Home V8 Someone set us up the thread

Overall, I really enjoyed it. I think I'd give it a 9.5, and an improved Extended Cut could definitely drive it up to a 10. My main concerns were: the really awkward and horribly written relationship between Bruce and Natasha. It was a bit cringeworthy. She really wanted him, and thought it just completely ruined the character. I felt that Natasha was incredibly desperate to get Bruce to like her. Not to mention, the romance came out of nowhere. I understand she recruited him, and she has been "calming him down" but still, it felt so damn forced. Ultron was interesting, but I really would rather have had a more HAL-9000 type villain. He did seem menacing, but most of the time he'd crack a one liner or a joke after most of the evil things he said. Menacing badass cuts Claw's arm, then he frantically apologizes for it. I think Whedon messed up with Ultron, but I still enjoyed his presence and every scene he was in. He was a cool villain, but not a great Ultron. Quicksilver's death was absolutely terrible. Whedon needs to stop giving "witty" last words to his characters. Quicksilver's "Bet you didn't see that coming" is absolutely dreadful. The thing is, that little ongoing joke should have ended. So, Quickie attacks Hawkeye in the beginning of the movie. This essentially starts the "bond" that they have, which I appreciated, but then Hawkeye attacks Quickie in the tower and says, "Bet you didn't see that coming." There, the little line game is over. Quickie said it, then Hawkeye got payback. Done. To bring it back again, for his death no less, is absolutely terrible. So that's the stuff that bothered me, there may be other things that I am not thinking about right now though.

For me, the issue is what we always expected the issue to be with these movies: there are just too many characters to service for everything to feel fully formed. This is why I'm so against what DC is doing; with these movies, you've got the two jobs of A) introducing the new characters, and B) exploring how they fit into the world and interact with the other characters. In the case of the first Avengers movie, the first job had already been handled in the phase one solo films, allowing Whedon to focus entirely on the second job. Here, he had to do both of them for Quicksilver, Scarlet Witch, Vision, and Ultron, and both aspects inevitably suffered as a result. I mean, I think he did about as good a job as can be expected, given the inherent limitations. But the twins were a bit underdeveloped (which left me rather cold over Quicksilver's death). Vision was awesome, but he got so little screentime. And Ultron... I dunno, man. I just feel like the stakes didn't feel nearly as high as they should have felt. I think a part of that can be attributed to his jokey nature, but I'm reluctant to entirely blame it on that. Another big problem: it seems as though everybody had completely forgotten about the fact that Tony had nearly brought about human extinction. I mean, I'm sure they'll be dealing with that in Civil War, but the end of the film had them all happy and joking around and everything. That was problematic for me.

It kinda sounds like I hated it based on all that, but I certainly didn't. Whedon might have gotten a bit too quippy for his own good this time around, but he's pretty damn good at being quippy, so that's not the worst possible sin. There was some killer action, as was expected. The dream sequences were really intriguing, and on the whole it seemed like Whedon placed a bit more of an emphasis on deeper characterization this time around. I liked Andy Serkis as Klaue; looking forward to hopefully seeing him in Black Panther. Vision, as I said, was awesome, and the scene where he picks up Thor's hammer was just awesome. And hey, the Avengers are no longer whiter than snow! I place the movie overall firmly in the second tier category of Marvel films (first Captain America, two Thors); doesn't quite make the first tier (first Avengers, first Iron Man, second Captain America, GoTG), but above the third tier (Incredible Hulk, latter two Iron Mans).