The Avengers
I finally made my way to the cinema to see this blockbuster which everyone seems to be raving about, perhaps I ruined it for myself before the fact, because my expectations were raised due to friends the popular sentiment of those I’d spoken to. The film was ok, the special effects were pretty good as they tend to be nowadays, but I found it a bit inconsistent, and afterwards comparing it to another recent comic book film, I felt that X-Men First Class was better. Thor and Captain America were other recent Avengers films (is there a Hawkman or Black Widow film?) that I have not seen, and at times I was wondering whether I needed to see them to make more sense of this film. I think we can all agree that Thor is somewhat of a strange superhero that makes no sense, he’s a god from another planet that is no more powerful than the Hulk (except that he can fly and draw lightning from the sky). The Black Widow and Hawkman don’t have any special powers other than being really good spies, and Hawkman can hit anything with his arrows, he just needs to shoot them and they will hit whatever he wants. Everyone loves the Hulk, there’s no doubting that as he is a fun character, Ironman is ok (I like the first Ironman better than Ironman 2). The bad guy in this film is Loki (that’s also an hostel chain in South America in case anyone was wondering), he is Thor’s adopted brother but unlike Thor has some limited powers, he is able to project an image of himself in different locations, that’s about it as far as I am aware.
The Avengers
That’s enough of the summary now back to what I liked and didn’t like from the film. As usual in these comic book films, the powers of the superheroes are quite inconsistent, Thor seems to have limitless power at times, but then at others he’s not even as strong as the Hulk, or only as strong as Ironman. Captain America has super strength, speed, athleticism (it seems), but in the grand scheme of things, he doesn’t seem to be in the same ballpark as the Hulk, Ironman, or Thor, although his shield seems to be as strong as anything that the other heroes could muster. The Black Widow obviously has no powers other than freezing the gazes of people around with her magnificent bum (pads) although a distinct lack of cleavage (being show I mean) was a disappointment. Hawkman seems to have an almost endless supply of arrows and an amazing ability to aim randomly yet still hit the target. The action sequences looked good, but they didn’t provide anything to really enjoy, Scarlett Johansson shooting her tiny little guns at the alien invaders seemed comical (appropriate I guess), as did Nick Fury firing at a hummer from a mile away with a pistol. The sequence where everyone comes together to fight the war against the invaders just seemed so bog standard that it was barely worth watching, it ended with the Independence Day style finish where the hero blasts the mother ship with a nuclear weapon destroying it and all of its soldiers (they were on remote control).
The best parts of the film involved the Hulk, the worst parts Thor, Captain America, and Hawkman, you know there will be at least one sequel but you have to wonder how many of the main characters can be involved from film to film, I guess if they pay the actors enough. After watching the film, we had a look at wikipedia for the Avengers and found two characters (original members of the Avengers) that were missing from the film, Ant Man, and the Wasp (ZOMG!), how could these two integral characters not be included in such an epic film? I mean a man that has the power to shrink himself to the size of an ant (I think the Wasp has the same power)? How that power could be omitted from a war for survival against a powerful alien foe is beyond me, just imagine the Ant Man going up against Loki, he would have driven him mad with an itch, and he would never have known what it was.
Oh, and one last thing, Stark Tower is real and it is in one of my favourite cities/places.
Picture taken from wikipedia.
