@ Victoria and @ Morghan:

Here is the thing about Hawkeye and Black Widow: they were non-characters in the previous movies. They had no established personalities, no character traits, no back-stories, no attachments, etc. The Avengers movie was not about them – it was always intended to be a Iron Man, Captain, Thor and Hulk spectacle. These two were merely supporting characters that no one bothered to flesh out until now.

I think Whedon did a pretty good job giving them a semblance of personalities considering how little time he had to spend on them. Since these two previously existed in void, he anchors them to each other, establishing they have a history, and a professional relationship. This is not really done to establish them as a couple, but to somehow attach them to the world, and give them some degree of depth.

Similarly, he gives them a little bits of personality. In Thor Hawkeye is just another mook with a bow. He has several minutes of screen-time and we find out nothing about him. Whedon gives us characterization in the first few seconds – the way he sits in his nest, the his conversation with fury – it is all time compressed character development. You get some feel for this character right off the bat.

Same with Black Widow – Whedon sets her up as this Buffy-esque super-spy lady who uses the gender stereotypes to her standards. Most men assume that as a female she is weaker and more emotionally vulnerable, and she uses that to play them like a fiddle. She owns the Russian mob dudes in her first scene, and she even trolls the “trickster god” pretty hard. But then Whedon tears her down by throwing the Hulk at her, and shows her break down under something she can’t handle to show she is human and vulnerable after all.

I really don’t know if you could flesh out these two more, without taking the spotlight off the actual Avengers. They were pretty boring characters to begin with, and Whedon made them at least a little bit interesting.

@ vukodlak:

This is an excellent point. I think the scepter was focusing their anger and putting everyone on edge. This is very likely what caused Hulk to wig out the way he did.

I guess the key here is that Banner does not control Hulk. Hulk controls himself, but he ain’t to bright, and he does not respond well to pressure or stress. Hulk generally prefers to smash things that anger or annoy him, so with Loki running an annoyance-producing artifact in the background it is easy to see how he could blow up like he did.

@ Luke Maciak: In addition, it is hinted that Loki was somehow manipulating the whole team into petulant argument – with the scepter in the center of it. Not only does Banner grab it as he is about to lose control, but there’s a weird shot where the camera goes upside down and focuses on the scepter superimposed on squabbling heroes. I think it’s fair to assume that this contributes to to Banner’s uncontrolled transformation.

I still found Hawkeye to be little more than filler and Black Widow to be annoying eye candy. Nowhere near as useless as they were in their previous screen time, but still not a real addition to the movie.

I never liked Black Widow, and like the actress even less, but I did like Hawkeye in the books. Too bad he seemed like an afterthought, at least to me, in the movie.

I hoped for this movie to be fun, and Whedon delivered it.

Captain America/Tony Stark confrontation was just delicious to watch, and I can’t believe I’m typing this, but I really liked Hulk. Ruffalo almost stole the show. Hawkeye/Black Widow did not work for me at all though. And some plot gaps were a bit painful. BUT. Whedon does characters right, that’s his superpower, and I immensely enjoyed the movie and I’m glad it was so successful in box office.

P.S. And of course, they had to show some abracadabra in Cyrillic on billboard with the Black Widow opening scene.

Hulk/Loki scene was WOW. ‘Puny god’. Loved it.

@ astine:

The Hulk thing didn’t bother me that much. The Ed Norton movie already established that Hulk is not just a raging beast – he is sentient, and he has some low level access to Bruce Banner’s memories. For instance, he recognized Liv Tyler. He also seems to be able to to distinguish between an “innocent bystander” and “enemy” – at least to some degree.

He is just not very smart. Initially when he lost control in the Shield HQ he was scared, and was lashing out. Loud explosions, unfamiliar environment, a lot of people with guns, etc. Banner did not want to be there – he was helping shield more or less against his will, and Hulk might have picked up on that too and in his simple mind decided he was going to break out.

I don’t have a problem with him changing at will. It’s actually not that hard to work yourself up – especially in combat situation. Also, I don’t think he can change back at will – the Hulk does not have that degree of self control, so once he goes green he stays that way until the big guy runs out of steam or gets bored.

I liked the conflict between Iron Man and Captain America. They’re both *very* American, but in very different and contradictory ways.

*minor spoiler*
I didn’t quite like how the Hulk was able to transform at will at the end. After establishing how little control he had over the transformation and and during the transformation, to have him transform at will and then act rationally while transformed seemed to me to undo a lot of the previous setup.