Movie Review - The Avengers

How much more I enjoyed watching The Avengers in 2D rather than through the mud and blur and migraine of threedy. I felt like a partially sighted man suddenly given the gift of 20/20 vision. "Look at how beautiful it all is!" I cried at the cinema screen. "The colours so bright and vivid, the action distinctive, the background detail actually visible... I can see - I CAN SEE!"

In truth, The Avengers looks no better or worse than any other big screen FX fest. Unless you watch it in 3D... when it looks just as bad as every other big screen 3D FX fest. I couldn't help thinking of those adverts in which terribly earnest thesps like Ray "Cant" Winstone or Tim from The Office (you might know him as Dr. Watson or The Hobbit, but he'll always be Tim from The Office to me) encourage us not to download badly pirated movies from t'internet because not only are we damaging the film industry, but "the picture quality is rubbish". And yet (not that I've ever downloaded any badly pirated movies from t'internet), I imagine that'd still be preferable to watching said movies in 3D. But...

...enough about all that. What about the newly crowned BIGGEST OPENING WEEKEND EVER movie, the superhero blockbuster even the most churlish of critics are lauding (with the exception of Philip French's wonderfully pompous review in The Observer, which begins thus...

"Unhappy the land that has no heroes!" someone remarks to Bertolt Brecht's Galileo. "No. Unhappy the land that needs heroes," Galileo replies.

...and you can guess the rest); what about The Avengers? Is it any cop?

Well, yes. It's not an unqualified success, but it does the job far better than it might have... if not quite as well as I'd hoped. All the main characters are well-handled, although it's new-boy Mark Ruffalo who really shines as the most likeable Bruce Banner since Bill Bixby's David and a more enjoyable Hulk to boot. Robert Downey Jr's insistence on throwing away some of his best lines continues from Iron Man 2; Chris Evans brings flashes of nobility to the otherwise faintly ridiculous Captain America; and Chris Hemsworth's Thor faces real competition from his half-brother Loki, with Tom Hiddleston almost stealing the movie after a somewhat muted performance first time out. (I love his Loki-grin.) Scarlett Johansson is slightly less annoying than she was in Iron Man 2 and a whole lot less annoying than she is in anything else and Jeremy Renner rather draws the short arrow as a mindwashed Hawkeye stolen from the first half and given little development as a result.

The script has some nice visual gags and typically Whedon one-liners (when RDJ's goatee isn't fast-talking them into inaudibility) and the fanboys will be happy to see that virtually every character gets the chance to go one-on-one up against each other. Best are the scenes where someone faces off against the aforementioned God of Mischief... Fury vs. Loki, Cap vs. Loki, Widow vs. Loki, Stark vs. Loki... and, best of all, the hilarious Hulk vs. Loki sequence which is worth the price of admission on its own. The hero-on-hero fight sequences (while necessary to slake the geek thirst) seem a little forced... and the film is at least 20 minutes too long, especially considering how little actual story there is to go round. I was impressed by the way the writers tied together the earlier movies, making each a genuine prequel to the main event, but after that it's a mishmash of chase scene, destructo-porn and quipping slugfest right up to the closing credits. I'd have hoped for a few more plot twists... especially from Loki, the king of crafty shenanigans. And the Big Bad Reveal at the end is distinctly underwhelming, even for fanboys who know who Thanos is. I reckon they only roped him in to piss on DC's Darkseid chips should that fabled JLA movie ever get past the planning stages. Oh, sorry, was that a spoiler? Pretend I wrote it in 3D and you'll not even notice it was there...

Movie Review - Cabin In The Woods

I read a review of Cabin In The Woods that compared it unfavourably to Scream. Far be it from me to criticise a fellow reviewer, especially a professional getting paid for his opinions, but... bollocks. While both films attack the horror genre with a postmodern, deconstructionist pickaxe, Scream largely tells its audience what it's up to... whereas Cabin In The Woods almost always shows. And we all know which is better from a storytelling perspective, especially in a visual medium like cinema.

I've also seen CITW mentioned in the same breath as Jeepers Creepers for the way it willfully wrongfoots its viewers. Again, that's a totally spurious comparison. While Jeepers Creepers sets off in one direction, then u-turns with no warning into a far less entertaining cul de sac, Cabin In The Woods places its cards on the table from the opening scene. Not all those cards are turned face up, but at no point does it attempt to cheat us like Jeepers did.

Instead, what Drew Goddard and Joss Whedon deliver here is not just the most original and entertaining horror movie in years... but one of the most original and entertaining movies full stop. It's a film with the guts and balls to attempt to explain and justify every ridiculous and crappy horror flick you've ever seen. Genre fans with a sense of humour will lap it up. Those who don't appreciate Whedon's irreverent brand of snarky humour and playful iconoclasm can go watch Battleship instead.

Oh, and did I mention the cast? Beyond the five subverted teen cliches led by Chris 'Thor' Hemsworth and the doe-eyed Willow-alike Kristen Connolly, the cream of the Whedon alumni is present in full force (notably Amy Acker from Angel, Fran Kranz from Dollshouse and Tom Lenk from Buffy). But it's Bradley Whitford and Richard Jenkins who steal this movie, and not just for fans of The West Wing or Six Feet Under. We really didn't need the stunt-casting cameo at the end... but I can forgive the script's one mis-step into clunky exposition because by then I'd already had so much fun I was guaranteed to go home with a huge grin.

Now even if The Avengers proves a disappointment, Joss Whedon has still delivered one of my favourite movies of the year. More power to him.