Movie Review: The Avengers

So yeah this movie was awesome. As such, short review.

Plot: Well, it goes without saying that you really should see all of the individual character movies in order to understand everything. That's Iron Man 1, Iron Man 2, The Incredible Hulk, Thor, and Captain America. Iron Man 2 and Thor are the most important of these, and Hulk is the least.
Alright,  so I don't want to really spoil the plot, but I can attest to its quality. It incorporates elements of the plot that have been scattered through the others, mainly Loki and the Cosmic Cube (referred to as the Tesserect). The plot is very comic-book in my opinion (which is uneducated, I've never really read a comic book, but I AM up on a lot of recent comic activity thanks to a friendly monthly podcast), but that's a good thing. It gets maybe a bit over the top at point (thinking specifically of the, um, I think Stark called it the Mk. 8) but I can accept that from the comic book.
It was also, much to my surprise, awesomely funny. People were openly laughing in the theater, and when Hulk finally goes nuts on Loki the crowd was actually applauding. Seriously, it's awesomely funny.
That said, the movie's plot has its flaws, though they're more flaws of wasted potential than flaws of absent necessities. It, at times, doesn't explain things really: most notably, we have no idea how Thor got to Earth without the Bifrost, other than that "the All-father did it." Otherwise, the biggest flaws just come from how BORING Hawkeye (and to an extent, Black Widow) is. Seriously, Hawkeye really had nothing special going for him.
Also wow pretty much the whole damn Marvel universe happens in New York City, doesn't it?
Gonna talk about each character for a moment:
Iron Man: Woo he's good. Robert Downey Jr. wins again. It saddens me that his alcoholic thing didn't at all come between him and the team, it's an easy one.
Captain America: Yup, he's fun too.
Thor: Excellently done, just like in his movie. Without the other characters from that movie weighing him down all the time Chris Hemsworth stays right up there with Chris Evans and Downey Jr and Jackson. But seriously, how is he here, the Bifrost is all busted!
Hulk: I was worried about Ruffalo coming in, not because I had weak faith in him but because I had strong faith in Norton. That worry was misplaced. Ruffalo is an excellent Hulk, and I can't wait to see him in his own movie. Normally I have an issue with Hulk as a character, I just usually don't like him, but I think he's competing for best character right now.
Black Widow: Her intro scene does a LOT to keep her interesting in all of the action. Unfortunately, her big plot point is her care for Hawkeye, which sucks because Hawkeye wasn't impressive.
Hawkeye: Yeah,  not impressive. He had a couple cool movies, but mostly was just a soldier. He didn't have a personality of his own really, and it dragged everyone else down.
Nick Fury: Not enough happened; also, he wasn't very impressive-looking with that pistol. It didn't make a very strong noise, he just kinda plinked away with it.

Oh and don't leave until after some of the credits.

Special Effects: Well yeah they're good. Hulk in particular looks really good, but all the Tesserect effects are very impressive too.

Music: A weak point. It's fine, but it's unnoticeable. I wish there was, like, an Avengers theme song or something going on. Hell, I wish they had just said "Avengers assemble" at some point, even if just as a joke.

So yeah, that's it.
Watch This Movie If You Like: Action movies, humor, superheroes, pretty much unless you hate Marvel with a passion you'll like this.
Don't Watch This Movie If You're Expecting: Heavy drama.
Grade: 9.5/10

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Hey, so what's going on? Only one post last week? I've been busy with homework, finals are coming soon. Kris's finals are this week though, so we should actually be able to game finally (maybe this Friday, maybe soon after that). I've been doing AotP stuff, but it's mostly just redrawing Garmuth and Hense a lot and as such isn't worth posting. I've been messing around with Micia, but haven't been happy enough with her yet to have something post-able. Been doing a lot of fun prep work for the free RPG Stars Without Number, though I'll never use any of it. Maybe I'll post some of that at some point.
So what's the schedule?
This Week: AotP: Micia probably, some Stars Without Number stuff, hopefully a Dungeon World post over the weekend, and DW 2.2 changelog annotations.
Next Week: More AotP is the only concrete thing.
Week of May 21st: Finals week, probably low content until I finish.
May 24th: D&D Next playtest goes public, I'll start writing up my annotations for that. Very exciting.
May 28th: Binding of Isaac: Wrath of the Lamb releases, and I'll spend a bunch of time playing it and then review it.

End Recording,
Ego.