I’ll make this short because I’m pretty certain everyone from professional critics on down to every Tom-Dick-and-Harry (and one Morgan) blogger has tossed up their review of the much-anticipated, much-hyped movie The Avengers at this point, and I’m not gonna break from the party line.
It was awesome.
Oh you know, THOSE guys…
From the characterization, to the dialogue, to the action, to the way nearly every character – even the non-marquee ones – got their “hero” moment, it was a nearly flawless superhero summer blockbuster. The main concern with the film was how Joss Whedon of Buffy and Firefly fame was going to take all of these people and effectively give them something to so while still making a cohesive movie. It was certainly something I was concerned about. People who have made movies on this scale without a bunch of preceding films and decades of comic book canon to worry about have certainly failed at it. But somehow, almost as amazing as the spectacle on screen, it all came together.
She’s Russian after all. Or at least she “was.”
And even more amazing, none of it felt forced. The characters acted as you’d expect them to act, and were brought together for legitimate reasons. Hawkeye – the only guy on the team without major screen time in another movie – was brought into the fold skillfully and shown to be a powerful asset. Mark Ruffalo as Bruce Banner/Hulk was tremendous, and got the biggest reactions from the crowd in a couple of moments as all hell broke loose. There were also nice geeky references (Joss even managed to throw in a very Firefly-esque line) and some geekgasm moments (Helicarrier, anyone?)
There’s a lot of other goodness to discuss in the movie, but it would be spoilerish and I don’t feel good about throwing out spoilers the day after release. But another great line was: “I don’t even know what it does.”
But yeah, a great film. If DC Comics really wants to do a Justice League movie someday, they have a tough act to follow.
Rhoades to Madness 
Nice short-and-sweet review, Alex (and thanks for the shout-out.) I agree, the lines were great in the film, and I loved the fact that even as far down as Agent Coulson, everybody got their hero scene.
And you’re absolutely right about DC having a tough act to follow if they ever do plan on getting the Justice League movie off the ground. One of the things I was thinking about as I came home from the theatre is what DC would need to do in order to pull it off.
Thanks for the Twitter shout-out, too!
DC has a nearly impossible task, really. And they have said they WANT to do a JLA movie possibly as soon as after they get Superman rebooted. But they’d also have to look for a new Batman, actually figure out how to portray Wonder Woman and introduce the Flash, then figure out the other one or two heroes besides GL.
And THEN make a movie with them all.
Tall order indeed.
Very tall. And I don’t think they can do it as soon as they get Superman rebooted. Even if they could get all the actors, the script, etc., I don’t think it would work. As much as I hate to say DC should take a page from Marvel’s book (you can just picture partisan fanboys having a field day with that), the Avengers worked largely because they introduced most of the major characters in separate movies first. Superman and Batman aren’t quite enough.
DC doing a Justice League movie that could compete with Avengers would need to be at least 4 years away. First they’ll need to redefine the Batman universe so that he can fit in with the team aspect (Nolan’s Batman, while epic and impressive, is certainly no team player), reboot Superman, get out another, better Green Lantern movie (Not that I disliked the first movie – It served as an excellent introduction to the character, but he needs development for people to really care about him) and find an actress who can be Wonder Woman (no mean feat). They could potentially use the Justice League movie as an introduction to The Flash, but even still, that is at least 4 more movies to make before they can even look at a JL flick.
Personally I think that sort of break between Avengers and JLA could be a good thing – Clearly there will be another Avengers movie, perhaps in 2014, and maybe a third after that. By waiting and letting the genre become a bit more established DC can then potentially come in over the top with something, as it were, over the top. The downside is that people may get bored with the whole idea before DC can put together a good enough movie…
SOYLENT DAVEAGE!
Welcome aboard, man!
But yeah, patience is going to be called for. And we obviously don’t know if the Superman reboot will be any good, which would certainly affect a JL flick even beyond the dozens of things that would need to click into place between now and then.
And to CO’s comment about Marvel handling films better…they absolutely have. With the exception of Nolan’s Batman, DC’s outings have been mediocre and sparse. They (Warner Bros.) have seen Marvel’s model for character and universe building and largely chosen to ignore it, so the difficulty in launching a JL movie lies squarely at their feet.
Patience indeed. What really bewilders me about WB and the DC Comics properties is how difficult it seems to be for them to get their act together in the first place. Think about how long we’ve known each other — all the way back to the CM days. WB has been tossing around the idea of a Wonder Woman movie for that long that we know of. And it’s no closer to happening today than it was then. Flash? Still in development hell. Both Superman Returns and Man of Steel spent a long time in limbo; so did Green Lantern, and it’ll likely need some retooling before the sequel comes out.
And instead of hearing about them working on other characters who really ought to be involved, they do a Catwoman movie that’s Catwoman in name only, and we hear about them ordering a script for Lobo of all things. I just don’t get it.
It’s hard to fathom. And I don’t know what treatment Whedon did for his version of Wonder Woman, but it had to be better than the aborted TV show.
Hell, since Vertigo is a DC/WB property, Constantine has a movie and Wonder Woman still doesn’t.
Wonder Woman is always going to cause headaches though. The question of who you get to play her for starters. I mean you can’t go with someone who just looks the part, because the character has so much more depth than that.
But there’s the problem with Wonder Woman – casting the character herself isn’t even the biggest issue, so much as picking the right story for her. I mean sure, they’ve got 70 odd years worth of comics to choose from, but that also means they have 70 odd years worth of character and development to choose from. And then there’s all the stuff that was perfectly acceptable when it was written, but that doesn’t translate to today’s audience and society so well.
Add to that the questions of what other characters do you include in a JLA movie and that only extends production time further. And if they are going to do it they will have to do it right, especially since Avengers was done so well. While previously some fans would have been happy with a less than fully polished movie, just for the sake of seeing their favourites on screen, since Avengers the fans wouldn’t settle for anything less now that they’ve seen how it can be done…