Avengers 2 review
May. 24th, 2015 05:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tanithryudoFinally saw the movie today. I actually went in with...fairly low expectations, so at least I was pleasantly surprised. If you treated it as a sequel to Avengers 1 and ignored all character development in IM 3 and Cap 2, it's a decent sequel.
I would have liked to see the process of the team actually building up into the dynamics we're dropped into, but I guess team building would've required a separate plot all on its own and there was no way to squeeze it in without ruining the pace. Still, even a throwaway line about how long they've been working together as a team again would've helped the audience get a general idea of the background events since Cap 2.
Also couldn't help but feel that Joss was trying to jerk around the fandom just for the purpose of jerking around the fandom rather than for the sake of a good story. The characterization of Clint and the giving him a family I feel was also his FU to the odd masses of Clint/Coulson shippers -- not that I minded this particular development for Clint, personally, since I wasn't one of those shippers. The real litmus test will come in the following Avengers films, to see if they'll kill that family off like they did in the Ultimates for the cheap shock value.
The Nat/Bruce thing was a total waste of character development that could've been better spent elsewhere. They did such a good job staying away from making the strong female lead a romance focused role with Avengers 1, Cap 2, and the Peggy Carter series. Pity they blew it here. Also, the whole sterility = monster thing was just as horrible as everyone said it was. If that wasn't the message intended by the film, then your scriptwriters totally blew it.
What I did like...
Action scenes were pretty good. Didn't drag on for too long aside from the Hulkbuster one (that one was obviously pandering to the fanboys).
Clint and Steve's interaction with the twins were good buildup.
Steve had some really sassy lines and some really inspirational lines. As he's still my favorite, I liked. that. Also loved his scenes with Thor, the two make a really good pair on the battlefield. He also budged the hammer just a tiny bit... (my headcanon is that when the Bucky arc is finally over he might be able to lift it.)
I also actually liked it that he didn't throw a fit at Tony over the Ultron thing, that he was only a little passive aggressive about it but still trusted Tony to be on the team afterwards. Most fangirls who project too much of themselves into fics tend to forget that as far as shown onscreen, Steve is more about doing what needs to be done than indulgent in melodrama. And that he's not an actually a closeminded asshole just because they want to make Tony a woobie. /rant
Ultron and Vision weren't as bad as I feared they would turn out to be, which is good. Still a lot of hand-wavey about how it all happened but I'm going to just chalk all of it up to space magic.
Some further thoughts and concerns...
It's already somewhat evident that with the expanded cast, it's hard to squeeze in enough characterization for everyone. Even if they're permanently dropping Hulk from future Avengers movies, they are still accumulating major characters like whoa, which will make things even tougher in the next film. It's not that I want them to start axing more characters in the films until then...but I do wonder how they're going to handle it.
There's not a lot of decent post-AoU fanfics, at least on AO3, period. Usually there's a glut right after the movie comes out. Even the Steve/Tony ships aren't drawing from it. Not sure what that means in terms of the fandom reaction to the movie...
I would have liked to see the process of the team actually building up into the dynamics we're dropped into, but I guess team building would've required a separate plot all on its own and there was no way to squeeze it in without ruining the pace. Still, even a throwaway line about how long they've been working together as a team again would've helped the audience get a general idea of the background events since Cap 2.
Also couldn't help but feel that Joss was trying to jerk around the fandom just for the purpose of jerking around the fandom rather than for the sake of a good story. The characterization of Clint and the giving him a family I feel was also his FU to the odd masses of Clint/Coulson shippers -- not that I minded this particular development for Clint, personally, since I wasn't one of those shippers. The real litmus test will come in the following Avengers films, to see if they'll kill that family off like they did in the Ultimates for the cheap shock value.
The Nat/Bruce thing was a total waste of character development that could've been better spent elsewhere. They did such a good job staying away from making the strong female lead a romance focused role with Avengers 1, Cap 2, and the Peggy Carter series. Pity they blew it here. Also, the whole sterility = monster thing was just as horrible as everyone said it was. If that wasn't the message intended by the film, then your scriptwriters totally blew it.
What I did like...
Action scenes were pretty good. Didn't drag on for too long aside from the Hulkbuster one (that one was obviously pandering to the fanboys).
Clint and Steve's interaction with the twins were good buildup.
Steve had some really sassy lines and some really inspirational lines. As he's still my favorite, I liked. that. Also loved his scenes with Thor, the two make a really good pair on the battlefield. He also budged the hammer just a tiny bit... (my headcanon is that when the Bucky arc is finally over he might be able to lift it.)
I also actually liked it that he didn't throw a fit at Tony over the Ultron thing, that he was only a little passive aggressive about it but still trusted Tony to be on the team afterwards. Most fangirls who project too much of themselves into fics tend to forget that as far as shown onscreen, Steve is more about doing what needs to be done than indulgent in melodrama. And that he's not an actually a closeminded asshole just because they want to make Tony a woobie. /rant
Ultron and Vision weren't as bad as I feared they would turn out to be, which is good. Still a lot of hand-wavey about how it all happened but I'm going to just chalk all of it up to space magic.
Some further thoughts and concerns...
It's already somewhat evident that with the expanded cast, it's hard to squeeze in enough characterization for everyone. Even if they're permanently dropping Hulk from future Avengers movies, they are still accumulating major characters like whoa, which will make things even tougher in the next film. It's not that I want them to start axing more characters in the films until then...but I do wonder how they're going to handle it.
There's not a lot of decent post-AoU fanfics, at least on AO3, period. Usually there's a glut right after the movie comes out. Even the Steve/Tony ships aren't drawing from it. Not sure what that means in terms of the fandom reaction to the movie...
(no subject)
Date: 2015-05-25 04:19 pm (UTC)I actually rather liked all of Thor in AoU. It's interesting that his character is one of the few that never get completely destroyed in these crossover stories - possibly because he didn't have enough character to fuck up? Agreed that Thor and Steve were some of the best interactions. It just continues to support my Thor/Steve ship. The Chrises are just too sweet together.
I feel like Whedon might have been trying to dissuade the Clint/Natasha shippers, too. Kind of a douche move, since if he has to give Nat a romance, it made more sense to have it with Clint than anyone else. Ugh.
Well, the one thing they've got going for Avengers 3 is that it's going to be a two parter. The unfortunate problem is that they're going to have to figure out how to cram enough character development, since we're going to have a new Cap somewhere between Cap3 and Avengers3 movies. Not sure how they plan on passing off the shield here. And given how little attention Bucky has been getting, I'm seriously worried how all of this is going to pan out.
(no subject)
Date: 2015-05-25 06:18 pm (UTC)I think torpedoing the Clint/Nat ship was a side effect of torpedoing the Clint/Coulson ship and trying to setup the Bruce/Nat ship. And yeah, I agree that there were any number of guys that it would make more sense to try to pair Nat up with. I can buy a relationship with Clint, or Steve, or even a non-serious one with Sam - the latter 2 of which could then be further developed in a Cap film. There's absolutely no reason to shoehorn something in with Bruce.
Trying not to have too many expectations for the upcoming films. That way at least I get pleasantly surprised.
(no subject)
Date: 2015-05-26 12:50 pm (UTC)Nat: There's just so much suck there I can't even. Granted, I'm mildly amused that there's attention to the Clint/Coulson ship, given that interviewers mostly mention how Black Widow is shipped with both Clint and Steve. (Which then started a huge kerfluffle - google "evans renner apology" if you wanna know what it's about.)
I think my hopes were too high for AoU and ended up disappointed. Next time will lower expectations. It's just that CA:TWS was so much more than what I expected that I ended up with a skewed perception of what MCU could churn out, I guess. :p
(no subject)
Date: 2015-05-26 05:57 pm (UTC)Yeah, I saw the blowback from that interview thing on tumblr. Still think that Joss Whedon was messing just to mess with the shippers, no matter which kind.
Well, I fell asleep watching IM3 and read up on all the AoU spoilers and fan complaints before hand, which tempered my expectations.
(no subject)
Date: 2015-05-27 02:53 pm (UTC)Joss messing with shippers is kind of a thing. So much so it's even a Trope.
Well, I saw the complaints, but I guess I kept hoping the thing would be executed than it sounded. Guess that teaches me for having high expectations out of Marvel. Here we see the beginning of the decline to the MCU empire.