. there's one.

I know. Chris Evans' muscles aren't quite big enough. But work with it.

Th eidea of there being a second, US-only, after credits scene is baffling. I didn't stay for the first one (because the credits on this bad boy will be LotR length) but after reading what it was I wish I had.