No one at Marvel/Disney seem to know what to do with Black Widow. It is clear that the studio does not see her as a useful asset because she is missing from most of the Avengers merchandise. It is clear that Avenger’s stars don’t view her as an equal team member but rather as eye candy and distraction. But Joss Whedon, self proclaimed feminist, known for creating well rounded, interesting and compelling female characters on TV will surely buck the trend and do something interesting with her in Age of Ultron, right? I mean he didn’t do much with her in the first movie, but that’s understandable. This is the middle film in the trilogy: the one when you spread the wings and flesh out your characters. He will surely give her a more interesting role, won’t he?

Nope. Not even close.

Halfway through the movie Black Widow gets kidnapped by Ultron and thrown in a cage. She is a super-spy though, so she can escape, right? Wrong. She sends a message and waits to be rescued by the new boyfriend. Nothing says “full fledged member of Avengers that should get her own movie one day” like demurely waiting to be rescued by your most recent “it’s complicated” boy-crush. And yes, you read that right. The only lady on the team gets “romance” as her story arc. While other Avengers worry whether or not they are strong and heroic enough to save the world (outside enemies or from themselves), Black Widow gets to swoon and cry that she had her tubes tied when she attended The Evil Dance School and now she can’t give Bruce Banner little Hulk babies. That and sit in a cell and wait to be rescued. No I’m not kidding. That’s her entire story arc in this movie.

Age of Ultron

Let’s unpack that a bit. There is one particular exchange between Banner and Romanoff in the second act that is weird and unsettling for all kinds of reasons. The heroes just lost a big fight and they are hanging out at a safe house, trying to re-group. The two briefly discuss eloping together. Banner rejects the proposition, pointing out they have no future. He can’t be in a relationship, he can’t settle down and most of all, he can never have children. He does not elaborate why, but we know. Banner can turn into a monster at a drop of a hat, and he simply does not think he has enough self control to keep his family safe from the Hulk. He views himself as a threat to any potential life partner and children. Natasha’s response is bizarre. She confesses that she was sterilized as part of her assassin training, so she can’t have children either. The way she says it, indicates that she believes that this makes her “damaged goods”. She is trying to tell Banner that they are both broken people who can never be whole, which makes them good for each other. Except that she is not broken. Infertility does not make you less of a woman. Losing ability to give birth is a tragedy, yes, but it does not preclude one from starting a family or leading happy, fulfilling life. If Black Widow wanted to quit being an Avenger, settle down and adopt a horde of kids, she totally could. Banner does not have that option.

This is what makes this whole situation so bizarre. Out of all possible back stories and personal demons to wrestle, Marvel’s deadliest and most cunning assassin gets a broken heart and “lady problems”.

That is not to say that it is wrong for a female heroine to fall in love or to muse about motherhood and fertility. But if you only have one woman of note in your movie, don’t you think it is a bad idea to make her story arc to be solely about these things? Don’t you think that taking away her agency and making her a powerless damsel in distress in the second act is just bad writing? Don’t you think that “evil ballet school” is an incredibly awful back-story for an assassin super-spy?

Come on Joss, this is inexcusable. Between this, and the prima nocta joke… I expected better of you.

Black Widow is tired of this shit.

I really wanted to write a glowing review of the movie and tell you it is was really fun to watch, because it was. There is a lot to love about Age of Ultron. But it is really hard for me to overlook just how utterly Whedon dropped the ball not only with Black Widow but also with Scarlet Which. The later is first established as hyper-competent villain, but when the time comes for her to undergo a heel-face turn, she gets overwhelmed and needs an inspirational pep-talk from Hawkeye to transition into the role of a hero.

What’s worse, Scarlet Witch is the one hero in the entire movie that gets no funny quips of slapstick moments. Everyone else, including her brother get at least one Whedonesque smart-ass comment or at the very least a visual gag. That’s what makes this ensemble cast so engaging: we love to watch them squabble, bicker and joke together. But Scarlet Witch barely interacts with anyone. Here is a first female avenger with actual super powers, and Whedon writes her to be so dull and uninteresting I can’t even describe her personality. She literally has none. I guess she won’t get any merchendise either, because I bet most people already forgot she was ever in the movie.

I want you to go out there and be as dull and uninteresting as humanly possible.

This is especially jarring since in all other aspects the film is either great or at the very least perfectly satisfying.

Whedon’s signature funny banter is there in full force. He is a master at creating extremely funny, quotable and captivating dialog and he does not disappoint. I could watch the Avengers just hanging out and partying all day. He also has a knack for injecting the same type of humor and witty banter into action scenes. Let’s face it – watching people punch hordes of robots over and over again, can get boring after a while. Whedon however can write protracted fights that are as amusing as they are suspenseful.

The titular villain, Ultron is as funny and engaging as a mad murder-bot could possibly ever be. I expected him to be a dull, distant, detached vengeful machine god. Instead we got an angry internet nerd with superiority complex and daddy issues. I think Lindsay Ellis hit the nail on the head when she described him thus:

Ultron is basically an angry first year philosophy student posting to Reddit. Except he's a robot.

— Lindsay Ellis (@thelindsayellis) May 1, 2015

This seems especially astute observation when you realize that Ultron literally learned everything he knows from the internet. He coalesced into being at the intersection between Wikipedia, Reddit and 4chan without context or real world experience to help him navigate the murky underworld filled with philosophical manifestos written by angry thirteen year old Frank Miller fans or six hour video monologues about ethics in game journalism delivered from a bath tub. No wonder he emerged as a murderous, megalomaniac, arrogant asshole. No wonder he is fond of making overly long, self aggrandizing speeches. And to be honest, I kinda like him that way. It’s the familiar kind of evil I wish I did not know so well.

Actually, it’s about ethics…

Which does not mean he is a great villain, merely an acceptable one. Best MCU villain still belongs to Loki (eat your heart out Thanos) who is not only charismatic, but also flawed, human and relatable in all the right ways. He is powerful enough to be dangerous, but not threatening enough to warrant being destroyed. He is the kind of villain who can be thwarted, and imprisoned only the break out and wreak havoc in the next movie. But he can’t be the bad guy every time the Avengers assemble. That would get old really fast, and the Marvel universe has no shortage of interesting villains. Whedon makes a valiant attempt at humanizing the inhuman murder-robot and he does succeed at making him more entertaining he had any right to be. But Ultron is a ticking time bomb and he can’t be put in a box and saved for later. He must be utterly destroyed by the end of the movie, which makes him seem disposable. I have seen him described as “monster of the week” type threat, and I think this is somewhat accurate. He is merely a bump in the road to Infinity War, but I don’t think there is anything particularly wrong with that.

MCU is interconnected, and villains don’t exist in void. They have comparable power levels, and they must scale properly. Ultron must be mid-level, disposable threat so that Thanos can be adequately scary when he finally arrives. That’s just how these things work.

Couldn’t find appropriately sized gif, but can we all agree that this was a brilliantly shot scene?

I guess it helps when you don’t think about Age of Ultron as a middle movie in a trilogy, but as an episode in an ongoing shared universe series. Because that’s what MCU is now: a serialized story told in summer blockbuster movie installments. What is happening here is a storytelling media convergence: our TV series become more like movies (with season spanning story arcs, and no weekly resets to the status quo) and our movies become more like TV (shared universes and continuities between spin-offs, frequent cross-overs, story arcs that span many movies). It is happening now, because our media is no longer consumed in isolation. With on demand services, video streaming, online wikis and social media it is impossible to miss an episode or be confused by continuity. There is a whole cottage industry of commercial sites and fan driven communities which specialize in explaining and contextualizing everything. In fact, getting new viewers up to speed now became part of the advertising campaigns with marathons, TV specials, magazine features, interviews and promotional re-cap articles.

Age of Ultron may seem sloppier and less focused than it’s predecessor but it is also much denser with lore. The first movie had one goal: to provide an origin story for the Avengers as a super-hero team. The sequel is trying to accomplish several things while at the same time telling a self-contained and compelling story about crazy robot trying to blow up the Earth.

Let’s try to enumerate all the things that Whedon’s team managed to squeeze into the two an a half hours of screen time:

• It sets the stage up for Avengers: Infinity War (which should go without saying).

• It lays down the ground work for Black Panther by introducing the hero’s fictional homeland (Wakanda), it’s source of wealth (vibranium ore) and a potential villain (Klaw).

• Foreshadows Thor: Ragnarok via visions and prophecies that disturb the son of Odin and take him away from Earth

• Has Steve and Tony bicker and argue over tactics and their vision for the team, maneuvering them into position for the conflict that will break up the team in Captain America: Civil War

• Introduces not one, not two, not three but four new characters: Ultron, Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver and Vision. By comparison, the first Avengers film did not introduce any new characters. Everyone was either an established hero, villain, sidekick or supporting character in the MCU. Except maybe for for Hawkeye who only had a brief cameo in the original Thor.

• Attempts to flesh out Hawkeye who spent most of the first movie as a remote-controlled villain. Age of Ultron gives him family, motivation and makes him the relatable everyman to replace Agent Coulson.

• Tries to give all the Avengers some sort of story arc: Cap accepts he can never go back to his time, Hawkeye realizes he is “too old for this shit”, Thor finds questions that need be answered, Scarlet Witch gets to have a heel face turn, Banner loses faith in his ability to control the Hulk, Stark learns that its ok to fuck with infinity stones as long as you can do it right the second time around, and Black Widow gets… Well, Beauty & The Beast subplot with some Black Swan flashbacks…

• Attempts to give screen time to few supporting heroes such as The Falcon, War Machine and Nick Fury.

• Establishes The Avengers as an institution with a rotating roster by seemingly retiring some heroes (Hawkeye, Iron Man, Thor and The Hulk) and recruiting new ones (The Falcon, War Machine, Scarlet Witch and Vision).

That is a lot of stuff to fit in a single movie. The fact that Whedon can keep all these balls in the air, and only drop one or two is still very impressive. According to some of the interviews, his original cut was only a little short of four hours. A lot of stuff got cut from the theatrical release, though Whedon claims most of the lost scenes were small, and inessential character bits, and more screen time for side characters. It’s a pity because the small, inessential moments is where Whedon shines the most. One would hope that perhaps one day we might get a Lord of the Rings collectors edition, directors cut version of the film, in which Scarlet Witch is actually a funny and memorable character. I would love to see it.

Chris, dude, this wasn’t even half as funny as you are making it out to be. This should probably be a sobering reminder that the actors that portray some of your favorite heroes are most definitely not their characters. The clip above for example shows Evans and Renner sharing a definite “dudebro” moment and firmly placing their feet in their mouth. Definitely not cool.

And yes, I know it was “just a joke”. I also realize that they are not talking about Scarlet Johanson, that Black Widow is not a real person, and that a fictional character does not need her honor defended. This is not really the problem here. The problem is the culture which enabled this. Think about this: Evan and Renner were doing a promotional interview, end goal of which was to convince as many people to go and see their movie. And yet, within confines of that public appearance, during which it was their literal job to be on their best behavior, they felt comfortable making disparaging sexist jokes. Jokes that punch down at approximately half the viewing audience, and let the world know that dudes who play Captain America and Hawkeye think women who do not conform to the narrow behavioral scripts of sexual expression are “sluts” and “whores”.

It is the same culture that perpetuates the ridiculous double standards which were brilliantly highlighted in another promotional Avengers interview which took place only a day before the Evans and Renner fiasco:

It’s the same culture that facilitated Joss Whedon (a self described feminist) slipping up and inserting an off color proma nocta joke into an otherwise a fantastic scene in the upcoming movie without any push-back, or critique from the cast and crew:

You would think that at least one of the people involved in the movie would take Whedon aside and go “you know, while this is totally in character for Tony stark, do we really want to have rapey joke in our movie?”. But no one did, and for all we know this scene will be in the theatrical release. Because this is our status quo. This our normal.

I’m not trying to shit on Whedon here. In fact, I’m a big fan of his work. But he is only human, and he makes mistakes just like the rest of us. The problem is that when no one tells you about the mistakes you make, then you will keep making them. Which is why Joss, Evans and Renner all need various degrees of scolding, so that the franchise as a whole can improve. Because, god dammit, I need Captain Marvel to be good. This world deserves a female led super hero movie that is mind blowing. My niece deserves a kick-ass female super-hero role model with an actual costume and super powers, who is not anyone’s sidekick. But if we keep allowing the Marvel team to make these kind of goofs, then they are going to royally fuck it up come 2018.

It is true that Black Widow has been written as a sidekick character since she appeared in the MCU. That’s actually another valid criticism of the MCU which seems to push women into the background. It is also true that she has been portrayed as being overtly sexual. But, so what? Tony Stark has a reputation of a playboy and a ladies man an no one seems to hold it against him. In his case, it is seen either as one of his strengths, or at the very least as a lovable character quirk. I would argue that Black Window uses her sexuality in about the same way as, say, James Bond does: as a tool or a weapon. Both these characters are in approximately the same line of work, and both use their personal charm and sex-appeal to get the mission done. But only one gets shamed for it.

Perhaps, I was not paying much attention, but I don’t think I ever read her interactions with Hawkeye and Cap as overtly flirtatious. We knows that she cares for Hawkeye because they have worked in the past, and he is someone she grew to trust and rely on. In Winter Soldier she gets close to the Cap, but again, they’re not falling in love in that movie. They are learning to trust each other so that they can save the world. But shippers gonna ship, so I think the interview question was mostly precipitated by wishful thinking of the fans and the eagerness to see a love triangle emerge where one is definitely not needed at the moment.

But even if Natasha decided to flirt and/or sleep with every other member of the Avengers, would that make her less of a hero? Would it make her less of a woman? Come on guys, it’s 2015, time to let these sexist notions go.

Black Widow does not approve of your sexist bullshit.

For what it’s worth, Marvel acknowledges the interview was a disaster. Both Evans and Renner released public apologies. Evans sincerely regrets what he said, while Renner sincerely regrets some people did not get his “hilarious jokes”. So there’s that.

Daredevil Title Sequence

Firstly, thank god someone took another crack at this franchise. For a while there, I thought that Ben Affleck’s movie has tainted it beyond repair. The Netflix series is a much appreciated palette cleanser which hopefully will allow all of us to enjoy the adventures of the man without fear without cringing.

Secondly, I love that this series is part of the MCU and thus allowed to reference the events of The Avengers movies. It is a small thing, but it makes me happy when characters in a superhero story mention other costumed crime fighters. It is also worth mentioning that some of the plot threads in the series thus far might be tying into the upcoming Iron Fist also produced by Marvel/Netflix. The fact that everything in the MCU is interconnected, and only will become even more tightly intertwined in the upcoming years fills me with a nerdy glee. And of course it will be fun to watch young geeks who grew up on MCU have a complete meltdown when the Disney/Marvel decide to reboot the entire universe a decade from now. But that’s a topic for a whole other post.

I found the pacing of the series a bit odd. It works as a cohesive whole, and in retrospect I do appreciate the amount of effort put into making this into a dual origin story. We not only get to see how Matt Murdock became the Daredevil, but we also see the downfall of Wilson Fisk and his transformation into Kingpin. The fact that the series could take thirteen episodes before Murdock actually dons the iconic horned costume is probably a unique function of the Netflix production format. Netflix knows that people use their service to binge watch series, so they could hold back the costume, and the big revelations until the very end of the season.

When I was watching it, however I had my doubts. For a time I was worried that they are going to go the Arrow route and act like they are slightly ashamed of the source material. For the record, I only seen the first season of Arrow and while watching it, I was amazed how much effort the writers put into making sure that the words “green” and “arrow” would never be uttered without at least few buffer words in between. Nine episodes into the thing I was really worried that in this reality the man without fear will just be “The Man in Black Mask” whose nemesis is entrepreneur Wilson Fisk. Which, let’s face it, does not have the same ring as “Daredevil vs Kingpin”. Especially since this is MCU we are talking about: a shared universe in which costumed heroes already exist. When you’re part of MCU being afraid of colorful spandex tights seems silly.

Fortunately, my fears were unfounded and the slow ramp-up paid off in the satisfying finale. Granted, the mask might need some work… I honestly don’t know why the Marvel costume designers are still so reluctant to do faithful reproductions, and insist on sticking armor pads, belts and pouches on every outfit. I mean, Spiderman has been rocking spandex since he got his big break in the movies, and no one complains. As much as I hated the Ben Affleck movie, I think that costume was pretty OK, all things considered. But that’s just me.

The pacing issue is probably my biggest gripe with the series. I almost feel like they could have wrapped the entire arc around episode six or seven and then move onto something more interesting. But I guess they really wanted to have the status quo of the Daredevil universe established in the season finale, and so we got bunch of filler to pad out the episodes. It is the good kind of filler, mind you, full of character development and foreshadowing.

My other complaint would be that the story in general, seems a tad redundant. The city is drowning in crime, and one honest man decides save it against impossible odds. If it sounds familiar, it is probably because you have already seen it in the Dark Knight, Arrow and Gotham. Then again, this is the archetypical masked vigilante origins arc, and it does to a degree follow Frank Miller’s Man Without Fear series. There is a lot of interesting stuff in the Daredevil lore they could have tapped into, like the crazy ninja clans for example. They did touch upon some of that, and hints were dropped, but it was not necessarily a major focus of the Season. Perhaps they were afraid of diluting the main story arc with too much weird stuff at once. So I kinda understand why they chose to tell this particular story and not the other.

One thing that separates this series from all the other ones that I mentioned is the fact that when Matt Murdock takes a beating, it really does feel like he is getting hurt. The fight choreography is excellent in that it succeeds both at conveying the idea that Matt Murdock is an exceptionally skilled martial artist, but also every single fight feels like a brutal, bloody and painful slug fest. Most on-screen heroes will take a punch, or get their wind knocked out of them now and then. Matt Murdock gets bloodied and bruised every time he dons his suit. This makes what he does all the more dramatic, and his wins all the more earned. I especially enjoyed the corridor fight from one of the early episodes, which (I think) was a homage to the iconic fight scene in Old Boy.

I already mentioned that the series heavily focuses on Kingpin and Vincent D’Onofrio is doing an excellent job portraying him by threading the line between awkward and imposing. He is sufficiently different from the now iconic Michael Clarke Duncan incarnation (general consensus is that Duncan’s Kingpin was the only good thing about that film) to seem like a separate character rather than an off-brand knock-off. D’Onofrio’s kingpin actually seems more dangerous because of how unhinged and disturbed he is, compared to the calm and self-assured Duncan version. He reminds me of Penguin from Gotham in that he can be both relatable and repulsive at the same time.

Deborah Ann Woll does a commendable job in a supporting role as Karen Page, though I keep expecting her to sprout fangs at any minute. I think it will take quite a while before I stop seeing her as “Vampire Jessica”. But that’s probably because I just finished catching up on two last seasons of True Blood a few weeks ago. I had to keep reminding myself that her character can’t just rip people’s heads off at a whim. I do like that Karen is driven, has her own arc and turbulent past, instead of being stuck with a “love interest” or “plucky secretary” type role, although for a few episodes it almost seemed like they will go that way with her.

I also like Vondie Curtis-Hall as the grizzled investigative reporter. When he showed up, I thought he will end up trying to expose Daredevil and end up in a quasi antagonist role, but was pleasantly surprised that this was not the case.

That said, it is worth noting that in mere 13 episodes, the series managed to kill off a number of prominent characters. It seems to be one of those shows that is not afraid to take risks and re-shuffle the deck to keep viewers on their toes. Unfortunately it does not help that most of the actors that won’t be coming back for Seson 2 gave really strong performances thus far. Let’s hope that Daredevil did not hobble themselves by removing too many interesting allies and villains too early.

I enjoyed the series. I wouldn’t say it is the greatest thing I have ever watched, and it is not the best of what Netflix has to offer, but it is pretty damn decent and entertaining. But regardless of what any of us may think about the series, Daredevil is now officially part of the MCU and that’s undeniably a good thing. Every hero they add to the roster makes the shared universe more interesting. Once a hero is enshrined in the movie cannon, they will never really go away, even inf their solo endeavor fails completely. Even if the Netflix series is a bust (and I don’t think it will be) Marvel probably won’t write off the hero. They will re-cast him and toss him into an ensemble feature, and leave it to their top tier writers to figure out how to re-contextualize him into something more palatable. This is exactly what happened to The Hulk. His solo movie tanked, but Joss Whedon managed to figure out a way to make the fans love Bruce Banner and his mean, green alter ego all over again in Avengers. So the man without fear has now a Joss Whedon rescue clause going for him.

Are you watching the series? What do you think?

#GuardiansOfTheGalaxy is every bit as good as you expect it. The hype is true. Go watch it! #WeAreGroot

— Luke Maciak (@LukeMaciak) August 2, 2014

When I say the movie is great, I don’t actually mean it is some great cinematic accomplishment or a masterpiece of modern film. It is, at it’s core a pulp SF space opera designed to be an accessible summer blockbuster that doesn’t treat itself all that seriously. But as such, it excels. It is probably best of it’s kind. It is hands down the best non-avengers Marvel movie produced so far. I’m actually tempted to rate it above Avengers on my personal, very subjective scale because of the grand scope of the entire thing. Whedon’s movie is great, but in retrospect it seems tame and safe. It is firmly grounded, when Guardians are balls to the walls crazy. In a way this is the movie I have been waiting for my entire life: one that takes all (well, not all, but much of) the wildest aspects of the Marvel universe and just runs with them. Guardians of the Galaxy does exactly that: it delivers a fully realized pulp-SF universe, complete with larger than life villains, grand stakes and wacky locations. The best elevator pitch I could think of for this movie is Fifth Element meets Farscape as it embodies the best elements of these two disparate SF universes in terms of pacing, tone, character design & development as well as humor and team banter.

Guardians of the Galaxy movie poster

You may laugh at this comparison, but Peter Quill’s Stranger in Strange Land shtick is remarkably similar in execution to that of John Crichton minus the crippling ptsd, massive brain trauma and having your arch-enemy living inside of your head. And it’s not just the whole “aliens don’t get English idioms and pop culture references” thing. The movie uses similar techniques to build up the team and make us believe they are becoming friends, and puts similar focus on CGI characters that Farscape did on Henson’s animatronics. Rocket and Groot are not sidekicks or background decoration, but fully realized characters with their own arcs, much like Farscape’s Pilot and Rygel. If a movie makes me reminisce about my all time favorite Space Opera series, you know they are doing something right.

Guardians of the Galaxy

But, old SF series comparisons aside, the movie is… Well, just plain old fun. It is a pure joy to watch, unlike that one other movie I said I won’t review. It bucks the conventional trends and blockbuster standards: it uses a vibrant, warm color palette instead of being drab and realistic. It is exhilarating and genuinely funny instead of trying to be dark or gritty. It commits to fleshing out it’s characters giving them emotional depth, rather than painting them with broad strokes and using archetypes and stereotypes as a shorthand. Most importantly though, Guardians of the Galaxy has a fully functional movie at it’s core.

All the protagonists have their own arcs that the audiences can get invested in. They all have lost a lot, are poised to lose more, and come out better people in the end. The story the classic, 3 act heroes journey template complete with a spectacular grand finale, and a brief A New Hope style “everyone gets a medal” debriefing. It is expertly crafted with just the right amount of action beats, slow moments and comic relief to keep the momentum and engage the audience. As an action movie it is incredibly solid, and this is why it works.

The Crew of Moya Guardians of the Galaxy

Conventional Hollywood wisdom says such a movie had no right to actually become a success because we don’t make grand scale SF movies like this anymore. We used to make imaginative pictures, but modern trend is to flatten the texture of a setting, normalize the characters and simplify narratives least Joe Public gets confused. Guardians of the Galaxy is a living proof that such attitude is misguided at best. If you make a solid movie with a strong emotional core and likable characters and clear conflict then the audience won’t be lost, even if they don’t really know who the Kree are, or are aware that “The Accuser” is actually a job title while “The Destroyer” is not.

A good movie can easily establish who are good guys, who are they fighting and what is at stake regardless of how exotic the setting might be with emotional framing, visual language and well written dialog. This is actually something the director James Gunn excels at. Anyone who watched Super can attest to the fact he can effortlessly go from funny to gut-wrenching to sad in the span of five seconds without altering the tone or breaking immersion. Guardians, of course are not nearly as dark but rather consistently funny and exciting.

I absolutely love the fact they chose to create this fully realized, vast space opera universe in which the events of the movie are merely a small local conflict. I think that a lot of credit for this ought to be given to Nicole Perlman who penned most of the story. It would be very easy to up the stakes and make Ronan the Accuser be a galaxy-wide threat, but she wisely resisted that temptation. She started small: at the beginning of the movie he is a local warlord with a personal vendetta who is mainly a threat to a single planet. Granted, when he obtains the power of an infinity stone he becomes a universe-wide threat by default, but he is not actually interested in conquest or domination. Ronan wants to destroy one world as an act of vengeance, and he doesn’t have any plans beyond that. I like it, because it plays directly into the idea that Marvel universe is impossibly vast and complex, that Earth is small and insignificant, and that destruction of a single planet is actually not a huge deal in the grand scheme of things. At the same time, a planet is a home to billions of people and saving one gives the Guardians an opportunity to establish themselves as genuine heroes.

Amy Pond Nebula

Granted, the story was written this way mainly because the movie is part of Marvel’s 14 year roll-out plan. Guardians get to fight a minor, local villain because the big bad Thanos is being saved for Avengers 3. If this was a stand-alone movie not tied to a larger continuity, they would probably have been fighting the big purple bastard himself. While it would have been much more epic, I’m not entirely sure if it would have made for a better movie. Because they were starting small and local, Guardians of the Galaxy could spend time on world building. It could afford to create this deeply textured, interesting and large universe that you can get lost in. Because they have focused on something relatively small, they made the external universe look impossibly large. It makes the Earth along with the Assgardian realms look like a small, backward province. Guardians of the Galaxy is full of exotic Marvel lore fans can explore at their leisure. Some people will watch the movie and then forget about it, but others will be hitting up Marvel related wiki’s to look up people, places or arcane artifacts shown on mentioned by the characters. It is not just a fun film, but a fully functional advertisement for the Marvel universe as a setting.

Let me put it this way: you know a movie did a good job world building when you immediately start thinking which Super-Hero RPG system you could use to run a Guardians themed campaign.

It would be a mistake not to mention the cast, which is basically a dream team composed of all my favorite people. Chris Pratt is always incredibly funny on Parks and Recs but here he shows he is adeptly channeling something in between Han Solo and Farscape’s John Crichton and it works really well. Dave Bautista is phenomenal as Drax giving what could have easily been a one dimensional character a lot of personal charm and gravitas. Zoe Saldana is great as Gamora and functions as a much needed sanity anchor for the off-kilter team of outlaws. Even though she plays the straight man to her wacky crew mates more often than not she does get a good deal of funny banter in between her spectacular action scenes. Karen Gillian is almost unrecognizable as the cold, menacing, but internally conflicted Nebula, the ironically least favorite but most loyal daughter of Thanos. Seeing her in Guardians makes me wonder how awesome Amy Pond could have been if she was an RTD rather than Moffat era Dr. Who companion. Michael Rooker was basically playing space-Merle, but then again I’m pretty sure that’s what he was hired to do so I have absolutely no complaints here. Bradley Cooper’s voice work on Rocket was on point, and imbued the little guy with the largest of personalities. Finally Vin Diesel should get some sort of a fan award for being a good sport and showing up on the set only to say “I am Groot” over and over again.

The writing, direction, acting and phenomenal special effects all come together perfectly to create the best movie of the summer. If you were planning to skip this one because it seems “too much out there”, you are basically passing on the most fun and consistently entertaining film since The Avengers. Give it a chance and you will not regret it. And if you have seen it, and hated it, I don’t think we can be friends anymore.

The New Batgirl

In retrospect it is kinda sad that this design is considered progressive. That a superhero in a leather jacket without a cleavage window and boots instead of ten inch combat stilettos is newsworthy. Unfortunately, we as a society we still have a tendency to draw our comic-book women almost exclusively from male gaze perspective.

I might have mentioned this elsewhere on this blog, but I will soon to be an uncle to a little girl. I’ve been thinking a lot lately on how I could one day introduce her to the world of general geekery / nerdism, and whether or not this would even be a good thing to do. Getting men and boys to be fans of dorky stuff is easy: you just show them how cool said stuff is and they will either get it or not. There aren’t many hidden downsides and there isn’t even that much stigma associated with it anymore. These days no one will really give you much shit for enjoying video games, or being excited for the latest Avengers movie. Besides, male nerds can easily find support systems helping them deal with any possible residual stigma attached to their hobbies and obsessions in the form of message boards, comic book stores, game stores and etc.. If you’re a girl however, being a geek almost always comes with a side order of abuse. Women are typically not welcome in traditional nerd communities. Game and comic book stores are usually man-spaces protected by vigilant gate keepers that insist on all women who enter proving they are not “fake geek girls”. The most vocal members of online communities usually welcome women by saying “tits or gfo” and police their brethren who refuse to join them in the harassment by calling them “white knights”.

Granted, there are communities that are friendly and welcoming to women, and there exist safe spaces where girls can geek out together. But unfortunately these are not the norm. When you introduce women into the world of fandoms and geek hobbies this is something you have to prepare them for and warn them about. If you don’t, chances are the first time they go out there and try to interact with the community they will get burned.

So this has been something on my mind lately, and it almost seems that the universe is conspiring to provide me with resources and solutions to make this work. To wit, Sam Maggs just wrote a book titled Fangirls Guide to the Galaxy which is essentially a survival guide for young women getting into all kinds of nerdy hobbies for the first time. It was written, illustrated and published by women and for women and is full of practical advice, first-hand accounts and it should be a fantastic resource.

I started thinking about geeky heroes that young girls could identify with, especially in the realm of comic books. It struck me how even the superheros who were designed from ground up to be (at least to a degree) feminist icons, like Wonder Woman or She Hulk still prance around battlefields in bikinis, and are still expected to contort their bodies into impossible configurations to satisfy the male gaze. And then the new Batgirl with her “leather, not spandex” jacket, combat boots showed up. And she makes a terrific counter-point to the common, sexed-up-vixen costumed female hero stereotype. She is not someone’s sidekick or a background decoration, nor is she some idealized icon. She is a character with quirks, flaws and an Instagram account full of goofy selfless.

And then, Marvel went “that’s cute” and dropped the news that Thor is now a woman.

This is Thor, deal with it.

That’s the big thing that I mentioned at the beginning of the post that has eclipsed Batgirls cool new get up.

I didn’t get just one cool female superhero this week. I got two, which is absolutely fantastic. As neat as Batgirl’s new costume and attitude might be, female Thor is real big news. Thor has always been sort of archetypically masculine and never actually had a proper distaff counterpart (Thorl Girl doesn’t count, right?) which makes him a perfect choice for this sort of gender swap. It is a bold statement which has been rippling throughout the community. My Twitter feed is full of comic book nerds, many of whom no longer follow the adventures of Marvel superheroes on paper, but this past week I have seen countless excited tweets about this development. Everyone has an opinion, and folks who have not bought a comic book in decades are now ready to jump back into it, even if only temporarily to check out this new development.

This plays into another thing I’ve been pondering recently: who is Marvel’s equivalent to Wonder Woman? DC and WB went on record saying they are too chicken-shit to make a modern Wonder Woman movie (which is probably for the best, considering the quality of post-Nolan DC movieverse) so Marvel can easily beat them to the punch. But which female super-hero could carry a solo movie of her own? The closest conceptual match to Wonder Woman we probably have is She Hulk but she is nowhere near as popular as the Amazonian queen. Not only that, the Hulk doesn’t translate well to the silver screen, unless written by Joss Wheedon and allowed to beat up Loki. If I had to pick the most iconic and popular Marvel heroine that people who are not into comics heard about, I would say Storm, but Marvel does not own the movie rights to her. We do have Black Widow, but she kinda lacks in the “super” department. This might be just wishful thinking, but I can’t help but wonder if this is Marvel’s way of strategically positioning themselves in such a way, that when DC eventually does make a fumbling attempt at a solo Wonder Woman feature, they will be able to respond in kind with “Thor 4” or whatever.

Chances are that angry comic dudebros will get their way eventually, and at some point Marvel is going to return Thor to the default male version. But you know what? This will still be cannon. We will always have this run where Thor was a woman. And that’s pretty great. I might be able to give my niece a Mjolnir toy one day, and she will be able to associate it with an A list Marvel hero who is like her, and who she can easily identify with. Not a distaff counterpart, not a sidekick, not a side member of a superhero team, but a fully fledged solo protagonist of a long running series.

Also, this happened, which is equally exciting:

New Captain America

I might be reading too much into it, but there is a lot of symbolism here. Think about this: Steve Rogers has been the embodiment of the American spirit for decades now. He was our best superhero, and the only one we saw fit to wear our flag as a costume. He was also a white man with blond hair, who was a member of the greatest generation. He is now passing his shield and costume to a black member of gen x. This is the passing of the guard, from old to young, from a place of privilege to that of none. This is great.

Granted, this is not entirely unexpected. Marvel has been experimenting with diversifying their super hero roster for a number of years now. People who were blindsided and outraged by the Thor and Cap announcements this past week must have slept through the time Miles Morales became the Ultimate Spider-Man, Kamala Khan became Ms. Marvel and Carol Denvers took over the mantle of Captain Marvel. Then again, those were less prominent fringe titles, whereas Captain America and Thor are established mega-heroes with their own movie franchises. The fact they are willing to make these changes to their most precious and valuable heroes indicates that they are done “experimenting” and are now committed to creating a diverse setting that’s open and welcoming to everyone, and not just white males.

I know that comic books tend to go in these cycles of good and bad periods. I see this as one of the good ones. Marvel is doing something really cool here: it is trying to break the mold and is actively working to subvert age old tropes, and go against stereotypes. Ultimately we all win, because having more diverse hero roster will allow them to tell new and interesting stories and approach old subjects from new perspectives.

Thor: The Dark Word

The story connects back not only with the original movie but also with the events depicted in The Avengers. It is revealed that after Bifröst, the space-bridge that allows Asgardians to travel between the worlds was destroyed in the first movie, the nine realms under their protection fell into chaos. Once it was repaired, Thor and his friends had to embark on a long peace-making quest. One of his many adventures in that period was the pit-stop on Earth to pick up Loki and the Tesseract. With Loki imprisoned, and the campaign winding down, Thor is torn between his duty to take over his fathers kingdom, and his desire to go back to Earth and be with Jane Foster.

In the meantime Jane is on Earth having the worst case of the Rose Tyler abandoned companion syndrome. Apparently after hanging out with the Norse god of thunder, nothing on Earth seems worthwhile anymore. So Jane spends her time looking for strange anomalies similar to those which lead to her first meeting with Thor in a forlorn hope they can be reunited again. In the process she finds an ancient, super-dangerous artifact known as the “aether” which which infects her body slowly poisoning her. Once Thor finds out, he whisks her away to Asgard in the hope of curing her and securing the artifact. The activation of the Aether wakes up it’s creators: the Dark Elves who were slumbering somewhere in deep space. These ancient, but all but forgotten enemies of the Norse gods mount a frontal attack on Assgard in an attempt to recover the artifact.

I actually really liked the Dark Elf costume designs.

The attack is unsuccessful, but it is clear that Assgard defenses are not up to par with the Dark Elf technology. Many lives are lost in the attack, and much of the royal palace is destroyed. Thor proposes taking Jane off-world in an attempt to lure the Dark Elves into a trap, but Odin is determined to keep her in Asgard and turtle up fighting to the last man if need be. Thor is not to keen on this, and decides to make a pact with Loki to smuggle Jane out of Asgard using one of his secret passages. As you can expect, wacky hijinks ensue.

As you can probably figure out from the above synopsis, viewing of the original movie and The Avengers is more or less mandatory. But that’s a good thing. This installment of Thor doesn’t actually feel like a self contained movie, but rather as an episode in a much larger, and more complex story. And I absolutely love that. It feels right.

There is this discussion going on right now around all parts of the internet that modern TV is becoming more satisfying and interesting medium for telling complex, nuanced stories for adults than Hollywood could ever be. The self-contained format of a traditional movie is simply to time constrained to do any meaningful character or world building. TV series on the other hand are produced in 12-20 hour season installments giving writers and directors ample time for building complex plots, developing interesting characters and relationship. What Marvel is doing right now is an attempt to bring just that kind of storytelling to the big screen. The Marvel Cinematic Universe films are evolving towards having a TV-series like complexity, while also being produced on multi-million dollar Hollywood blockbuster budgets.

While Thor: The Dark World is not anywhere close as awesome as The Avengers is a huge improvement over the original. Thor is still the larger-than-life hero, but now more nuanced because of his conflicting desires, and his fractured relationship with his brother. Loki comes back in style reminding everyone why he is the god of mischief, stacking misdirection, subterfuge and being all round magnificent bastard. Heimdal is even more of a badass, and you get to see exactly why Odin made him the sole guardian of the gate to Asgard.

The movie is just plain old fun. The absolute wackiness of space gods dog-fighting Dark Elves in laser powered paddle-boats is played absolutely straight without a shade of irony. The Marvel space-fantasy setting with it’s space-magic, space-elves and eldritch, space-entities older than the universe itself is embraced completely and without hesitation. The end result is an entertaining, well made spectacle with feels very right, and very Marvel. While it may seem little bit rushed at times, it definitely pumps you up for the next big crossover.

That’s not the only reason why Iron Man was a tough gig though. It also had a difficult task of reconciling the Iron Man continuity with the events that happened during the Avengers. Whedon didn’t really need to worry as much about reconciling all the plot threads from all the different movies because he was building something new and something bold and he could just pluck the heroes from their element and put them on a flying aircraft carrier. However, Iron Man 3 returns Tony Stark to his own established setting, with a cast of established characters (Pepper Pots, Happy Hogan, Col. Rhodes, etc..). It needs to tie the old with the new somehow, and this is especially difficult in terms of Iron Man mythos.

Iron Man 3

Thor is an alien space-god who fights frost giants and sorcerers with Clarktech magic so it is easy to hand-wave anything on his continuity. Captain is a displaced fish out of water character so anything that happens to him is essentially a blank slate – you can go anywhere with this hero right now and no one will probably make fuss about it. But Iron Man had two movies to establish his own setting. There is a thematic continuity and certain kind of feel to the Iron Man movies and you sort of must at least try to maintain that in order to make a successful sequel because that’s what people want to see. The problem is that in the last two movies Tony Stark fought relatively low powered (at least compared to Loki) rivals in power armors, and magic alien space gods were not even on his map. Going back to that place would be counter-productive.

I must say that Drew Pierce and Shane Black did an admirable job tying the two continuities into one by addressing the dissonance between them directly. Instead of ignoring the world changing events that happened in New York, they become a central point of Tony Stark’s character arc (yes, Tony has an arc in this film – this is new and definitely a welcome addition to the Iron Man franchise). After fighting alongside gods and monsters, the hero feels somewhat inadequate. Thor, Cap and Hulk all have super powers and can fight alien space monster with their bare hands if need be. Iron Man on the other hand is powerless without his armor, and Stark is all too keenly aware of that. Events of Avengers have shook him to the core, and he is still suffering night terrors and panic attacks triggered by memories of the giant wormhole in the sky. As if to compensate, he fills his house with ever more powerful variants of his armor and finding new ways to get the armor deployed and combat ready as fast as possible. Of course it is all for nothing, and he is soon stripped from his high-tech weapons and forced to overcome his insecurities fighting super-powered villains with nothing but the power of his intellect.

This is a solid character arc, and a solid foundation for a plot: something the previous two Iron Man movies didn’t really have. The second installment especially was rather aimless, directionless mess and the third movie is definitely an improvement over that.

A lot of people seem to be upset about the Mandarin bit, but lets face it: was anyone really expecting him to show up looking like Lo Pan from Big Trouble in Little China in this day and age? As much as comic book readers might be fond of the character, the truth is that the original character concept was somewhat racist. The updated movie version (a middle-eastern terrorist with oriental flair trappings) seems not only much more timely but also quite subversive. When Ben Kingsley showed up on the screen I couldn’t believe how calculated his character design was: this Mandarin was the sum of all post 9/11 fears made flesh. Part Bin-Laden, part Kim Jung Il, part super-villain mastermind he was the picture-perfect boogeyman that proponents of the war on terror have nightmares about.

Speaking of Mandarin, let’s talk about the big twist. If you haven’t seen the movie and don’t want to get spoiled I suggest you skip over the stuff in the gray box below.

The acting was pretty decent in this one: Kingsley was great, Downey was doing his thing as he always does, Gweneth Paltrow actually got to punch things… Though only after prolonged session of damsel in distress bondage. The kid was quite terrible, as all children in movies are but at least he was able to set up one of the funniest Downey lines in the movie.

Guy Pierce however was kinda annoying. I can’t really put my finger on it, but something about his performance bothered me. I didn’t necessarily hate him – when an actor can actually make you hate his villain then he is actually doing his job well (see Jack Gleeson, aka Joffrey Lanister – the most hated kid in America and Westeros right now). Pierce’s character just felt a bit boring. Granted it might just be that he was completely eclipsed and overshadowed by Kingsley and Downey in terms of the on-screen presence.

All in all, I think the movie was pretty solid. It might be one of the best installments in the Iron Man franchise so far – or at the very least, better than the second movie. It had a good character arc, some fun plot twists and pretty decent dialogue. Granted, it was not without flaws (movie children usually ruin shit pretty fiercely) and plot holes… For example: can someone explain to me why didn’t Tony open up his indestructible bunker that contained an army of remote operated Iron Man suits earlier? Like right away after crashing in the snow? Or when he got his suit powered up again? Because I can’t fucking figure it out.

When Joss Whedon was announced as the mastermind behind this project, many people wondered if he can handle something of this magnitude. Can a guy mostly known for creating beloved, but unfortunately short lived TV shows carry the biggest and most important summer blockbuster in recent years? The answer is yes. Weedon was the best choice. The only choice. Having watched the movie, I do not think anyone else could have directed this film. Not only because he understands the genre – because he really does. When I was watching Avengers, I felt as if Whedon took that itemized list I made in 2007 and nailed every single point on it. Hell, he did things I did not even think about back then. He clearly studied all the Marvel movie ventures to this date, and drew conclusions from their mistakes, electing not to repeat any of them. But that’s not the only reason why he was the best person to make this film.

Unlike most screen writers and directors that work on summer-time popcorn flicks, Joss understands characters. Avengers had to be about characters – the heroes had to have chemistry and work well together for this entire venture to work. You can’t just say they are a team – the audience has to see them become a team, and believe it. This is something Whedon does very well – all his creations to date had really great ensemble casts of characters, and most of them were telling character driven stories.

Most of the movies that led up to the Avengers were plot driven. Thor, Captain America and Hulk were all concerned with telling compelling stories. The heroes were there, mostly just tagging along for a ride – tugged along here or there as the plot demanded. Iron Man movies were a notable exception, mostly because they were Robert Downey Junior driven productions – half improvised, half adlibbed mess that was carried by the undeniable charm and personality of the leading man. The Avengers movie was different. Joss Whedon did not start with a plot – he started with characters.

The Avengers

All the members of the team are introduced, fleshed out, given motivation and the plot is more or less the function of the sum of their goals, motivations and personal agendas which collide and intersect with each other. Even though this is a movie about super-hero team-up, for most of the movie there is no team – just bunch of guys with bigger-than-life egos bickering about nonsense. But when they finally work out their differences and start working together, it does not feel forced or rushed.

Whedon understands the source material, and he seems to have a great feel for what the characters should be, and how they fit into the story. He carefully cherry picked what worked from each characters respective movie and dropped what did not. For example, Iron Man and Captain America are mostly intact – their characterization is consistent with what we had seen before. Thor and Hulk however have been revamped.

The former is no longer the brash, foolish, naive spoiled brat – he is more mature, wiser and more balanced and more responsible as you would expect from a god of thunder. This is a very welcome change – the child-like, infantile Thor was rather annoying, albeit necessary to tell the morality tale / coming of age story of his own movie. Now he is sent back to Earth as an adult, and a powerful agent and ambassador of his people. He is still proud and short tempered but no longer a fish out of water. Whedon gives him a new niche, as he chose to have the time-displaced Steve Rogers to play the “stranger in strange land” fiddle this time around.

Going into Avengers I was really expecting to see Thor and Tony Stark get in a pissing match, because the movie seemed to be only big enough for one dude with grossly overblown ego. But such a petty squabble turns out the be beneath Whedon’s much improved Thor. Instead Stark’s rampant individualism and egoism crashes with Steve Roger’s patriotic ideals and military discipline – a much more interesting conflict to watch.

The Hulk was rebuilt from ground up – it had to be, since Ed Norton did not come back to reprise his role as Bruce Banner. This actually turns out the be a good thing, as Mark Ruffalo’s interpretation is much more interesting. His Banner is much geekier and much more nuanced character. Norton’s character had a deer-in-headlights quality to him – he mostly reacted to plot cues, and came off a bit whiny. Ruffalo’s character is sharper and more confident. He is passive aggressive, manipulative, resentful – a polar opposite of Tony Stark, but at the same time his intellectual equal. What I liked the most about this character is that Ruffalo is able to play a laid back, goofy Banner while at the same time giving him this quiet undercurrent of soft boiling rage. He is a man balancing on the knife edge and fighting real hard to maintain his mellow demeanor against all odds.

When he turns into Hulk, he becomes an unstoppable force of nature. The big green guy has starred in several movies and TV shows up until now, but Whedon is the first director who has absolutely nailed the essence of this beast. The way he moves, the effortless way in which he smashes and dominates even the strongest opponents – this is the Hulk we have been waiting to see for years.

The difference between Joss Whedon and other directors who handled Marvel Properties is that he can take such non-characters as Scarlett Johanson’s Black Widow, and Jeremy Renner’s Hawkeye and turn them into fully fleshed out members of the team. Despite considerable amount of screen time in Iron Man 2, Johanson’s character was nothing more than eye candy. Whedon needs exactly 5 minutes to establish and build her up as a devious, manipulating super-spy with strong work ethic and personal goals and motivations. Her subplot non-pairing with fellow agent hawk-eye is refreshing, but at the same time very Whedonesque – they owe each other their lives, and they obviously have some history and some pent-up sexual tension but they do not immediately fall into each others arms, but instead opt for professional camaraderie.

Finally, Whedon has a knack for writing and directing villains that are goofy and bad-ass at the same time. Loki was a complete wuss, and a push-over on Thor. I just did not believe he could make a compelling villain in Avengers, but Joss pulled it off. He builds upon his characterization from the previous movie, but not without giving him a moment to shine. When Loki first appears, he instantly wipes out an entire room full of armed Shield agents without breaking a sweat, just to establish him as a credible threat. Next we see him take few pages from the Joker’s notebook, establishing himself as a complete and utter bastard who likes to play mind games with his victims. By the time the heroes get to fight him, the audiences already managed to forget how much of a pussy he was in Thor.

Whedon did an absolutely amazing job on this movie, and his cast delivered great performances each. Does this mean Avengers is a perfect movie? No, it’s not. At the end of the day, it is a silly summer popcorn flick. It is not high brow entertainment, but it is damn entertaining. In my honest opinion this is the best installment in the entire series. Better than The Incredible Hulk, better than Thor, better than Captain America and better than both Iron Man movies. This is how summer blockbusters ought to be done.

The Incredible Hulk was pretty awful, but let’s face it – no one remembers it anymore. Most people usually forget about the green monster when listing movie Avengers. In fact, I doubt most movie goers even remember Robert Downey Jr.’s post credits cameo. So Hulk might as well have never existed. No one will base their decision to see The Avengers based on it’s failure. Is probably a good thing since Ed Norton is no longer attached to the franchise.

Thor was a rather infantile and clearly targeted at the youngsters, and it that aspect it was rather successful so it will probably put asses in the seats for Avengers premiere.

Iron Man was the opposite. It was aimed at the more adult crowd with a more nuanced, morally ambiguous protagonist. Robert Downey Jr’s weapon’s grade charisma will draw crowds despite the relative lack of plot or tension on both of his movies.

Captain America is the final statement – it is the movie that crosses all the t’s and dots all the i’s. It is the studios big play for the middle ground – people who were neither impressed with Downey Jr’s calculated snark, nor attracted to Chris Hemsworth’s bare chest or his Assgardian man-child antics. I was really concerned that the studios would focus group this production into oblivion. The predictable move would have been to make Captain America a safe, bland, boring and soulless action film targeted at the lowest common denominator.

Fortunately, this did not happen. They took some risks, and it paid off. Captain America is much better than The Incredible Hulk and Thor put together. It is about on par with Iron Man movies, if not better – but for very different reasons.

The Movie Poster

Let me get the complaints out of the way first. It seems that the common thread running throughout all the Avenger precursor movies is that they can’t seem to be able to write themselves a good third act. Just like both Iron Man movies and the Hulk, Captain America has a tension-free, weak third act. It’s flashy, it’s effective and it’s fun, but there is never anything at stake. There is a big final fight scene between Chris Evans’ Captain and Hugo Weaving’s Red Skull but compared to the rest of the film it is snooze worthy. You know the man wearing red white and blue is going to win, not because he is the good guy, not because he is coming back in the next movie but because the very first scene gives it away. The film starts with a group of researchers discovering Captains shield in a World War II plane that fell into the arctic ocean and froze. Where does the climax take place? In a plane flying over the arctic ocean. As soon as Chris Evans gets on that plane you know exactly how this movie will wrap up. The rest is just filler. There is absolutely nothing at stake when the protagonist and antagonist meet for the last time. Red Skull is not really “arching” (to use Venture Bros nomenclature) the hero. He is doing his own thing and the wonder-boy from the US is merely a nuisance to him. Similarly, Steve Rogers has no personal vendetta against the antagonist. Yes, he has personal reasons to fight Hydra and defeat it’s leader but he has no specific beef with Red Skull, making their final fight rather impersonal “strictly in the line of duty” affair.

In the end it is a landslide win for the Captain who doesn’t even get hurt in any significant way. To make matters worse the plane carrying scary weapons of mass destruction is thousands of miles away from its intended targets when the two throw down, so there isn’t any tension from that angle either. I found myself wishing for their brawl to end quicker so that I could see the the post-credits teaser trailer.

The entire third act seems rushed. Its as if Joe Johnston spent most of his allotted time developing the characters and getting the audience invested in them only to realize he completely forgot to shoot the big finale at the 11th hour. Three quarters into the movie we are treated to an action montage depicting Cap doing all kinds of heroic things over an indeterminate period of time, followed by a mad scramble to get all the dangling plot points resolved, and get the hero in place to be transported into the twenty first century. It very much reminded me of what happened at the end of X-Men: First Class. There is definite point abut three quarters into the movie where the director just went “holly shit, I still have have Magnetto and Mystique do the big heel face turn, have to turn Beast blue, cripple Xavier and also have a climax… Fuck it, we’ll do it live!”.

It’s pretty much the same here. Johnston takes most of the movie to establish how Steve Rogers became Captain America and leaves about a one sixth of the time to:

1. show Captain America actually doing all the heroic things from the golden age comics
2. have him experience loss and have a crisis to give him more depth
3. wrap up the love story subplot (or at least give it some closure)
4. have the big climax and Captain vs Red skull face off
5. freeze the protagonist and transport him to the present times

The third act is a clusterfuck. And it does not help that the villain is terribly one-dimensional. I love Hugo Weaving, but Red Skull is just a dull character. Very one-note, evil for the sake of evil, megalomaniac. He is a functional villain – it gives the heroes someone to chase and beat up but, but ultimately you don’t really care for him and his defeat is meaningless.

Of course, every single other Avenger movie also suffered from weak villains and poorly executed third act so this is sort of par for the course. So far only Loki have had a compelling, if a bit silly character arc and I guess it is fitting that he will be returning in the Avengers. Every other antagonist was basically just a forgettable one-note bad guy du jour.

Captain America is flawed, yes, but it actually has a lot good things going for it. For one, Johnston absolutely nailed the characterization of the protagonist. He took a lot of time and effort to really flesh him out, and show the audience what makes him tick. He did not half-ass it, he did not skip over into the action sequences. He detailed the painstaking process of transforming the skinny pushover into a true American hero.

Captain America title is a bit of a patriotic symbol. He is different than most other spandex wearing heroes in that his costume represents something much bigger than himself. You can’t just take some random guy, put him in stars and stripes and call him Captain America. It just wouldn’t work. That title has to be earned, and that’s exactly what you see in the first two acts. It is basically Steve Rogers slowly gaining the respect of his peers, the admiration of American people and organically growing into his role as a patriotic icon. Personally, I don’t think it could have been done any better than this.

Johnston made the absolutely right choices when portraying Rogers – there is no irony in his portrayal, no satire and no political commentary. He resisted the urge to make the protagonist have a specific political agenda. Rogers does not lean either left or right, he is a true patriot. He truly believes in the core values we all share, and does not concern himself with the petty stuff that divides us. He is a genuinely a good person – absolutely selfless, brave, determined, diligent, competent but not necessarily naive (unless you count his relative lack of experience in wooing the opposite sex). He is exactly the sort of person you would want wearing the Captain’s costume.

The first half of the movie is very well done. The origin story is told very well, in painstaking detail and with a lot of heart. Even the costume is explained in a way that makes absolute sense: after being infused with the Super Soldier serum, the Army decides Rogers is to valuable to send to the front lines, so instead he becomes a USO spokesperson doing publicity stunts and selling war bonds while wearing the stars and stripes costume. He happens to be wearing his ridiculous get-up while defying his orders and saving bunch of prisoners from a Hydra work camp and it becomes his trademark. It makes sense that he continues wearing an altered, combat-ready version of it seeing how other troops find it inspiring and morale boosting to be fighting side by side with Captain America.

The third act and the climax are the weakest parts, and the ending may come as a strange surprise to those who do not know that the Captain America background. The way they bring him to the twenty first century is a bit abrupt, though it is foreshadowed by the opening scenes.

Personally, I really liked it. I think it is on par with X-Men: First Class and Iron-Man movies. It is definitely much, much better than Thor, and Incredible Hulk. I have absolutely no clue how they are going to merge all the different personalities and storytelling flavors of these four distinct movies into a cohesive whole in Avengers. But after watching Captain America I remain positive. If Joss Whedon is careful and he plays his cards right, he might be able to produce something really awesome. I guess we will see how itgoes next summer.

So how was the movie? Well, it was silly, simplistic, infantile and painted with overly broad strokes. Actually, broad strokes is an understatement. The story was not as much written as it was finger painted or drawn with crayons. To put it simply, Thor is a kids movie. It offers preciously little to the adult viewer, but children are going to instantly fall in love in it’s larger than life protagonist and have no trouble following it’s simplistic story arc. But you know what? It is not a bad kids movie. It is nowhere near as nuanced as Up or WALLIE but the story is put together fairly well and has a clear message.

Thor poster

Thor is a brash, stuck up, irreverent brat. He defies his father – king of all the gods, and as a punishment gets sent down to Earth without his powers. Stuck in a mortal body, he learns humility, falls in love with a local scientist (Natalie Portman), and develops deep affinity for the people of the Earth. When his trickster-god brother Loki sends down an indestructible magical construct to kill him, he decides to sacrifice himself in order to save the local population – at which point the godly powers are restored to him. It is a classic coming of age type story. And you know what? It works.

I think we all like Iron Man so much because Robert Downy Jr. makes Tony Stark such a magnificent bastard. His character is complex and nuanced, much more due to characterization rather than to plot. But there is something to be said for the simplistic, archetypal and infantile characters of Thor. The god of thunder is a big man-child trapped in an adult body, but oddly enough this fits. It is what you would expect from a spoiled Asgardian prince.

Loki is transparent, immature and not very inventive for the “trickster god” but he actually makes for a compelling bad guy. Unlike the main antagonist from say, 2008 Incredible Hulk, he has real motivations, and reasons for doing what he is doing. He is a jealous, young prince of dubious heritage, growing up in the shadow of his incredibly popular brother. More of a confused, angsty teenager rather than an evil mastermind. But then again everyone needs to start somewhere.

Even Natalie Portman’s Jane Foster seems very child like, with respect to her relationship to the protagonist. Supposedly a respected scientist, she acts like a blushing schoolgirl on her first date whenever Chris Hemsworth’s Thor is in the frame. Her side-kick/intern played by Kat Dennings who is supposed to be a college student, has a personality of a “too cool for school” high school brat. There is this strange, fairy tale innocence to all the characters. No one acts alike an adult should act, but in the context of inter-dimensional gods, frost giants and ultra-secret governmental agencies it works just as well.

Somehow, Kenneth Branagh manages to pull a victory out of the jaws of defeat and whips the unworkable script, and abysmally bad dialogs into something that doesn’t actually suck. Kudos to him for that. The innocence of the characters fits perfectly, with the stylized over-the-top costumes, and the actors manage to deliver their silly lines with enough conviction to carry the plot forward. It is a marvelous thing – the movie should fold on itself and fall on it’s face, but it does not. It is not bad. And it is going to sell a shitload of action figures.

I was really curious about this movie right from the start. You see, in Marvel’s comic universe magic is a thing – it exists, and most of the super heroes are aware of it. It is not something unusual, especially in a world populated by mutants, and other super-powered individuals. Magic users are simply yet another type of super heroes or villains. But the movie adaptations of the marvel books, stubbornly refused to acknowledge magic. Juggernaut, whose powers and invulnerability have mystical origins, was instead introduced as a mutant. Movie makers would scrub their scripts to remove any mention of magic or mystical powers. But Thor is a Nordic god… Not a superhero or a mutant. Making him into anything other than he is would be a huge break with the source material.

It seemed like the Marvel movie team painted themselves into a corner. Introducing Thor required them to acknowledge existence of magical realms and Asgardian gods. More importantly, it was crucial to implement this revelation well, because Thor had to be back for the Avengers movie. If this film failed, it could jeopardize the bigger project.

I’m happy to report they handled it quite well, by quoting Clarke’s third law. Asgardians are not so much gods, but aliens with technology so advanced that it is indistinguishable from magic. They still have all the trappings of Norse gods, they still have incredible, super-human powers, and they still think of themselves as gods, and they are still the same guys who were worshiped by the Vikings, but they are not “truly divine” beings. It’s quite ingenious – they get to hand wave away all magic as very advanced technology without really altering the tone, and thematic continuity set by the other films. That said, magic still does not officially exist in the Hollywood version of Marvel universe. We probably will never see a Dr. Strange movie being made… Oh well…