fajrdrako | The Avengers: Further thoughts...

I just read

fairestcat's comments on The Avengers, which made me want to take to time to make a few further comments of my own.

We saw it again this afternoon, at the cinema out in Kanata: a good clear 2D copy. Aah, what a pleasure.

I catch more things all the time.

Because she made comments specifically on the characters, let me do the same, using her comments (and my thoughts about her comments) as a springboard.

Natasha Romanoff

I fell in love with Scarlett Johansson's version of the Black Widow with Iron Man 2, partly because of her action scenes, partly because she was so good at appearing what she wanted to appear - the essence of Black Widow, to keep her own secrets and to maintain her disguise.

In The Avengers we see a lot more of the inner Natasha. We see there are horrors in her past; that she has been mind-controlled, that she has lots of blood on her hands, that she was recruited and trained as a spy very young, and that she cares about balancing her own moral books. I'd like to think that she and Clint Barton were once lovers and are now friends, or it could simply be that they have the bonding that occurs between partners in high-risk professions where each is dependent on the other for their lives.

I liked her slight smile when Tony Stark says to her, "Miss me?" I think she finds Tony highly entertaining. As well she might. And she approves of him; I liked her agreement when he described himself as "genius, billionnaire, playboy". I think she sees more to Tony than at firest meets the eye. She did a good assessment of him in Iron Man 2 and sees his potential - both good and bad.

Loki isn't wrong about Natasha.

I love it that we see her moment of weakness - fear, shock, nerves - after fighting the Hulk. A moment of vulnerability makes he seem all the stronger: she isn't an automaton. Like her like to Clint - "This is nothing we ever trained for" - she knows she's up against something very powerful, not just a human turned monster but a force of nature.

Only I don't think that's why she has a momentary attack of nerves. She's about to face Clint Barton, who wants to kill her (on Loki's command), and who is one of her few real friends. She knows he is an assassin almost as accomplished as she is, and she has to take him down without hurting him, and without letting him kill her. She doesn't want to make him another red mark in her ledger - or for him to be one in hers.

Clint Barton

Since Hawkeye is under Loki's control for so much of the movie, we only get to know him - insofar as we do - in the last quarter of the movie, in which he seems courageous, determined, physically adept, and loyal. He holds a grudge against Loki for enslaving him; I would guess that he values the concept of freedom very highly, and took this personally.

Beyond that: I was left with the sense that I'd like to get to know this hero better. Does he feel the same loyalty and friendship towards Natasha that she seems to feel towards him? From his line to Nick Fury in the beginning, that he likes to observe from a distance, I would think he doesn't get close to people easily or often, in any sense. But he has a connection with Natasha, and so he should, after what she did for him in this movie. Even if, in the end, it boiled down to hitting him on the head. It saved him.

Loki

Yes, yes, I'm a Loki-lover, all the more so since this movie - though I think his portrayal was much more sympathetic in Thor. I'm sure there's something symbolic about falling into the abyss and coming out of it a villain, but there's nothing simple about Loki. He's a trickster, a master of lies, and a manipulator. Essentially the whole plot of the movie is that he wants to destroy S.H.I.E.L.D. by turning S.H.I.E.L.D.'s new master weapons, the Avengers, against each other. And that by doing so, he makes them into a team who can defeat him.

Loki is alternately malicious and vulnerable. Tom Hiddleston's acting gives a lot of the personality; the quirk of an eyebrow, the turn of the lip, that change him mercurially from victim to dominator from one second to the next. I loved it that Loki's prime weapon was words, and that at the end, his defeat is shown by his being silenced.

Maria Hill

I have loved Maria Hill in the comics ever since her role in the fall of Tony Stark in Iron Man: World's Most Wanted by Matt Fraction. I have a thing for S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, and she fit her role perfectly. I'd like to see her get her own mini-series.

That being said, her actual dialoque and actions in the movie were all related to exposition. She is Nick Fury's sounding board. I liked it that she was kept as part of the story - that things kept coming back to her and to Fury. I hope she gets an expanded role in the next movie, not necessarily as an action her - we have enough of that - but as part of the plot.

Bruce Banner

There have been some brilliant Hulk stories over the years, but I've never been a big fan of the character - partly because of his maleability: the Hulk is not the same from one decade to the next. Sometimes tragic, sometimes dangerous, sometimes metaphorical - the Hulk has been many different things.

Usually a Jekyll and Hyde situation, played in different ways. Usually the emphasis is on Banner and the Hulk as opposites, contrasts, even enemies warring within the same psyche. Hulk is sometimes intelligent, sometimes mindless; sometimes destructive, sometimes protective; sometimes despairing, sometimes vainglorious. Hulk is many things, but usually his essence is duality.

So Whedon and company turn that around. The whole secret to the Hulk is that Banner is the Hulk, in a very fundamental way, however much he denies it. Except for Captain America, everyone in this movie is an accomplished liar, for the best and worst of reasons. Banner's big lie is to pretend that he and the Hulk are separate. There are plenty of clues to this from the very beginning - such as when Banner tries to scare Natasha in Calcutta - clues whose meaning isn't clear till near the end. Banner and Hulk are an integrated entity. They even look alike.

Best Hulk ever.

Control is a major theme of this story, especially self-control. Banner's big secret is that the Hulk really isn't out of control, but it's useful for him to let people think he is.

Phil Coulson

Put me down as someone who has loved Coulson from his first appearance, and more ever since. He really shone here: I wanted to cheer his solo attack on Loki. But I loved all the aspects we saw of him - the professional competence, and the fanboy enthusiasm over Captain America - another aspect that was reminiscent of Wash in Firefly. One wonders what the story is with his cellist - someone referred to it as a 'long distance relationship' but my impression was that they'd split up.

Coulson more than any of them seems to me to be the antithesis of Loki - persuasive rather than coercive, direct rather than deceptive, practical, forthright, and not elusive.

I think he's alive - I think his death was a lie fostered by Fury, as evidenced in the trading cards - and I even have a hope that we saw him again in the movie, though the glimpse was too fleeting for me to be sure. (Just wait till I have the DVD, and screencap possibilities.)

Tony Stark

Robert Downey Jr. makes this role shine. He isn't quite the Tony Stark of the comic, but he's a good fit. His Tony is brilliant and difficult, and knows it. His self-awareness is magnificent: we see him coming to one realization about himself after another, and each one changes him. I love the way he proves Cap wrong, that he is the one willing and able to sacrifice his life for the greater good by taking the missile through the portal.

And though like

fairestcat I am a great lover of the notion of a polyamorous Tony Stark, I can simultaneously love the monogamoous romance between him and Pepper Potts, not so much yin-yang as two shades of the same colour, playing off each other beautifully, and with comfortable mutual understanding.

I loved the way Tony loved meeting a fellow-scientist, and the way he and Cap were at odds until each experienced the other's competence and courage.

Best of all, Tony is funny.

Nick Fury

Love his coat.

Okay, I love Fury too, always did, though this isn't the same Fury I always loved. Doesn't need to be: as of this movie, I can see the connections there with my Fury, the man who doesn't mince words, who'll fight and protect as long as he's breathing, who'll take a weapon and do what needs to be done. For all his high tech projects, he still a simple soldier...

Or is he? Part of the fun is that he has become the classic spymaster, full of riddles and contradictions, a master of lies and trickery himself, whose plots and schemes interweave depending on changing circumstances. He's into high-tech weapons of mass destruction, but he prefers to create a band of highly visible, iconic heroes. And then to make them better themselves.