The Ant and The Boot

I’m going to start on a less relevant note – I’ve found a purpose for doing movie reviews.

In my last movie review, I contemplated whether there was any justification for me doing these reviews any more (see the link for info). Then a few neutrons in my brain connected together like in some baby milk commercial, and I happily found a use for them. They’re now officially writing practice. Yes, it’s a boring idea. Useful nonetheless.

I’m not the best person to review superhero movies. Being unfamiliar with the numerous headache-inducing comic versions and their respective storylines, characters and settings does little to help me get comfortable with the latest superhero blockbuster that Hollywood has to offer. 


Sure, the screenwriters know this fact quite well, and often adapt the movie well enough to the mainstream, non-comic-reading audience. But still, a curious soul like me is often unsatisfied with scratching the surface; he/she wants to dig further, like one would after viewing a movie from a trilogy, but this would be like breaking the wall of a reservoir; you’ll drown under the torrent of information.

Happily, you don’t with The Avengers.

We saw this one coming a long time ago. You’ve got the hype, the buildup, starting from the first Iron Man all the way to Captain America: The First Avenger. Both of which had S.H.E.I.L.D. and in particular, Samuel L. Jackson, acting all mysterious to build anticipation for movie to sit on top of all Marvel hero movies.

It’s hard not to be cynical about this one. Take a group of popular action figures, try your best to tie their respective movie plots together, throw in lots of nice fighting scenes and CGI…… Profit. Oh, and don’t forget to shoot it in 3D. But here’s the thing: you can almost forgive them for it, because they managed to pull it off so well.

The fighting scenes weren’t the most special or breathtaking, but they were more than up-to-par. The set, unlike The Hunger Games, was well designed, with intelligent use of CGI. The actors managed to put on a decent show, especially in regards to the likes of Scarlett Johansson and Robert Downey Jr., the latter being plain fantastic in his excellent portrayal of the not-so-beloved Tony Stark. And the lines…… Really, if The Avengers had nothing, nothing else at all, the script alone would have earned it a decent score. Hilarious, sharp-witted and free of awkwardness, the screenwriters have done a fantastic job in keeping the movie massively entertaining. The phrase “Puny Gods!”, for example, will remain in my head for a long time.

That’s not to say The Avengers was all-round perfect. The movie exhibits a few of the typical flaws you get in a movie like this, with a convergence of many different characters from many different stories. For one, you get very little individual character development, though Bruce Banner aka The Hulk aka “The Big Guy” is an exception, with a little insight on how his well-known emotional instability has affected him over the years and in the present. Mark Ruffalo helped a lot here with good acting that suited his character. I really wished they had done more with Captain America; there was huge potential here, with Steve Rogers having to come to terms with the modern world with strangers that he knew nothing about. Unfortunately, it wasn’t capitalized on well enough. Loki was quite disappointing too – a villain in this big superhero movie should have twice the depth, but he, while having good lines, simply lacked it.

The Avengers sadly fell to some clichés as well. Didn’t we just know that Stark and Rogers were going to head-butt against each other like rhinos with over-sized egos, but yet make up and become best buddies – alright, not exactly – in the end. Weren’t we just waiting for the Black Widow to scornfully announce to Loki that making “a deal” with him was all really a trick. And Stark managing to fall out of a wormhole in the final second then seeming to be dead and yet magically recovering later? Colour me shocked.

But watch Captain America defend another extreme blow with his shield, listen to yet another epic line from Stark, and another even better retort from anybody else, and the movie’s downfalls suddenly matter so much less. Hats off to the studios for pulling this one off.

Suburban KID score: 8.0