At the end of Captain America: First Avenger we had a teaser from The Avengers Movie releasing later this summer. I remember leaving the theater wanting to buy a custom of one of the characters but couldn’t decide which one. The Avengers Movie is the most ambitious comic movie to date. Ever since the release of Iron Man (2008) and The incredible Hulk (2008) fan boys have been anticipating the superhero team-up for years. Here’s the basic premise:
When an unexpected enemy emerges who threatens global safety and security, Nick Fury, the director of the international peacekeeping agency known as S.H.I.E.L.D., finds himself in need of a team of superheroes to pull the world back from the brink of disaster.
Now the first full-length trailer arrived a week ago and people are buzzing over the new footage. Rightly so, each of the main members of The Avengers have had their solo movies, so watching all of them on the same screen interacting with each other is pretty exciting.
I was never a big fan of The Avengers growing up, but the way Marvel Studios has set up this movie is unparalleled. I’ll sum it up in this short phrase, “I’m in.” I don’t really care that I didn’t read the comics growing up. I’m sold. The fact that any studio has this much balls to put up this much money (budget at $220M) while producing solo movies with separate origin stories for each main character shows me they’re serious about making a good movie.
This doesn’t mean I don’t have concerns about the movie. I realize that I’m only basing my concerns off of the first trailer, but it’s the only thing I have at the moment. Despite being a trailer I can still see potential problems along the way.
Concerns:
Is This Iron Man 3?
I really enjoyed the first Iron Man movie. Robert Downey, Jr.’s character Tony Stark was impressive. The journey of his transformation from a billionaire playboy to selfless superhero was compelling. Then Iron Man 2 came out and basically nullified everything good that happened in the first movie. Now I’ve seen plenty of sequels inferior to their predecessors, but it’s rare to see a sequel so awful that it torpedoed everything good about the original. That’s what Iron Man 2 did for me. It tainted the masterpiece that was Iron Man.
Seriously, how are you going to have a compelling transformation story of a narcissistic jackass turned sacrificial hero only to turn him back into an even worse narcissistic jackass in the sequel? Halfway through Iron Man 2, I thought their goal was to have us actually root against the hero. Mission accomplished.
In the Avengers trailer, Tony Starks is clearly pushing some of the other team members buttons and getting on people’s nerves. I hope this doesn’t turn into Iron Man 3. I understand you need diversity within a group in order to make them compelling. You also need that one wild card to stir the pot and make the team dynamically interesting in the way they interact with each other. Clearly, Tony Stark is that guy. But if he goes overboard and continues the narcissistic jackass rout, his character will simply be annoying instead of compelling.
Mark Ruffalo vs. Edward Norton (Hulk vs. Hulk)
The original 2008 The Incredible Hulk was a solid movie. Edward Norton as Dr. Bruce Banner was sensational. Norton is one of my favorite actors so I was excited when I heard he was cast as Banner. Then negotiations to sign on for The Avengers broke down, which resulted in Norton not resigning with the franchise. This led the studio to cast Mark Ruffalo to take Norton’s place. This is like downgrading from Dwight Howard to Andrew Bogut. Bogut is a serviceable big man but he’s not in D. Howard’s class. Ruffalo is a serviceable actor but not in Norton’s class. If you were going to pull out all the stops for a big budget movie you’ve been planning for years, wouldn’t you get the best actors possible, especially a movie heavily relying on previous origin stories as backdrop? So if Marvel is hoping that we won’t notice downgrading an A-list actor to a B-list actor they’re sorely mistaken. Whatever the issue was ($$$), Norton not returning as Dr. Banner was a big disappointment. Lets hope The Hulk spends more time as The Hulk instead of Dr. Banner.
Scarlett Johansson as Natasha Romanoff (aka The Black Widow)
After watching the trailer I asked myself, “I wonder how many times S. Johansson will use the flying head-scissors move on an opponent, end up in a couching position after finishing him off, and whipping her hair back like she’s in a Salon Selective commercial?” Because we didn’t see that at all in Iron Man 2.
I don’t want to give the impression that I’m not looking forward to the movie because I am. Here’s a list of things I’m really looking forward.
Tom Hiddleston as Loki
The Loki in the Thor movie was a spineless manipulating twit. When I heard that he’ll be the main villain in The Avengers, I thought, “How is that wimpy fool going to cause a crisis big enough to assemble The Avengers?” After some short clips from the trailer, it’s clear that Loki looks emotionally damaged, much more cynical, and extremely darker. He doesn’t look like the spineless twit in the Thor movie but someone really hell-bent on kicking some serious tail.
Speaking of Thor, there is a quick scene with Samuel L. Jackson’s character, Nick Fury, directly asking Thor, “What are you prepared to do?” No doubt this is an awkward situation for Thor with his stepbrother attempting to destroy the earth and all. I can already see T. Starks’ wisecracks about this situation, “Wait a minute! This dude is your brother?” It’ll be interesting to see how this all plays out.
Iron Man (The Suit)
I already mentioned my concerns for the character. What I’m really looking forward to is what Iron Man’s suit will be able to do this time around. In each Iron Man movie (or in this case a movie with Iron Man in it) there has to be some type of upgrade to his suit, right? Something new and cool we haven’t seen yet? The couple of flying sequences in the trailer looked great, especially for only a trailer. I’m guessing there will be an initial attack where Iron Man gets his rear end handed to him only to go back to the drawing board finding out ways to improve his suit and utilizing those improvements just in time for the final battle scene. Okay, this is fairly predictable, but still, it’s going to be good when it happens.
Tony Starks
The flip side of my concerns with T. Starks is he can pull off the wild card member well. He can give the team dynamic enough tension where the interactions between members won’t become static but more interesting while never crossing the “complete narcissistic jackass I can’t route for” line. There’s zero gray area with this character. Either the character is well written and Downey will pull off an amazing performance where the audience will be eager for Iron Man 3, or the character will pick up where he left off in Iron Man 2. Everyone will end up hating him (the other team members and the audience) because he’s the same old narcissistic jackass, and we’ll hope he ends up blowing up or dying in the final battle scene in a blaze of glory Scarface style so we don’t have to endure Iron Man 3. There’s no in between.
Jeremy Renner as Hawkeye
Jeremy Renner has become quite the big deal. In 2009 he was in The Hurt Locker (Nominated for Best Actor). In 2010 he was in The Town (Nominated for Best Supporting Actor) will co-star with Tom Cruise in Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol (and is rumored to take over the franchise) and will take over The Bourne Identity franchise in The Bourne Legacy. He’s had an amazing run and I don’t seeing it stopping with The Avengers. Renner’s character, Hawkeye, doesn’t have superpowers so he’ll rely on guile and wit (much like the comics). I’m looking forward to a plain human being kicking some super powered villains’’ butts.
If you’re wondering “How did you get all of that in one trailer?” Short answer: No NBA. What else am I going to do with my time? Here’s the trailer:
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