movie review - Avengers
the journal of Michael Werneburg
twenty-seven years and one million words
Everything about the Iron Man character in these marvel movies rubs me the wrong way. Since seeing the original Iron Man movie on a plane at some point, I've avoided these things. But The Boy wants to watch them so here I am.
In this movie New York is threatened by Loki the Norse god, who's apparently well past his Trickster years and into his Adversary phase. They're being brought together by a ridiculously-well-funded "government agency" that has things like a flying aircraft carrier and an unlimited intelligence network and every other kind of bell and whistle. Which checks out, I guess. But, the various assembled heroes don't really want to work together to save the world because reasons.
Rife with obvious hooks to future spin-offs, stuffed with glib lines, and devoid of anything like a place to invest your interest or care, it provides instead melodrama and ego. When one of the characters is killed and the boss man uses that to smarten up the heroes into fighting together, I didn't find it compelling and I don't know why the characters did. Of course, it turns out that the boss was manipulating them to get what he wanted and that put the lie to the whole thing. We the viewer are being just as manipulated.
Not recommended. I imagine I'll see several more of these.