Watched the
Avengers with lots of anticipation and to be honest, it disappointed. Yes the
production quality was good and it was an ambitious project that somewhat
delivered but it was a huge let down to comic book fans in several ways.
Furthermore their meaningless inclusion of certain beloved characters and
brutal treatment of the same just reflects how petty Marvel's squabbles with
Fox are. Overall, I give this show a B4 grading. *SPOILERS* below.
If you haven't
watched the show, you can stop reading here because.... *SPOILERS*
What went right:
1)
Hulkbuster
Armour Ironman vs the Hulk: Seeing Iron Man have a go against the Hulk in his
signature Hulkbuster Armour is probably the best part of the movie. I would pay
good money to watch a well produced movie that is entirely about a rich man in
a suit vs an invincible god-like monster who is also a superhero with cameos
from other superheroes. On second thoughts, I think I have just described the
plot of Batman v Superman. Dear Zack Snyder, if you are reading this, please
don't screw up.
2)
Greater
emphasis on Hawkeye and the Hulk: After the fridging of Hawkeye in the first
movie, it was a relief to see some action from him this time round and a
greater emphasis on his back story. Hawkeye having a family and kids was a
pleasant twist. Although not canon, it was believable and added to the overall
feel of the movie.
What went wrong:
1)
Ultron
tells lame jokes: Ultron, the titular villain is supposed to be an extremely
menacing, stone cold AI who is nearly invincible and in the comics, destroyed
the Avengers all on his own after acquiring the Vibranium required to build an
invincible body. Instead what we get is a psychologically tortured soul who
tells lame jokes, forgets his lines and who despite being made out of vibranium
seems to be relatively easily destroyed. In the trailers, we see Captain
America's shield ripped in half. And that had a huge psychological effect
because we knew how indestructible Vibranium is and if Ultron were built with
Vibranium, he should be even stronger. However, it turned out that the
above-mentioned scene was just a "vision" (pun unintended). In
contrast, Ultron even in his Vibranium suit was easily ripped apart by the
Vision and 2 other guys who had visions. This villain decay is reminiscent of
Shane Black's treatment of the Mandarin in Iron Man 3, who turned out to be
another phony.
2)
Quicksilver
and Scarlet Witch: The inclusion of Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch was
completely unnecessary. There are many Avengers/pseudo- Avengers who could be
included and yet they chose to use 2 characters whose rights they sort of
didn't have. The complicated legal loopholes they had to jump through to use
characters whose rights belonged to Fox resulted in them trying extremely hard
to describe the wonder twins in a way which didn't include the words mutant,
quicksilver or scarlet witch. It was almost as painful as watching the Amazing
Spiderman not say, "with great power comes great responsibility".
Finally, they killed off Quicksilver in the most ridiculous way. For a
speedster to be killed by a bullet is like letting a cheetah be killed by a
snail. It was done obviously in a way to give a huge middle finger to Fox for
not returning the rights of X-men back to Marvel.
3)
Forced
romance between the Black Widow and the Hulk: You could blame it on the lack of
screen time/back story/whatever but the on-screen romance between Black Widow
and the Hulk was extremely forced especially after seeing greater chemistry
between her and Captain America and Hawkeye. When they finally kissed, it sent
chills down my spine in a manner similar to how Christian Grey kissed Anastasia
Steele in 50 Shades of Grey, cold and senseless.
4)
The
whole thing about the Vision: This iteration of the Vision was weird, felt
weird and is weird. Vision is an extremely cool character (albeit a ripoff of
the Martian Manhunter and the Red Tornado). His character and powers are
somewhat legendary. However, instead of eliciting a "wow" reaction
from the audience, all I heard after leaving the cinema was, "who is the
weird guy with the red painted face".
Overall, it is a
decently produced blockbuster movie which is extremely ambitious. It is still a
delight to see childhood comic book heroes brought to screen however, Ultron,
the titular villain is not believable as an AI much less a villain. Finally,
the movie sacrificed viewing pleasure to spite Fox by including a beloved X-men
character, mutilating his back story on screen and finally killing him off in a
senseless way.
L.A.M.
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