May 19, 2015

Age of Ultron!!!!!

May 19, 2015/ Rachelle Goguen

As you may have guessed, Dave and I were more than a little excited for Age of Ultron. We wanted to take a little time after seeing it on the 30th to allow for everyone to see it before we take them to Spoiler City. Also, we both wanted to see it more than once before we recorded our thoughts. I am pleased to announce that we both LOVED IT.

There's a lot to unpack with this movie, so I thought it would be easiest to break it down by character, and then leave room for some general thoughts at the end. I could only use screencaps from the trailers for this post, obviously.

Iron Man

RG: We've said a number of times in our reviews of the Marvel movies that Tony Stark was a perfectly realized character pretty much from minute one of the first Iron Man movie. We also noted that Iron Man 3 did a lot to make him more human and more heroic. I was worried that this movie would start to shift Tony into a bit of a villain. That his arrogance would take over and he would do something irredeemable that would be built upon in the upcoming Civil War movie. We knew going into Age of Ultron that Stark is responsible for Ultron's existence, so it wouldn't be surprising to have him be at odds with his teammates for this entire movie. I can't tell you how happy I was that it wasn't the case.

DH: It’s one of my few beefs with this movie that, even though Tony seems to have quit being Iron Man at the end of his last movie, he’s still wearing the armour here with no explanation. I guess you could read the conclusion of that movie as more like, he doesn’t need the armour anymore, but is happy to pitch in if his pals need a hand.

RG: I think maybe he doesn’t do solo Iron Man gigs anymore. But he’s now filling his time building a custom Avengers tower for all his friends to hang out in. Because he’s totally sane.

I like that Tony got help from his science bro, Bruce Banner, creating Ultron. Yes, his teammates were rightfully pissed about those two secretly building an evil robot, but Tony admitted his mistake pretty much immediately. It was clear he knew he screwed up, and the fights and arguments between teammates that we saw in the trailers and preview clips turned out to be a lot less tense than they would lead you to believe. Yay!

DH: The ad campaign and the publicity leading up to this movie made me feel like it was going to go a lot darker, and probably end with the team splitting up and Tony and Steve hating each other’s guts or something. And that was not the case. I mean, who knows what the future (and Captain America: Civil War) holds, but I left the theater on a high note when I expected things to be much more bleak.

RG: And of course Banner and Stark’s tight friendship led to a truly awesome fight scene between Hulk and Hulkbuster Iron Man. It was not only fun to watch, but it was full of funny Tony quips. I liked that he was trying to chat with Hulk like he’s still Banner.

DH: That Hulkbuster fight is really something. There’s a bit where Iron Man is blasting Hulk with a laser from his hand, and it’s making a really cool laser sound, and...I dunno, it just reverts me to childhood somehow. I mean, Iron Man is inside another giant Iron Man armour and he’s blasting a mind-warped Hulk with a crazy hand laser! Who the hell ever thought we’d see stuff like this in a movie?

Also, this scene is one of many where even though a giant superhero battle is taking place, and entire city blocks are being flattened, the safety of innocent civilians is always priority number one for these guys (well, maybe not for the Hulk in this scene). For me, the primary function of superheroes isn’t just about fighting bad guys, or each other--it’s about saving lives, usually in a way that unfortunately isn’t realistic, but then again, that’s what makes it escapism. And I love that the Marvel movies are reclaiming that.

RG: Yes, that was huge. There was so much attention to protecting civilians.

I really loved Tony’s interactions with Steve Rogers in this movie, starting with him calling Captain America on his objection to Tony's swearing. You could tell that there is still a lot of tension between them, but definitely mutual respect as well. I LOVED the wood chopping scene, obviously. Not only because I loved the conversation between them, and I loved fantasizing about having those two men chop wood for me, but also because Tony Stark is not above pitching in and helping with chores. When would that guy have ever chopped wood before?

It made me really happy at the end when Tony, before driving off, asks Cap if he's alright. It was a really nice moment. Cap probably should have returned the question. But we’ve established in these movies that Cap is a bit of a rude, lying car thief.

Also, sort of obscure, but it made me happy when Cap retrieved his shield using some sort of magnet-based Stark technology. I like that Tony is helping his friend out, and that Cap is letting him.

DH: I was reading some Lee/Kirby Cap stories from Tales Of Suspense, and he totally has that magnetic-retrieval gizmo, so it’s canon! Of course, he ditches it almost immediately, saying it throws off his balance or something, but whatever.

RG: Nice!

Tony was very funny in this movie, as usual, and it would have been a great send-off for the character if RDJ had decided to make this his last Marvel movie. But, of course, we’ll be seeing him in at least one more (probably three more, right?).

DH: Depends on how many dumptrucks of money Marvel drives up to his door, I guess. But yeah, once again Whedon excels at Tony Stark dialogue. I really hope they don’t turn Tony into a monster dickweed in the next movie, like the one he turns into in the Civil War comic series.

RG: I really don’t think they will. No one wants that.

Quick final thought on Tony: His shitty chill lounge party music is inexcusable. Falcon should make him a mix tape.

Thor

RG: Thor was really delightful in this movie. As we have said before in these reviews, his chill, laid-back attitude works well in a group situation. He's so friendly! And he also looks very funny in any real world situation, which is why I would have loved to have seen a lot more of him at the farm. But he had to fly off to do something very confusing.

I know much has been said on this matter, but seriously what was that scene with the hot tub time machine? He grabs Selvig for...some reason...strips naked and gets into a pool in a cave for...some other reason that I don't need to know about because fine...and, I dunno, watches a bit of Guardians of the Galaxy? Whatever.

DH: I think the filmmakers knew that a wet, shirtless Chris Hemsworth was something that a lot of moviegoers were hoping to see, and they didn’t care if how we got there made any sense or not. Just the frame or two of it that we saw in the trailer was probably responsible for at least half of the box office gross.

RG: Well, yes. I was personally more into the many scenes of Steve Rogers strutting around in ludicrously tight shirts. Under Armour is getting their money's worth from that sponsorship deal!

I couldn't even wait until the Captain America section of this thing to start posting pictures of him.

RG: As much as I did not care for that cave scene, I loved seeing undercover hoodie Thor on campus.

Thor leaving the farm so abruptly was kind of like “Farm chores, eh? I’m out!” He would have been so helpful! I guess he wouldn’t have been able to fit into clothes borrowed from Hawkeye. (Aside: were we to believe that Steve Rogers was wearing Clint’s borrowed jeans on the farm? Because they should have been very tight and capri-length on him if that were the case).

I'd believe that's Hawkeye's shirt though.

DH: It would have been really funny to see Thor trying to squeeze into Clint’s clothes.

RG: A musical montage of Thor trying to fit into Clint’s clothes!!!

Thor stepping on that Lego and then trying to hide the damage was great. I especially liked that scene because neither Thor nor Captain America would know what Lego is or that it's ok to break it.

I loved Thor at the party, especially trying to one-up Tony when they were talking about their (absent) girlfriends. He ends the conversation by saying “Jane is better,” and that’s just such a Thor thing to say. He doesn’t have much of a filter. Also loved that he brought hardcore Asgardian alcohol to the party so Captain America could get his drink on. I wish I wish I wish we could have seen drunk Steve. Although we saw plenty of drunk Chris Evans on that press tour, so I guess I can imagine how it would have gone.

Thor’s face when Captain America was almost able to lift Mjolnir was so great. And his relief when he couldn’t lift it! Thor actually had a lot of the great comedic moments in this movie.

Looks like Thor took his annual shower before this party.

RG: I loved all of Thor’s fight scenes. He and Captain America both had some really amazing fighting moves in this movie, and I loved it when they fought together, especially when he hits Cap's shield like a baseball with his hammer! They've been practicing! I would love to see a lot more of Thor palling around with Captain America.

DH: “Look, they’re lining up!” “Well, they’re excited.” Holy crap, did I love that opening raid on the Hydra base. I think the way we just jumped right in mid-battle was great, especially how we were sort of following them, trying to keep up, when they were all introduced. The opening action scene really sets the James Bond tone of this thing, what with all the globe-trotting that follows as well.

RG: As you said to me, it makes you kind of sad when they allude to the other raids that we missed. I hate that we can’t see every second of their lives!

Thor bringing Vision to life, Frankenstein-style with lightning, and then vouching for him immediately was awesome. Thor was a pretty cool dude in this movie when he wasn’t abruptly leaving.

DH: I can’t remember if Vision has ever even tried to lift Mjolinir in the comics. But it made for a good storytelling shortcut here--we know we can trust this guy instantly--and it got a HUGE reaction on opening night with all the comic nerds in the audience. That whole scene is really cool, with the little mini-battle amongst the Avengers, then Thor coming in and you don’t know what side he’s on at first--is he trying to destroy the Vision, or bring him to life? We’ll get into it more below when we discuss Vision in greater detail, but he was one of my favourite parts of the movie.

Black Widow

RG: Black Widow was awesome in this movie and I won’t hear otherwise. I think Whedon went out of his way to give her a lot of great scenes, awesome action, and intriguing character elements to encourage Marvel to finally make a Black Widow movie. A lesser director would have reduced her role a lot in this movie, given that she was pregnant during filming.

DH: I remember after the first time we saw it, I was a bit disappointed that she, the only female team member at that point, got taken hostage by Ultron. But then someone we were with--you, maybe?--reminded me that Whedon had to rewrite parts of the script to accommodate her pregnancy, and that made me feel a lot better about it. Also, she was only held captive for, like, five minutes of screen time, and I never felt like she was helpless.

RG: She was never helpless. She didn't even seem worried. And then she did some cool spy shit to get Hawkeye's attention. She's got this.

She jumps out of a plane on a goddamn motorcycle, which rules, and she just generally kicked so much ass. She was funny, she was great with Hawkeye’s kids, she pushed Banner into a pit after kissing him to make him Hulk out...she’s the best.

RG: My only beef with Widow in this movie was that the blue glowing lights on her costume made no sense. Not very stealthy.

I liked the romance between her and Banner, but what I really liked was her very close friendship with Hawkeye. Clint's big reveal showed how close he and Natasha really are. So much more interesting than just a romantic or casual sex relationship between them! I liked when she referred to Clint as her best friend.

I also love her close friendship with Captain America. There were a few nice little moments in this movie to show that they have grown closer since Captain America: The Winter Soldier.

DH: Black Widow is so good in these movies, and the fact that she has these non-sexual relationships with her teammates, like Cap and Hawkeye, is pretty awesome. As you said, way more interesting. And I think her and Bruce are a strange fit, one that has no comic precedent, but it works.

RG: I think Banner is one of the few characters Widow hasn't hooked up with in the comics. That may have been another reason Whedon wanted to make it happen.

There was something that bothered me about various characters in this movie teasing or commenting on Natasha and Bruce. I just feel like Natasha would be a little more discreet than to invite that much attention. She openly flirts with Bruce at the bar in the party scene, walks away, and instantly creepy Captain America is there to be all “Sooooooo...Natasha is pretty hot for you, huh?” Was he watching the whole thing? Someone should have invited Agent 13 to this party to keep him occupied.

I know people were reading all sorts of anti-feminist things into her reveal to Bruce Banner that she can’t have children, but I really think she was just letting him know that he needs to come up with a better reason than ‘we can never have children’ to deny himself a relationship with her. She almost said it with a shrug. It’s a bleak and upsetting thing that was done to her, but she’s aware that she is among people who all have lots of messed up stuff in their lives. She is reminding Bruce that he is not the only monster among them.

DH: There’s a really good podcast at Empire Online where Whedon talks about that scene in the first movie, where they first meet, when he pushes that crib and says “I don’t every time get what I want”, which of course was written and filmed at a time when they had no idea where their story would go. The crib being there wasn’t even scripted, it was just part of the set decoration. But that detail is going to make revisiting that movie, after the conversation the two of them have about children in this movie, pretty interesting. It sounds like Whedon developed this thread mostly based on the chemistry of the two actors, which was a good impulse to follow.

RG: Well they are the two who are slumming it in these movies.

The movie ends with Black Widow as one of the leaders of the Avengers! She rules!

Hulk

DH: Once again, these movies get the Hulk right in a way that his solo movies never quite did. Ruffalo is perfect as the haunted, tormented Banner, especially after the fight in Johannesburg. And the effects used to bring Hulk to life just get better and better. I wonder if we’ll ever get to see what Wanda showed him to make him go into an advanced state of Hulkamania (my girlfriend Hillary’s term for it)?

RG: She showed him the Batman vs Superman trailer. Zing!

DH: I also wonder where we’ll next see Hulk--along with Thor, he’s one of the only cast members who doesn’t seem to be popping up in Captain America: Civil War next year. My guess is he’ll get a big moment in Avengers: Infinity War Part II. But I do like the idea of him just flying off and seeing where that Quinjet takes him. Apparently Marvel doesn’t have the rights to do a solo Hulk movie--I imagine the deal is similar to what they have now with Sony and Spider-man--but he works best as a supporting character in these movies anyway.

RG: I’m kind of fine with not having a solo Hulk movie, even though I love Ruffalo as Hulk. I basically don’t want anyone else to get a solo movie until Black Widow gets one.

I’m a big fan of the Science Bros montage when they are working to create Ultron in this movie. I am actually pretty surprised we didn’t hear the words ‘science bros’ spoken at all. I figured they’d throw that shout-out to the fandom in there. I do really like Bruce and Tony’s friendship a lot. And I like that Banner is an expert in...all science?

DH: Was it “bio-organics” that Tony said Banner was a genius at? Just say “science," Tony. Stop making shit up.

"I'm a doctor, dammit! Not a bio-organicist!"

RG: I thought the ‘lullaby’ thing with Widow was cool, and it establishes that they would have spent a lot of time together building trust while working on that. It adds more weight to the love story. Poor Bruce, though. He goes from ‘It’s fun to flirt with Natasha’ to ‘I can’t possibly be in a relationship with anyone’ to ‘Sure, what the hell? Let’s run away together’ to ‘Scratch that, I’m leaving on a jet plane. Don’t know when I’ll be back again’ in this movie.

That final jet plane scene with Hulk, by the way? Nice nod to the end of Captain America: The First Avenger.

DH: I didn’t even pick up on that! Good catch.

RG: One problem I did have with the Bruce/Natasha love story was how it ignores Betty Ross. I mean, if Banner could be in a relationship, wouldn’t it be with Betty? As I said in our review of The Incredible Hulk, I think the Bruce/Betty romance was the strongest of any two characters in any of these movies. She crazy loves him! Maybe Banner is going to check up on her in that plane.

Captain America

I mean, look at this guy. How am I supposed to write captions here?

DH: Cap has really come into his own as the solid foundation for these movies--an unswerving leader, a moral center, and a kick-ass fighting machine. But he’s really funny, too! “I miss the days when the weirdest thing to come out of science was me”, etc.

RG: Cap can really come into MY own as a solid founda...sorry. Continue.

DH: I can’t believe I’m living in a world where I can go to the movies and see one of my favourite comic characters so perfectly realized as a big-screen action hero. It can’t have been easy to make this character not seem totally foolish to a moviegoing audience, but they’ve structured his arc so well. A lot of credit is due to Chris Evans, obviously. This might be my favourite movie translation of a comic hero since Christopher Reeve’s Superman.

Why haven't I seen this in IMAX yet, seriously?

RG: You know I agree with all of that. I just...I love him so much. I went into this movie like “Ohmygod, he’s going to say things I haven’t heard him say before!!!”

There was some pretty major character stuff for Cap in this movie. He is, as you said, established early on as the team’s fearless leader (loved the Captain America speeches in this movie, by the way), but also as someone who is still an outsider who doesn’t quite know what his place is in this world beyond being a hero. He seemed downright miserable at Hawkeye’s house. He actually looks angry when he sees Hawkeye’s kids. Cap has no poker face.

I love the weird parallel between Cap and Bruce in this shot.

DH: Yep, great inspirational Cap speeches. “If ya get hurt, hurt ‘em back. If ya get killed...walk it off.” Sean Connery in The Untouchables wishes he had something that badass to say to Kevin Costner.

RG: When Cap angrily busts that log into smithereens during the WOOD CHOPPING SCENE, I’m guessing it probably caused audiences to shriek with delight and awe worldwide. It was a great moment.

RG: I like these hints of the deep frustration and sadness that Steve is carrying inside him. He never lets it interfere with his job, but anytime he’s not fighting he is heartbreakingly forlorn.

Forlorn, but with really amazing eyelashes. I mean, really. Just extraordinary.

RG: I do think he is happy with where he is at the end of the movie. I think he’s being sincere when he tells Tony that he isn’t the same person he used to be, and no longer dreams of a family and a house. Captain America’s destiny isn’t to get married and have kids. He’s a soldier and a leader and a hero and an icon and the Avengers are his family. He’ll probably get a lot more respect and less teasing from this new crop of Avengers. I think it’s a turning point for him. I hope so, anyway.

He would probably like to get laid, though. His virginity remains intact by the end of this movie, as far as I’m concerned. As far as Chris Evans is concerned, too.

Oh God, I totally predicted that we would see a Scarlet Witch-induced nightmare flashback scenario where Steve would finally have that dance with Peggy, and I also predicted that I would cry and cry and cry. I did not cry, because the flashback was short and weird, but still. Sad! I feel like Bucky should have been in that flashback too, since he’s probably on Steve’s mind a lot these days. I also just think we should slot Sebastian Stan into every movie.

DH: Cap’s costume in this movie is a nice combination of everything that worked about his other uniforms in the previous films And the running gag about his disapproval of Tony’s salty language is very funny.

RG: That was great. Would have loved it if Cap had let out a crazy string of profanity, but “son of a bitch” worked too. Either way, loved that we got to share in one of the Avengers’ inside jokes. I also like that Thor doesn’t make fun of him. Thor’s a good dude.

I love the costume. I feel like the stylists on these movies need to cool it with the sideburns, though. Like, are they trying to see how long they can make them before we object. I object! He looked perfect in the first movie! Has he been spending the past few years watching 90210 reruns?

As I mentioned before, Cap’s fighting moves were awesome in this movie. It’s pretty damn awesome when he throws his motorcycle at that jeep. I will say, though, that I think he has intentionally trashed a motorcycle in at least three of these movies. You’d think a guy who grew up during the Depression wouldn’t treat motorcycles as disposable objects.

Hawkeye

DH: My love of Hawkeye is pretty well-documented at this point, and I was happy to see him finally get a personality and a backstory (even if it isn’t from the comics--I guess it’s sort of from the Ultimate comics, but the less said about those, the better). I did feel like Jeremy Renner was a bit old to play this character, who is much more of a young punk in the comics. But now, with him being a secret family man, it has been back-engineered to make sense. He’s got some great fighting moves in this film, and I love his big inspirational speech to Wanda during the final battle. I’m really into the idea of Hawkeye as just this working-class dude. Everyone else is a hero for these deeply personal reasons, but he’s just a guy doing his job.

RG: I did not see the family man Hawkeye reveal coming at all. I was THRILLED! Somehow Hawkeye became the dreamiest Avenger! Fighting bad guys while making plans to remodel the dining room?! Forget about it!

I loved everything about those farmhouse scenes. I could have used another three hours of farmhouse.

DH: People love to crap on Hawkeye because he’s just a guy with a bow and arrow, but that’s one of the reasons I love him. He’s on a team with super-soldiers, mutants, monsters, and gods, and he is just a guy with a bow and arrow. So what does that tell you? Just how goddamn good does he have to be with a bow and arrow to stand amongst these guys? That, to me, is really cool. And he finally emerged as an interesting guy on the big screen as well.

Fine, here's another picture of Hawkeye.

RG: He deserves to be there every bit as much as Black Widow. She doesn’t have super powers either. Neither does Tony, really. Or Falcon, or War Machine...they all just have weapons that they are good at using. So what is the damn difference? I don’t think the question is whether Hawkeye deserves to be an Avenger, it’s if Jeremy Renner deserves to be an Avenger. And I think the answer to that question is NO. But he was good in this movie. Whatever.

His "family man" reveal makes his comments about Black Widow being a whore even more confusing! What is wrong with this idiot?!

I liked that Hawkeye was questioning his contribution to the team a bit in this movie, and that his wife pointed out how important he is to making them work as a team. All of this self-doubt kind of came together in that rousing speech to Scarlet Witch, which I really loved (“The city is flying...the city is flying”).

His costume was cool in this movie.

DH: Yes, but get that guy some headgear! Preferably with a big “H” on it.

And The Rest...

Vision

This guy is going to be fun at future Avengers parties.

DH: I wasn’t really sure how Vision would work out here. His origin is a bit convoluted, and a real departure in some ways from the comic--yes, he’s a creation of Ultron, like in the comic, but he’s also J.A.R.V.I.S., and he’s got the Mind Gem...it’s a lot to take in, but it works incredibly well and I think a lot of the credit must go to Paul Bettany’s performance. He has just a cool, calm, serene attitude that is really interesting. It also helps that it’s Paul Bettany in costume onscreen, and not a CGI effect. I love his final scene with Ultron so much, where Ultron says, “They’re doomed (‘they’ being humanity)”, and Vision responds that yes, they are, but that a thing isn’t beautiful because it lasts, and that he and Ultron are privileged to be among them. And, like everyone else, he has some really funny lines, like when Ultron calls him naive and he says, “Well, I was born yesterday”. I can’t wait to see what else they do with Vision in future movies.

RG: Vision was so, so great. I mean, really. I’m not gonna lie, when I first heard Vision was going to be introduced in this movie, I thought it was a weird choice. Vision is a great character that shouldn’t work at all in a movie like this, but man!

That conversation between Vision and Ultron at the end was THE BEST.

The Twins

RG: Loved what a badass Scarlet Witch is. Looking forward to seeing more of her. Loved Quicksilver more than I expected to. Really enjoyed his tracksuit Eurotrash look. Not too sad we won’t see more of him. He had a good death. As much as I dislike Renner, I’m glad Hawkeye wasn’t the one who died.

DH: I thought Quicksilver was well-used--I think I’m the only person on the planet who liked this iteration of him more than the one we saw in X-Men: Days Of Future Past--but his death here meant something, and I wouldn’t want them to cheapen it by bringing him back or saying that he somehow survived.

I also really dug Scarlet Witch. She’s kind of a problematic character in the comics because her powers are so poorly defined--or, at least, defined occasionally, then redefined by the next Avengers scripter--but here they basically just made her into another Phoenix, which is fine. I like her and Pietro’s fakey Russian (I guess?) accents, and I also like how creepy she was in the early scenes. She was sort of skittering around like Samara from The Ring or something, and it was pretty cool.

Ultron

RG: The trailers did a good job of concealing how funny Ultron is. Seriously, a lot of the big laughs are Ultron lines. My personal favourite: “I can’t physically throw up in my mouth…” after he describes Captain America. He’s a Whedon villain through and through.

Ultron also looks amazing. And James Spader is so great (and a little sexy? Am I wrong? Sexy Ultron?). When Ultron is first coming to “life,” his dialogue with J.A.R.V.I.S. is so great. Normally a robot villain is sort of meh for me, but he was awesome. The Lil’ Ultrons were super easy to kill, though. I probably could have taken a dozen or so out myself.

DH: Throughout the movie, I was not always feeling Ultron’s motivations. The whole “computer programmed to end war decides he needs to end humanity” idea is pretty played out, but that end scene with Vision really brought it full circle and redeemed it for me. Lots of hilarious one-liners. This wouldn’t be a Joss Whedon movie if he didn’t have a funny villain. My favourite was probably when he ripped off Ulysses Klaw’s arm and was like, “Oh, sorry! I’m sure that’ll be fine.”

Ultron’s lips were kinda weird, though. He looked a bit like Audrey Two from Little Shop Of Horrors.

Falcon

RG: We got a little taste of Falcon in this movie. I really can’t wait to see more of him. I was glad he was invited to the party (and that he mentioned Cap and his ‘missing person case’). I liked seeing Steve and Sam playing pool at the party. I just love superheroes hanging out doing friend things!

DH: I was pretty happy to see him on the team at the end, with a lot more red in his costume. I guess they probably had to distinguish his costume’s colour scheme from War Machine’s a bit more? And seeing it again this weekend (your second time, my third!), I noticed just how stoked he looks to be an Avenger. I don’t know if that’s Anthony Mackie or Sam Wilson who’s excited about it, but I suspect it’s a bit of both.

War Machine

RG: Don Cheadle stops by to steal every scene he’s in. I’m very excited to see him join the Avengers team. I loved him telling that same story to everyone at the party, and his look of satisfaction when people laughed at it. Also, his reaction to Vision phasing through robots in the final battle was hilarious.

DH: If Tony’s retired, shouldn’t Rhodey just be Iron Man now? I’d be fine with that. Cap is probably pretty happy to have some more army guys on his team now.

Nick Fury

RG: I don’t know why Laura Barton was so stealthy when she told Tony that their tractor needed fixing as a way to lure Tony into the barn for a secret Fury meeting. I mean, Cap knows Fury is alive. And then Fury was just hanging out with everyone in the farmhouse later. So why the secret ops? Eh, whatever. It was cute.

I was trying to figure out who would have known that Fury was even still alive. Maybe all of them? Thor probably didn’t even know that he died, or returned, or was on that helicarrier at the end. I don’t feel like Thor gets filled in on a lot of things. He’s probably also like “what’s Hydra?”

DH: “What’s a robot? What are nuclear codes?” Poor dope.

RG: Here’s a question: when did Fury decide to start wearing his eyepatch again? Didn’t he burn it at the end of Winter Soldier? I guess he and Stark had coffee sometime between this movie and that one and decided to go back to their eyepatch and Iron Man suit, respectively.

DH: He probably just realized that his crazy scars and dead eye are not really any less conspicuous than his eyepatch.

Agent Hill

RG: I just want to say that Agent Hill has been in three movies now. Time for some character development. I doubt we’ll see it in Civil War, since there are already about 97 heroes in that movie.

Say...Are Agent Hill and Rhodes dating? If so, I am pro THAT!

DH: Yeah, they were kinda hanging out at the party, weren’t they? I like that idea.

Random Thoughts:

RG: I was really happy to see our ‘Cap’s orders’ friend from Winter Soldier working for S.H.I.E.L.D. on the helicarrier at the end. He got promoted!

DH: I love that guy!

RG: I loved seeing the vintage Captain America war propaganda posters in the background on the wall in the Avengers Tower. Tony would have put those up to annoy Steve.

Loved the petty debate between Cap, Thor and Iron Man at the end about whether or not Vision being able to lift Thor’s hammer means he’s worthy. “You put the hammer in an elevator, the elevator’s not worthy.” Cap is comparing Vision to an elevator!

DH: It reminded me of the conversation in Gremlins 2 about the rules governing Mogwai/Gremlin transformations, and how the whole not feeding them after midnight would be affected by time-zone changes, etc. What I’m saying is that this and Gremlins 2 are basically the same movie.

RG: Kinda bummed that we didn’t get to see the sleeping arrangements at the Barton farm. Maybe in the director’s cut (which is hopefully nothing but extra farm footage). Did Fury spend the night too? Did they actually sleep there? I’m confused about the farm timeline.

I liked the scene at the party where Tony and Thor are explaining why Jane Foster and Pepper Potts aren’t there. But seriously I wish Jane was played by a lesser movie star so we could see more of that character.

Really excited about the new Avengers facility in upstate New York (away from civilians!). Looking forward to seeing more of it in Civil War.

DH: I love that the movie ends with a significant lineup change--pretty standard Avengers stuff, you gotta shake it up every few adventures. I also think it’s pretty cool that Captain America is now the sole white male Avenger, on the team with two women, two African-American guys, and a robot.

RG: This movie was a real gift to superhero fans. I have nothing but gratitude for everyone involved with the making of these Marvel movies. The anticipation for this movie kept me buzzing for months before its release, and I was ecstatic when I finally watched it. And they’ve already started filming Captain America: Civil War, which I seriously can’t wait for. As much as I love an Avengers movie, I really love a Cap-centric movie. And a Cap-centric movie that sees the return of Bucky, plus more Falcon and Black Widow? Yes, please.

In conclusion, more movie scenes with the Avengers sitting around drinking and eating Chinese take-out, please!!!

Cap drinks beer just for the taste. That's cute.

*Marry Cap, fuck Tony, kill Bruce (put him out of his misery). Alternate: Marry Ruffalo, fuck Evans, kill Downey (he's had a good run).

April 20, 2015

Countdown to Age of Ultron: Iron Man 3 Revisited

April 20, 2015/ Rachelle Goguen

Dave and I took a bit of a break to watch Daredevil (Dave finished it, I am less than halfway through). But now we are back to watch the final four movies leading up to Age of Ultron! Just in time for spring, 2013, it's the Iron Man Christmas movie!

RG: I found it sort of hard to write about Iron Man 3 even though it is fantastic and I love it. I think mostly because it's the third damn Iron Man movie and there are only so many ways I can say Robert Downey Jr is awesome and I love this character.

Quick question, Dave: when you hear the words 'Iron Man' do you think of that kid who came into Strange Adventures years ago and sang "I am Iron Man, killing all the fat kids with my hands" to the tune of Black Sabbath's “Iron Man”? Because I sure do.

DH: I think of that kid and his song often, and fondly. And I think it was “Punchin’ out fat kids with my hands”, which is even funnier somehow.

RG: Either way, it was one of the highlights of my life.

Where I had been suffering from Iron Man fatigue going into The Avengers, I went into this movie full of excitement to see a new Tony Stark story. The Avengers had reignited my love of the character, and I knew within minutes of watching Iron Man 3 that this movie was going to be great. I think the moment was probably when “Blue” by Eiffel 65 played over the flashback scene. That got a huge laugh out of me. Perfect choice to bring us back to 1999/2000.

Tony is kind of rocking a Mia Wallace look too.

DH: I’m also a big fan of Happy Hogan dressed like Vincent Vega in Pulp Fiction. And a big fan of Rebecca Hall in general. One of the only false notes in this movie, for me anyway, is our introduction to Aldrich Killian as a nerdy inventor who idolizes Tony and, when rebuffed, turns to supervillainy. It’s a bit too much like the Riddler in Batman Forever (or, to use a later example, Electro in The Amazing Spider-Man 2).

RG: Just wanna say, though, Guy Pearce was awesome in this movie. Once he’s full villain he is extremely evil. And I love how Miami Vice he looks. Not only because he’s in Miami, but because it kind of fits with what a total nerd who gets rich might think he should dress like.

"I've been waiting for this moment for all my life. Oh lord."

DH: There were three years between this movie and Iron Man 2, and that’s worth noting because there were only two years between the first and second film. I think based on how Iron Man 2 turned out, it’s safe to say that three years is the absolute minimum amount of time needed to turn around another film in a series. Or at least, to make sure it’s a good one. Although I just realized Captain America: Civil War is coming out only 2 years after Winter Soldier--fingers crossed that Marvel has got this sequel game figured out by now. They certainly seem to have it down.

After The Avengers, I remember thinking, “This is as good as it’s gonna get. They can’t possibly maintain this momentum, we’ve seen the peak, it’s all downhill from here.” I was happy to be proven wrong. I’ve enjoyed every movie Marvel has cranked out since.

RG: Yes! I actually think it's a toss-up if I like this movie more or less than The Avengers. I really, really love it. And Winter Soldier is my favourite of the bunch! Although, I am a little concerned about this upcoming Civil War movie. It seems rushed. I dunno.

The phrase “You Know Who I Am” gets repeated a lot throughout this movie, which is fun because there are so many bait-and-switch moments that we don’t really know who anyone is. There are lots of twists and reveals with characters throughout the movie, and there are so many Iron Man suits that the audience, and the characters, often don’t know who, if anyone, is inside them.

DH: This is a movie that genuinely surprised me a number of times, which is not always something that happens in these big tentpole genre movies. I mean, I love them and all, but you can usually figure them out pretty quickly if you’ve seen enough of them.

RG: Following the flashback, we see a slightly crazed Tony building robot suit after robot suit. We get to see his robot pal, Dummy, again, much to my delight. Dummy is wearing a dunce cap, because Tony punishes his robots and I love that so much.

So, it's quickly established that Tony is living an isolated, pretty unhealthy life these days with no sleep and talking mostly to robots and to Jarvis. And then we learn why, and that's when I really fell in love with this movie.

The whole post-traumatic stress disorder plot really impressed me. It just adds a really nice layer to this epic series of films. Aliens can't just show up and destroy New York City without lasting repercussions. At the end of The Avengers we saw Tony Stark, a relatively new superhero, fly a nuclear bomb through a portal to another galaxy. It was expected to be a suicide mission for him. He survived, but he can't just pretend that didn't happen. I love it.

That food they are eating looks really good. When he bolts out of the restaurant I was like "But the food!"

DH: Absolutely. Cap is a soldier, Thor is a warrior god, Black Widow is a superspy, but until fairly recently, Tony was just an inventor and a rich jerk. So to go from that to fighting off an alien army with the fate of the world at stake...there would have to be some fallout.

RG: Tony being on the verge of a nervous breakdown also gives us a great reason for him to build many, many new suits. They are all fun to see. I love the scene where Pepper comes home to what she believes is Tony lounging on the couch in a new suit, but turns out to be a remote controlled suit.

Possibly the funniest image in film history.

I think this movie does so much work developing Tony Stark. This is the fourth movie that he has played a major role in, but I think this one goes way deeper than the other three combined. He's much more human, but also much more heroic.

We have a new winner for funniest image in film history.

“What’s important to me in honoring Favreau and what he’s contributed with the first movies, which I went back and watched again and again, is they’re part-thriller, and there’s also a lot of romantic comedy. The extent to which rom-com figures in the early Iron Man movies is substantial. The relationship stuff — what some people might unkindly call the soap opera stuff — is just as important in some ways as the technology and that was amazing to me. Make them care about the people, make it funny, and then have the mythic stuff that’s sort of dark and powerful and portentous and then take the curse off that, take the piss out of the myth if you can. It’s just juggling.”

— Shane Black, Moviefone, 2013

RG: I remember feeling kind of uneasy in the theatre during the first Mandarin TV spot. It just seemed too real to be enjoyable in the context of a silly blockbuster. But, of course, it's one of several things in this movie that isn't what it seems.

DH: Watching it this time, in the context of things like ISIS, those videos were a lot more troubling to me now than they were when the movie was released. But as you say, they’re not what they seem, and I feel like the ISIS videos didn’t really ramp up until after this movie. If Iron Man 3 came out now, it would come across as pretty insensitive. But as it is, it’s just a case of incredibly unfortunate timing.

“I wanted a voice that would disconcert a Western audience. I wanted a voice that would sound far more homegrown and familiar — a familiarity like a teacher’s voice or a preacher’s voice. The rhythms and tones of an earnest, almost benign, teacher — trying to educate people for their own good. Therefore, that’s the timbre that I used for him. I think it would be more disconcerting and threatening to hear almost a patriarchal voice rather than a screaming, ‘villainous’ voice.”

— Ben Kingsley, The Huffington Post, 2013

RG: Putting Tony in this small town in Tennessee for a decent chunk of the movie is a pretty neat move. For one thing, it eliminates the mystery of why the Avengers aren't helping Tony out. For another, it places Tony outside his comfort zone. And for another THAT KID!!!

Let's just go ahead and make this kid Rick Jones.

Tony's interaction with the kid in Tennessee is incredible. I laughed so hard when the kid told Tony his dad went to go to the store six years ago and never came back and Tony says "Which happens, dads leave. No need to be a pussy about it." Every conversation they have is so great. "Do you know what this crater reminds me of?" "I don't care."

DH: The scenes with the kid should have been terrible, as many scenes with a wisecracking kid can be, but they are really funny. Props to Ty Simpkins’ performance, but also to Drew Pearce and Shane Black’s script.

Speaking of which, Shane Black was the perfect choice to direct this film. I love that he helped RDJ along the comeback trail by having him star in his last movie, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, and it seems like RDJ returned the favour by bringing him on board to direct this movie. I love Black’s 1980s output, like Lethal Weapon and his work on the screenplay for The Monster Squad, and I love how much this movie fits in with his best-known work. It’s kind of a buddy movie (Tony and the kid, Tony and Rhodey, etc), it’s set at Christmas, and like Lethal Weapon, the plot hinges on emotionally-damaged veterans on both sides of the fight.

RG: I think Iron Man 3 might be my favourite Christmas movie now. Shane Black is the master of writing Christmas action flicks, including one of my favourites, The Long Kiss Goodnight.

DH: He also adapts to the style that has been already set down in these movies quite well, while adding his own flourishes. Like having the real-life TV talking heads weigh in on Tony’s latest predicament. Which reminds me, is this Joan Rivers’ last big-screen appearance?

RG: Yes it is! I got real sad when she showed up on screen. Her bit was funny, too!

Adam Pally is delightful in his brief appearance as a Tony Stark superfan. I would have loved to have seen someone like that play Hawkeye.

DH: He has a line about either his Tony-style hair/goatee combo, or his Tony tattoo, where he says “I had them style it after a doll I made”, that killed me. This scene has a fun companion in Winter Soldier, with D.C. Pierson in the Apple store. I love these little moments of regular folks interacting with superheroes.

RG: Let's give it up for Ben Kingsley, who is amazing in both roles that he plays in this movie. That twist is so unexpected and so funny.

Ben Kingsley giving the performance of his career.

DH: If I were a bigger fan of the Iron Man comics, I would probably be a bit disappointed that we didn’t get an actual Mandarin in this movie. But I think the twist here is so well executed and funny that it’s hard to be upset about it. One of my favourite gags in this movie is when Tony makes Mandarin/Slattery’s girlfriends lock themselves in the bathroom after Slattery has just befouled it. If you listen, you can hear the girls say “Ew!” when they are locked in there.

RG: Yes, that's amazing. His performance as that loser actor is so funny. Especially after his legitimately terrifying performance for the first half of the movie. I think maybe it was smart to avoid putting The Mandarin for real in this movie just because that character is a little problematic. And by that I mean "racist." This was a clever way to play it.

Don Cheadle is great in this movie and I am really looking forward to seeing him in Age of Ultron.

DH: For sure. “Little knock and talk, makin’ friends in Pakistan…” more great dialogue. And as I said earlier, I love that the third act is like a buddy cop movie with Rhodey and Tony. It occurred to me that Rhodey getting his own suit of armour might be the only major consequence from Iron Man 2, and therefore the only reason to watch it. And even then, I wouldn’t recommend it.

RG: Yeah, well, this movie shows that there are better uses for the suit than to stop Tony from making a drunken fool of himself at his birthday party.

There is a laugh a minute in this movie. The "honestly, I hate working here. They are so weird" henchman is so great.

Best performance by a one-line actor appearing in a Marvel film.

DH: I wrote that down too! One of my favourite lines as well. Another minor quibble--Tony is kinda bloodthirsty in this movie. Earlier on, he vows to kill the Mandarin, and in this scene, he talks repeatedly about which henchmen he’s going to kill first, then he does appear to kill (or at least, shoot) several of the bad guys. I think maybe Shane Black forgot it was a superhero movie and thought he was just making another action movie. Oh well. It’s all still fairly bloodless, at least.

RG: True, but Tony totally kills the hell out of everyone in the first movie too. He definitely has no problem killing people who attack him or his loved ones. And I guess the whole situation with Pepper being captured and tortured and possibly killed makes Tony a little murdery.

That Air Force One rescue scene is so great. Another great reveal at the end.

Kind of surprised no one died of a heart attack.

DH: I was a little worried that they had shown us too much of that scene in the trailers, but it is still a thrilling set piece. It nails the thing I love so much about the best superhero stories--the hero being presented with an impossible challenge where it seems inevitable that they can’t save everybody, but they somehow find a way to do it. I am way more interested in seeing that than I am in seeing how they fail, and a bunch of people die, and they have to deal with the consequences. That’s how real life works, sadly, and I don’t necessarily want my superhero stories to reflect real life. They’re supposed to provide an escape from it.

RG: Oh yeah. Absolutely. That mid-air rescue was so thrilling and was something that really only Iron Man could do, as far as the Avengers go. It not only required his suit, it required his genius and ingenuity, and also his charm because he had to get through to those people as they were plummeting to their deaths.

DH: This movie has so much more action than Iron Man 2, and it’s all an improvement. And to get back to the dialogue one more time, it is a movie that is stuffed to bursting with great lines. I love the exchange between him and the Extremis-enhanced lady in the kitchen, where she says “Is that all you’ve got? A cheap trick and a cheesy one-liner”? And he comes back with “Sweetheart, that could be the name of my autobiography.”

It’s weird that both this movie and The Winter Soldier feature the hero running around out of costume for the bulk of the running time. Normally that would stick out as a cost-saving measure, or an attempt to trick people into thinking they’re watching anything but a superhero movie, but Tony Stark and Steve Rogers are so well-defined by this point, and we have so much invested in them, that it doesn’t matter that they’re in civilian clothes for the entire middle act.

RG: I was 100% fine with Steve Rogers not wearing a costume. Especially fine with him not wearing a mask. He could have been wearing less, even. I can't wait to write about that movie.

I'll say this, too: Tony Stark looked good in this movie. Not a lot of weird tinted glasses or flashy clothes. Plus his facial hair is a little more filled in due to being on the run for most of the film. For real I wish RDJ would stop with the tinted glasses in real life. He's so handsome! His eyes are his best feature! Stop with the weird glasses!

I really like Pepper’s role in this movie too. I like her being both exasperated with, and concerned about, Tony. I like her hanging out on the run with Rebecca Hall. I like her kicking Killian’s ass at the end, and then being kind of horrified about it. I am a fan of Paltrow as Pepper.

Actually just a paparazzi photo of Paltrow.

“It was important, especially to take the curse off the damsel in distress thing. I have a hankering for empowered females trashing stuff. Especially when that stuff includes this metal suit that’s been impinging on their relationship. Literally showing up in their bedroom at night and driving her to distraction. It’s in essence Tony’s lover. It’s become the other woman. This f—-ing Iron Man. So she, at the end, has a chance to exact some vengeance on it and reclaim her boyfriend.”

— Shane Black, Moviefone, 2013

“Gwyneth is... to me, the moment that we knew that this was going to be special six years ago was when Gwyneth walked into the Howard Hughes stages down in Playa Vista and we started rehearsing with her. That’s when we knew. The best.”

— Robert Downey Jr., Empire, 2013

RG: This movie was supposed to be the last Iron Man movie, although now there are rumours that there will be an Iron Man 4. And why not? Robert Downey Jr makes like a hundred million dollars for each of these movies. May as well! But the ending of this movie was supposed to be a nice finish to the trilogy, and it was great. I will miss the glowing arc reactor on his chest, though. It looked super cool. I love the moment when he finds the little screwdriver in the rubble of his former home. And that he has his robot friends piled into a trailer behind his car.

“I’m not stupid. I like to play ball. I love the company, I love the character, and the people I get to work with and then there’s just the business side of things. I’m not too picky about that either. Let’s see what happens. Chances are... I don’t know... I also take the audience very seriously. I feel bad when I see folks doing movies and the audience is like, ‘Don’t do that anymore.’”

— Robert Downey Jr., Empire, 2013

RG: The credits, as per usual, are rad, and provide a nice look back at all three movies. And, oh God, that scene at the end of the credits is MY FAVOURITE! Yet another fantastic reveal at the end of a movie that has so many. Why was the whole movie narrated by Tony Stark? Because he was telling the whole thing to his long-suffering pal Bruce Banner! For real, Tony, get a real psychiatrist. You definitely need one.

Hey, just be glad you weren't around to listen to the plot of Iron Man 2, Banner.

I'll wrap this up by saying that I love Robert Downey Jr. and I am thrilled the he has signed on for Civil War. He just joined Instagram recently and I would recommend following him, especially during this Age of Ultron press tour. He is truly earning the all-the-money-in-the-world they are paying him.

Up next, we go back to Asgard for Thor 2! I can never remember the subtitle!

April 12, 2015

Countdown to Age of Ultron: The Avengers Revisited

April 12, 2015/ Rachelle Goguen

Hey, put down that Daredevil, it's Avengers time!

Dave and I assembled at his house to watch The Avengers for what was probably the trillionth time for each of us. There are still things I notice for the first time, though, because this movie is GREAT.

Going back to 2012, the excitement for this movie was obviously high. I would say it had reached a fever pitch after the perfection of Captain America: The First Avenger. I remember sitting in the theatre and each time one of the heroes was introduced I would think "oh yeah, he's in this too!!!"

This movie was a real gift to super hero fans. Here's what we have to say about it three years later.

I hope you like way too many screen caps of Chris Evans!

DH: I’m always still a little baffled that this movie exists. Avengers comics were some of the first comic books I ever owned, and I read them until they fell apart. I don’t think I ever really thought much about the possibility of a movie, because the only way for it to work would be a bunch of solo movies that led to a team movie. And that really did not seem like a realistic prospect, even ten years ago. Yet here we are. And the fact that it’s really, really good isn’t bad either. I sometimes wish these movies had come out when I was much younger, but if they had, I don’t know that I would have appreciated them the way I do now.

RG: It’s surreal. Everything is surreal. I still can’t believe there is a Winter Soldier movie, or that there is a Daredevil series on Netflix. This Avengers movie is now three years old and I still get giddy whenever Iron Man and Captain America are on screen together.

First thoughts: Loki looks horrible in this movie.

DH: A lot of people look very gross in this movie. Loki is super sweaty and greasy-looking when he first arrives on Earth, and when he mind-controls Hawkeye and Dr. Selvig, they get progressively more disgusting. They get bags under their eyes, they stop shaving, and we can only assume they stop showering and brushing their teeth. I bet they smell terrible.

RG: Oh my God. Hawkeye and Selvig look SO TERRIBLE. It makes me laugh every time. Like, what special effects person did they piss off?

I should note that I think Loki is fantastic in this movie, he just looks rough. It’s some pretty terrible hair.

But there are plenty of people in this movie who look anything but terrible. Pour example:

I swear I will post some pics that aren't of Chris Evans.

DH: I was pretty psyched to see “Project Pegasus” name-checked on the outside of the S.H.I.E.L.D. facility. That run of Marvel Two-In-One is an old favourite of mine.

RG: I love Agent Hill. I was really excited to see her included in these movies. Looking forward to more of her in Age of Ultron.

DH: It’s nice that they included at least one more prominent female character. More still would be nice.

RG: Yes, always. Black Widow's first scene is the best. Very Buffy.

I will never be even 1% as cool as this character.

DH: Like I was saying about Iron Man 2, ScarJo really sells it. I mean, she beats up three dudes while tied to a chair! In a cocktail dress! She really needs her own movie.

RG: There are two Black Widow-centric movies I would love to see: A Black Widow & Hawkeye backstory movie (he was sent to kill her and instead saved her?! I want to see THAT!), and I would love a Winter Soldier sequel where she goes looking for Bucky. I am VERY concerned that this upcoming Civil War movie isn’t going to devote enough time to that story. Also, I love Black Widow and Bucky as a couple.

I love how they establish Black Widow as being tough as shit, but then completely terrified of The Hulk.

DH: Ruffalo makes the Banner role his own very quickly, which couldn’t have been easy after the musical chairs of casting that preceded him. I like how easygoing he is, but how he’s always kind of fidgeting with his hands. Did you know Joaquin Phoenix almost got this part? I can’t imagine that at all.

RG: Weird. Wasn’t he also rumoured to be Dr. Strange? Maybe he’ll be Spider-Man.

Banner took some time between The Incredible Hulk and this movie to improve his mind, body, face and personality.

“I basically based my character entirely on my 10-year-old boy, who has all of the force of nature screaming out of his body while at the same time having everyone around him telling him to fucking control himself.”

— Mark Ruffalo, Collider, 2012

“I have a question: How come it’s only Harry Dean Stanton that got to see Mark Ruffalo naked? ”

— Robert Downey Jr., Collider, 2012

RG: Mark Ruffalo is everything I want in a Bruce Banner. And in a life partner. Oddly, he is the only hero we get to see shirtless in this movie. OH my GOD. Something just occurred to me: we haven’t seen Captain America or Thor shirtless in any movies after their first ones, have we? That is just a travesty. I don’t expect you to weigh in on this, Dave, so I’ll move on.

DH: I feel like there was a very gratuitous shirtless Thor in The Dark World, but I’ll guess we’ll know when we revisit that.

RG: Ooo! There's something to look forward to!

I was actually kind of over Iron Man at this point and wasn't looking forward to him in this movie, but he completely won me back. So great in this. When he shows up in Germany, blasting “Shoot to Thrill”, to help Cap stop Loki, I was like “Alright. I love this guy.” And when Iron Man and Captain America are standing next to each other at the end of that scene...so great!

"Thanks for saving my life, Mr Stark. You are human garbage and I hate you."

DH: It’s one of the things Joss Whedon does very well here--introducing all the characters in scenes that feel like their own individual movies, then bringing them together and it starts to feel like its own thing. The Tony and Pepper scene is very banter-heavy, with kind of a His Girl Friday back-and-forth, the Banner scene has him on the run playing good samaritan in an exotic locale like it’s an episode of the old TV show, Thor and Loki have super Shakespeare-by-way-of-Lee-and-Kirby conversation when they’re on screen together...balancing all of these conflicting tones was the key.

RG: Yes, totally. It was really smart the way they gave us a little bit of each of their solo films before mixing things up. I am really looking forward to more character interactions in Age of Ultron. And, again, it wouldn’t have been nearly as satisfying to see these characters brought together if they weren’t so well established already. There is so much love and respect for these characters in these movies. So much attention to detail. For example, I love Steve Rogers' old man with a cool jacket wardrobe in this movie.

Dad's going to Red Lobster for his birthday!

DH: And the fact that he calls Black Widow “ma’am”!

RG: I just love him so much. When he’s like “There’s only one God, ma’am.” Yup, that’s Captain America.

Just want to say real quick: the gym scene with Steve Rogers and Nick Fury at the beginning is one of my favourites. And not just because of the gratuitous Chris Evans ass shots. I mean, Steve’s situation in this movie is extremely messed up, and I like that the movie took as much time as it could afford with that. And we also see a quick shot of Cap being defrosted that really makes me sad.

Speaking of Chris Evans ass shots, Captain America is almost exclusively shot from behind for this entire movie. Thumbs up, movie!

Doesn't this break, like, the first rule of acting?

Anyway, what were we talking about? Oh, right. Characterization. The glaring exception to the perfect characterization is Hawkeye. Hawkeye should be a lot more fun than this character. Also, Renner looks so gross when Loki is controlling him. Like, worse than usual.

DH: I really hope Joss Whedon can make you like him in Age Of Ultron! Because, man, you really have it in for him.

RG: I will never agree with that casting choice, but I love Hawkeye as a character in the comics so I will try hard to see past it.

DH: For whatever reason, the first time I saw this, the scene on the Helicarrier where Black Widow introduces Steve Rogers to Bruce Banner was when it finally sunk in that this movie was happening. All I could think of was those old Hostess Fruit Pie ads with the Marvel heroes, and that those guys were all in a movie together now. It was a weird thing to be thinking about, but I guess my brain was just trying to process that through-line of these characters I had been reading about my whole life all colliding in one awesome movie.

RG: They should have had a scene where they ate fruit pies. It should have been one of the snacks Tony is offering around.

I love everything about that first Helicarrier scene. Bruce being all fidgety and Cap extending a hand to him in a completely non-judgemental and fearless way. And then Cap being all impressed by the fancy tech inside the ship.

DH: We got together to watch this the other night, and you kept remarking that Cap is a real dick to Tony in this movie. I was trying to defend Cap, but not doing a very good job at the time. Now I’ve had a chance to think on it for a bit, and my takeaway is that, for Cap, World War II was probably only like, what, a month ago from his perspective? He comes from a time when he had no reason not to trust his army and his government, so the fact that Tony is instantly mistrustful of them and starts hacking their computers is just unthinkable to him. We know from his first scene that he’s aware that the country has sort of lost its way, but they don’t really go into it. But Tony plants that seed of doubt, and it makes him crazy--especially when he does some digging and sees that Tony was right. In a sense, this movie is kind of about Captain America’s loss of innocence (although maybe not in the way that you were hoping for, Rachelle).

Cap has such a visible wig line in this movie. It's super distracting.

RG: Ha. Yeah, I agree with all of that. It was also pointed out to me that Loki’s sceptre is in the room for most of the arguments, and it seems to have the power to make people angry and paranoid, so that explains some of Cap’s dickishness.

I do think Cap shoots first in this ongoing fight with Iron Man. All Tony did was show up in Germany, save Cap’s ass, and then show everyone that he has a lot of interest and knowledge about what’s going on with the Tesseract. In response Cap is basically just like “You’re a punk who is nothing without your fancy suit.” Fancy suit that he BUILT, Steve. And, again, just saved your ass with. I’m just saying Steve should have done a bit of research into Tony Stark before being such an asshole to him.

DH: Cap vs. Tony is just one of the great hero vs. hero scenes in this movie, even if it’s the only one that doesn’t turn physical (sorry, Rachelle).

RG: That’s ok. I’m more of a Cap/Bucky shipper.

“You don’t get these people together and then have a little duke-‘em-out. You get these people together and then you put them through hell.”

— Joss Whedon, GQ, 2012

DH: A classic trope of superhero team-ups in comics is that they fight first, through some wacky misunderstanding or other. And everybody gets to fight everyone else before they team up! Thor vs. Iron Man, Thor vs. Hulk, Black Widow vs. (well, gets chased by) Hulk, Black Widow vs. Hawkeye...and all for good reason, none of the usual “I just wanted to make sure you are who you claim to be” stuff that was often the reason in the comics.

RG: I could watch ScarJo smash Renner’s face in all day.

The fight between Thor, Iron Man and Captain America is one of the greatest things I have ever seen on film. It’s just, so, so exciting to see those characters together on screen. And they all are very much themselves in that fight. I live for that moment at when Cap shows up standing on that tree after hitting both Thor and Iron Man with his shield to stop them from fighting.

I'm Canadian and even I get a little patriotic looking at this.

“There was a script. There just wasn’t a script I was going to film a word of.”

— Joss Whedon, GQ, 2012

“What impressed me the most about Joss initially was the incredible screenplay we had to work with on Marvel’s The Avengers . Directing this film was a feat in itself, but his screenplay was phenomenal. I’m sure none of us really knew what to expect, but I take my hat off to Joss for that.”

— Tom Hiddleston, GamesRadar, 2012

“The biggest thing I worried about was making shitty fucking movies. I don’t want to make shitty movies and be contractually obligated to make garbage.”

— Chris Evans, The Huffington Post, 2012

DH: Whedon’s script is so tight, He has such a good handle on the characters. I once read a review of an early episode of Community that praised the character writing, and said that you could read any isolated line of dialogue without it being attributed to any one character, and even by that early point in the series, you would know instantly who was speaking. The characters were so clearly defined already that you would never mistake any one character’s dialogue for another. And I feel like that holds true for this movie as well. Whedon is known for quippy dialogue, and this could have easily turned into a bunch of characters cracking the same kinds of jokes for the whole movie, and it would have been excruciating. But they’re all very different, so it makes sense that it takes a while for them to start pulling together. And it’s that much more satisfying when they do.

You know who else is probably sweating like crazy throughout this movie? Samuel L Jackson.

RG: I would love to read the original Zak Penn script for this movie. I'll bet it was just awful. Fun fact: Penn is buddies with Jeremy Renner and is the reason he was cast as Hawkeye! Thanks, Zak!

The most satisfying thing about this movie (and pretty much all of the movies in the series, really) is how much respect the scripts have for the characters. Each character individually is perfectly realized (except Hawkeye) and the way they interact with each other in this movie is perfect. I love skittish, schlubby Bruce Banner. I love cocky, quippy, but good-hearted Tony Stark. I love ice cold, but fiercely protective Black Widow. I love Thor, who is clearly devastated about his brother, but is still remarkably fun and friendly. I love Captain America effortlessly taking on the leadership role, despite trying not to have a complete break-down over the fact that he just woke up 70 years in the future. And even this weird-ass version of Hawkeye has some intriguing elements. He at least hints at an interesting backstory.

“At the end of the day, 90% of the movie, I’m not the character I signed on to play. I’m literally in there for two minutes, and then all of a sudden… All I could really work on was the physical part of it all, because that didn’t change. That was just the biggest challenge to overcome in playing the guy.”

— Jeremy Renner, LA Times, 2012

She's just ridiculously out of his league.

DH: On a related note, the story ties them all together so well, using the individual mythologies from their own movies in the larger story of this movie. They need Banner to track the gamma signature from the Tesseract, which Cap is familiar with from his movie, which Loki is after so Thor is in hot pursuit...and Iron Man’s movies made the most money, so him too. I actually can’t remember why they need him other than the fact that he’s a brainiac.

RG: It is a little unclear why they recruit Tony for this since they also mention that he was rejected for the Avengers Initiative. But he is very smart, and maybe they figured Banner could use a friend.

I would watch a whole movie about these two.

“I think without Tony, we don’t work. He really is the glue in the family. He is the fire, the thing that keeps you coming back. I think, at least for this movie, Cap’s struggling with finding his footing in this modern day – he’s a fish out of water. He’s a little more uncomfortable in his own skin than he normally might be, and he’s not hitting the ground running without the charisma and the leadership and the character that Tony Stark is.”

— Chris Evans, Collider, 2012

DH: I can’t get enough of the Thor/Hulk fight. I love how Hulk is such a dummy, especially when he grabs that pilot’s ejection seat, and then he doesn’t know what to do with it so he just throws it away.

RG: That is one of my favourite parts of the whole movie. That poor pilot!

This pilot probably tells this story a lot.

DH: Watching this time, though, it occurred to me--does anyone ever tell Thor that Banner and Hulk are one and the same? He calls him Banner, but they have no prior familiarity. Other than that stupid TV movie from the 1980s!

RG: That is an excellent point. I feel like Thor doesn’t know anything about anything, but he’s so good-natured he just goes with the flow. Really the only person Thor met before is Agent Coulson.

“ I like the visceral gut instinct that Thor has. There’s a bit of a childlike quality, in the sense that, if he believes something and wants to do something, he does it and says it. ”

— Chris Hemsworth, Collider, 2012

Let’s talk costumes! I do not like Thor’s costume in this except the choice to go sleeveless. Excellent move.

I actually like Captain America’s costume. I like that they went with bright colours. I can live with his ears being covered, even if it doesn’t really make sense. I like that it has a zipper up the front with some sort of velcro(?) panel. I will say this: that costume looks uncomfortably warm. In this scene all I can think about is how hot Chris Evans is, and for once I am not talking about his good looks:

Somebody please get him a glass of water.

My theory is that the costume being very warm is why we get to see my favourite look in the whole movie later: casual Cap:

I would like a movie where Tony takes Steve shopping for clothes.

Under Armour and ridiculous boots! I love it!

“Everybody looks incredibly uncomfortable until the cameras are rolling and then we all look f#@king badass. Then “Cut!” and we’re all like, ‘Aarrrgh… God, this thing, get it off me, it’s awful!!’”

— Scarlett Johansson, IGN, 2012

Iron Man looks perfect, and I like Tony’s designer Black Sabbath shirt. Black Widow’s costume is excellent, and never unzipped too far. I love Bruce Banner’s loose-fitting linen clothes, and The Hulk finally looks the way he should on screen.

One part of this movie that always makes me laugh is when Captain America asks Hawkeye if he has a suit before they head to NYC. It’s funny because Clint’s “suit” is really not that different from what he’s wearing in the scene. Also, Captain America assumes everyone has a fancy fighting outfit.

DH: I really do wish Hawkeye had some kind of headgear, a helmet or something, to make him look at least a bit more like his comic-book counterpart. It would makes sense after all, what with being just a regular human.

RG: It would also hide his face! Zing!

DH: Remember all the hysteria and speculation about the alien invaders in this movie? How everyone thought they were going to be Skrulls, or the Sons of Muspelheim from Simonson’s Thor run, or the Kree? And then they just end up being the Chitauri from The Ultimates, in name only, really. It didn’t really matter in the end, they just needed a faceless army to beat up on.

RG: Yeah, I had no idea who those aliens were supposed to be. I do not read Ultimates comics.

DH: The final battle in New York is very satisfying. It could have been a confusing fiasco to watch, like a Transformers movie, but it has a very sensible geography to it. You can actually follow the action, and everything everybody does in it makes sense. All of the various fighting styles of the heroes, and how they all start to work together...I love it. Age Of Ultron really does have a lot to live up to. But I feel like most of this climactic battle was kept out of the advertising, and I also feel that we probably haven’t seen much of the sequel’s climactic battle yet either.

As badass as a person can possibly look.

RG: The New York battle is amazing. There are so many great parts, and actually Hawkeye has some great moments during it. They definitely try to make up for him being a mindless puppet for the first half of the movie. He’s still not everything I want to see in a Hawkeye, but he has some very cool moves.

It takes guts to go sleeveless when you are in a movie with Chris Hemsworth.

I laughed forever after Thor and Hulk took out that giant monster and Thor looked at Hulk like “Well done, partner!” then Hulk just punches him so hard! And of course Hulk going to town on Loki. I think my favourite part of the New York battle is when Black Widow gets Cap to give her a boost so she can hijack one of the alien speeder things. I think it’s a great character moment for her, showing her as fearless but also kind of fun. And I think Cap becomes at least a little sexually interested in her at that moment. He’d have to, right?

DH: I assume so! As he says in Winter Soldier, “I’m 95, I’m not dead.”

"How do you feel about 90-year-old virgins?"

RG: Oh, and Tony sacrificing himself to save everyone? Gets me every time. Especially when everyone is so sad around his lifeless body after he falls back to Earth. When Hulk yells in his face to wake him up, and Tony says “What the hell?”...that is solid gold.

I also love the scene where they are all parting ways. Tony and Steve shaking hands, Tony and Bruce leaving together to go be science bros, Hawkeye looking terrible, Steve taking off on his motorcycle in his dad clothes, Thor and Loki beaming up to Asgard.

Captain America is supposed to be dressed like a dork. What's this guy's excuse? — Captain America is *supposed* to be dressed like a dork. What's this guy's excuse?

I feel like Bruce Banner should have been in Iron Man 3. That would have made sense, right?

DH: Well, spoiler alert I guess, but he is, isn’t he? After the credits? Does that count?

RG: No, that's true. And it's probably my favourite end-of-credits scene of all of them.

DH: I can’t believe I didn’t see that Thanos reveal coming. They really do hint heavily that some cosmic baddie is behind everything earlier in the movie (“You would question him? He who put the sceptre in your hand?”), but I was still caught off guard by that mid-credits scene. That reveal was hugely confusing to non-comics fans--my girlfriend Hillary turned to me and asked, “Is that Hellboy?” I thought there would be some vague tease of something, a name we recognized, or a familiar symbol or something...nope, Thanos himself. A pretty big gauntlet to throw down, if you will.

RG: Yeah, that was hard to explain to non-comic fans. It was ballsy for sure. For the normals they included the very excellent shawarma scene at the end of the credits, which is hilarious and perfect. I had my doubt that a shawarma place in midtown Manhattan would still be open after that fight, but you proved me wrong, movie! Shawarma is an excellent food that we have an abundance of here in Halifax, Nova Scotia, so it was nice to see it get a little recognition.

I would watch a whole movie where the Avengers are just hanging out doing stuff together. I guess that’s what fanfic is for.

Whoosh! That was a lot, and we didn't even get into fun details like Agent Coulson being such a Captain America fanboy, or Nick Fury doing anything! Anyway, we are going to take a few days to watch and digest this new Daredevil series and then we'll be back with our thoughts on Iron Man 3!

April 02, 2015

Countdown to Age of Ultron: Iron Man 2 Revisited

April 02, 2015/ Rachelle Goguen

Sometimes a great work of art has an intentional flaw so you know it was was made by a human being. Let’s pretend that’s what Marvel Studios was going for with Iron Man 2. A chink in the armor, as it were.

Let’s get this over with!

RG: It’s spring, 2010. I had very recently become a mother and was excited about a night out at the movies. We open on Moscow and I am buzzing with excitement over this new Iron Man movie that is definitely going to be FANTASTIC.

Like The Incredible Hulk, I have only seen Iron Man 2 once. It's the only one I've been dreading re-watching. And now that I have…

Those brief opening minutes when I thought this movie would be good.

RG: I actually like the Stark Expo. It's completely ridiculous but it's very Tony. They should have just filmed it at ComicCon. I also like John Slattery as Howard Stark, even though nothing he does in this movie makes sense. And he looks nothing like Dominic Cooper.

Tony Stark looks ten years older in this movie. Gwyenth Paltrow looks fantastic. Rhodes looks better, too.

I reacted to Garry Shandling's appearance in this movie the same way I reacted when he showed up in The Winter Soldier: spit take. I always forget he's in these movies.

DH: He looks weird in this but not nearly as weird as he does in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, where he seems to be auditioning for a Henry Kissinger biopic. I can’t tell if he had too much Botox injected into his face, or if he’s just aging strangely, but he looks hideous!

RG: I also forgot that Sam Rockwell is in this movie.

DH: The way Rockwell is used here is very similar to the way Topher Grace is used as Eddie Brock in Spider-Man 3--he’s not very close to his comic book counterpart, but instead is basically a smarmy doppelganger of our hero. A good villain provides contrast with the hero, but having a villain who’s only slightly more of an ass than the hero isn’t very interesting to watch.

RG: Yes, that is exactly right. And, actually, everyone in this movie talks like Tony Stark. Justin Hammer is Tony Stark. James Rhodes is Tony Stark. Black Widow is Tony Stark. It's the worst.

“The first one changed everything for me and with the second ‘Iron Man’ there were certain aspects that were dissatisfying and disappointing to me but at least they lit me right.”

— Robert Downey Jr., Los Angeles Times, 2011

“Here we knew that people were going to show up. We just wanted to make sure that everyone who showed up had a good time and that this was going to be fun or more fun than the last party. So it’s a different kind of pressure.”

— Jon Favreau, Iron Man 2 Press Conference, 2010

DH: The movie seems to start out from a very odd notion that, somehow, by building a robot suit, Tony Stark seems to have brought about world peace. Every TV news talking head in this movie is always going on about how he protects everyone, and when he’s at the Senate subcommittee hearing Tony is boasting about how he’s responsible for the longest period of uninterrupted peace in years or something. Then later, when things aren’t going so well for Tony, everyone is all like “How will Iron Man protect us?” The script is kind of childishly simple in that respect. One guy in a battle suit = total world peace within two years, a peace that is also completely dependent on the reliability of that one guy. What?

RG: It's beyond dumb.

Will be performing his Mindfreak magic act all month in Vegas.

RG: Whiplash is a terrible choice for a villain, and Mickey Rourke is a terrible choice to play him. And it looks like he refused wardrobe and just wore his own clothes. He also got really involved in choosing the tattoos for his character, and apparently paid for the bird and the gold teeth with his own money. What is with Marvel's obsession with getting very difficult to work with Oscar nominees in these films? It never works, guys! It's like the ice cream machine on Chopped!

DH: I have no idea what that means.

RG: Every time Mickey Rourke is on the screen my brain screams WHO CARES?! Look, he's a perfectly good actor when he wants to be and he really does try hard with this stupid, stupid character, but still...

“Question: ‘Can you talk about how much fun it was to play this character, Mickey?’
Rourke: ‘I had a lot of fun.’”

— Iron Man 2 Press Conference, 2010

RG: Ok, so let's talk about Black Widow, because this is where she is introduced. Don't remember that? It's completely forgettable. Why was she in the boxing ring with Happy? I mean, seriously, why? And why would she kick his ass? Isn't she supposed to be undercover?

I'm trying to enjoy her more in this movie than I did the first time because now I know where her character ends up. I mean, she is seriously so great in The Avengers and in Winter Soldier. Thank God. I was so depressed after I saw this movie the first time.

I'm so glad they fix her hair in the next movie.

RG: THE CAR RACING SCENE IS SO BORING AND DUMB!!!

Seriously save it for a movie that doesn't have a guy with a FLYING ROBOT SUIT. Happy driving a car the wrong way on a race track: that is some intense super hero action.

The Iron Man briefcase: cool or ridiculous? Dave?

DH: I’m gonna go with cool. I wish we’d gotten to see more of that red and silver suit, too. Pretty sharp.

RG: Drunk Tony Stark in Iron Man costume DJing: hilarious or horrible? I honestly can't decide.

DH: I kind of snickered and then immediately rolled my eyes. It’s a pretty cheap gag.

RG: THE ORIGIN STORY OF WAR MACHINE: Rhodes puts on a suit to stop drunk Tony from skeet shooting champagne bottles!!! This movie is terrible!!!

I will say this: nothing makes me laugh like an Iron Man suit emoting. Whether it's in these movies or in the comics. Always funny.

I don't wanna wait for our liiiiiiiiiives to be over...

Also funny: the scene in the donut shop with Fury where Tony is still wearing the suit. It's also the reveal of Black Widow, which I remembered being much later in the movie, so yay!

Can you imagine sitting while wearing that suit? That must feel so weird.

DH: Her presence in this movie is badly handled, but I love Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow. I mean, I know she’s not really kicking those guys’ asses, but for me it’s like Christopher Reeve as Superman: I know he’s not really flying, but he sells it with his performance. He makes you believe it. And she makes you believe she can beat the everloving bejesus about of anyone in the room.

“At the end of the day you’ve got some nerd with a pocketful of money calling the shots. You know, Favreau didn’t call the shots. I wish he would have.”

— Mickey Rourke, Crave Online, 2011

RG: I don't like how GUNS! GUNS! GUNS! GUNS! this movie is. It's exactly what I feared these movies would be and it's exactly what they don't do in the excellent movies that come after this one. As I am watching this I am thinking about how great Captain America: The First Avenger is and tears are streaming down my face.

I actually think the climax scene at the Hammer Expo with all the drones and Rhodes being controlled by Venko is pretty good. Not amazing, but a decent Iron Man action scene. Black Widow's action scene at the end is also pretty rad.

DH: It all looks cool and everything, but as I was watching it this time, I found myself asking “What is anyone even trying to accomplish in this scene?” Like, everything’s going fine at the Expo, but then Tony shows up and says “These people are all in danger”, and then Vanko activates the Hammeroids (gotta admit, that one is pretty funny) and all hell breaks loose. What exactly would have happened if Tony hadn’t shown up? What exactly was the plan here?

Don't let this image fool you. This movie is not good.

RG: I do love the botanical garden setting where Tony and Rhodes' fight ends. One of my favourite things about superhero movies is when they place the characters in costume in ridiculous settings.

But then Whiplash shows up in a stupid robot suit with electrowhips, and Rhodes is not kidding when he says "This isn't going to be good." It is not good at all.

DH: One of the biggest problems with this movie is that it’s a superhero movie with only two (maybe three, if you count the fight between Tony and Rhodey at the party) action scenes--the fight in Monaco, and the fight at the end. Why would you want to watch, or make, a superhero movie with almost no action in it? It’s like when people tell me they like The Ultimates because it’s what superheroes would really be like if they existed. Do people want to read superhero comic books for gritty realism? I read ‘em to ESCAPE gritty realism! And I don’t watch superhero movies to see people arguing about parrots or strawberry allergies or trying to make imaginary elements or whatever! I’ve already compared this movie to Spider-Man 3 (which, for the record again, you and I enjoyed), and it’s also similar to most of the Batman sequels in that it has more than one villain who separately bedevil our hero, then join forces to try and destroy them. But unlike Iron Man 2, those movies have action scenes peppered throughout them. This movie is just tedious.

Oh yeah, and that whole subplot about Tony’s heart slowly killing him is complete nonsense. Howard Stark hid a puzzle inside the Stark Expo, which you can only see using holographic technology that wouldn’t have existed at that point, knowing that his son would have one day built a robot suit and then needed a new artificial heart because the old one was killing him? Is that what happened? I honestly have no idea.

RG: YES! Oh my GOD that subplot was weak. It's just so low stakes, too. Tony's thingamajig is killing him. Ok, so he'll build a better one. It's just not interesting.

DH: “Well, son, you had a circle and now it’s killing you, so what you REALLY need is a triangle.”

RG: Speaking of not interesting, who doesn't have a custom robot suit in this movie? Almost no one.

So many people are dying all over the city right now.

RG: Rhodes providing commentary on Tony and Pepper's kiss is so weird but pretty funny. I do love Don Cheadle. Rhodes probably should have been saving people from those exploding robots, though, instead of lounging on a rooftop watching his friends make out. Again, very little superheroing in this movie.

The Thor tease at the end of the credits is the best part of this movie.

Alright! It’s over! I never have to watch that movie again until they produce the very last Marvel movie and Dave and I inevitably watch all seventy of them from the beginning.

We move on now to Thor, Captain America: The First Avenger, and The Avengers, which means I will be in a state of constant arousal for several days!

March 30, 2015

Countdown to Age of Ultron – Iron Man Revisited

March 30, 2015/ Rachelle Goguen

Are you guys excited about The Avengers: Age of Ultron? WE ARE!!!!

And because we look for basically any excuse to watch any or all of these movies, Dave and I are re-watching all of the Marvel Studios flicks, in order, leading up to the new one.

With the exception of the Thor movies, I think Dave and I saw all of the Avengers-verse films together on opening night, or advance screening night. Now we are watching them separately and sharing our thoughts. I thought it would be fun to compare our thoughts now that we know how huge this Marvel movie thing was going to get to how we felt when the movies were first coming out. We are also going to pull quotes from old interviews with the cast members and directors, just to add a little historical interest.

Some questions we hope to answer: Is Iron Man 2 as bad as we remember? Why am I so lukewarm on the Thor movies? Does The Incredible Hulk with Ed Norton fit in at all? Which is the best movie of the bunch so far? Why is Hawkeye so shitty?

So, starting where it all began, Dave and I watched Iron Man this week.

“I’m between two phases right now, pre-Iron Man and post-Iron Man, and the transition can be tricky…It’s not an algorithm anymore. It’s a fixed number. Things have been zeroed out; it’s the beginning of something.”

— Robert Downey Jr., Rolling Stone, 2008

RG: I don’t think I’ve watched this movie since like 2009. But I watched it a LOT of times before then. I’m trying to mentally go back to a time before any of these legit Marvel movies had come out.

DH: I’m a few years older than you, so I have even more years of crushed hopes and bitter disappointment with superhero movies (both planned and executed) under my belt. Deals were always being struck with studios and directors for comic movies that never came to pass, and until X-Men, Marvel was basically selling their movie rights for pennies to anyone who asked. Adding insult to injury was the fact that, when a good superhero movie like The Rocketeer came along, nobody went to see it. So Iron Man kind of had a lot riding on it.

“Is it too soon to say that Iron Man is going to be the greatest movie of all time? I don’t care. I’m saying it anyway.”

— Rachelle Goguen, Living Between Wednesdays, 2007

RG: Ok, it’s early 2008. In the past eight or so years we’ve had three Spider-Man movies (and I like all three of them, haters!), two terrible Fantastic Four movies, a weird Hulk movie, three kind of ok X-Men movies, a Superman movie that I really liked but most people didn’t, and one very promising beginning to a new Batman trilogy.

DH: I like Superman Returns too, and I also like all three Spider-Man movies. I even like the first Fantastic Four movie! Johnny and Ben at least were perfect. And I liked that it didn’t take itself too seriously, a “problem” that the upcoming reboot looks to have “fixed”.

RG: I secretly don’t hate that first Fantastic Four movie either. Any movie where Chris Evans burns all of his clothes off has some redeeming qualities. And it is fun.

I remember hopes being sky high for this Iron Man movie. The trailers looked great, seemed to be perfect casting, and Marvel Studios was actually making it. Most importantly, it looked fun. I also remember a general feeling that it seemed risky to be making an Iron Man movie. If Superman Returns didn’t draw big, how could a movie about a hero who isn’t Superman, Batman, or Spider-Man?

DH: It’s kind of hard to remember that RDJ was NOT one of the biggest stars on the planet before this movie, isn’t it? And that Tony Stark & Iron Man weren’t household names?

RG: Yeah! He was like stunt casting. Recovered alcoholic to play alcoholic super hero.

When I went to see it opening night I was both excited and worried. But the cold open of this movie is genius. It sets the tone and I think I was immediately sold on the whole thing within 60 seconds.

DH: Yep, it packs a lot of character information into a very short amount of time and is super fast paced. By the 45-minute mark, he’s already built the Mark 1 and blasted his way out of Afghanistan. Not bad!

RG: Watching it now I am still blown away by that opening scene. It not only sets the tone for this movie, it sets it for the entire Avengers franchise that is to follow. Robert Downey Jr, obviously, nails the character, and there’s a great blend of humour and real world drama.

Everything just looks perfect in this movie, too. From Tony Stark himself to his Malibu cliffside mansion to Pepper Potts to the suit(s) to Tony’s workshop. And the Robert Altman style dialogue-on-top-of-dialogue is a great idea.

DH: Robert Downey Jr. pretty much steps into this role fully formed, right from his first dialogue. He and Tony are interchangeable--I don’t think Marvel can ever recast this part. This one piece of perfect casting was basically the foundation stone of their entire empire.

“There’s no harm in being locked into a potentially lucrative franchise, and that’s why I did it.”

— Terrence Howard, The Guardian, 2008

RG: Remember how Terrence Howard was in this movie? They fixed that. Good move.

It's kind of sad when Terrence Howard looks at the new Iron Man suit and says "Next time, baby," because, y'know. Nope. I feel like that (awesome) scene on the plane where Tony and Rhodes are supposed to be drunk and Tony looks really annoyed with him...I don’t think that was acting.

DH: I’m not sure he was right for the part--he was the first person they cast in this movie, hot off his Oscar nomination for Hustle & Flow, and I’ve heard that because of that, he was actually the highest-paid actor in this movie.

RG: WHAAAAAAATTT??!!

DH: That, combined with rumours of those good old “creative differences”, was reportedly why he was replaced with Don Cheadle. I don’t know that Cheadle is the best fit for the part of Rhodey either, but I’ve always really liked him so I’m fine with it.

RG: Agreed, but I love Don Cheadle and he seems like a very nice person. It’s important to me that they only cast nice people in these movies (even though they totally cast known assholes like Josh Brolin sometimes).

Iron Man could have been a real flag-waving, anti-Muslim, racist garbage movie. I remember being concerned that both this and a Captain America movie could be total propaganda, especially given the political climate at the time they came out. Instead they made Stark a victim of his own arrogance and greed right off the bat. I liked that.

DH: It’s a fine line but they walk it really well. Just that shot of the grenade landing, and sitting there long enough for Stark to see his own company logo on it...pretty sharp.

RG: Watching this movie now, knowing where the franchise ends up and how important a role Tony Stark plays in it, I am kind of extra impressed by how well RDJ nails the character in this first movie. You are very emotionally invested in the character pretty much right away.

Not to get ahead of myself, but I remember being annoyed by Iron Man 2 because Tony Stark gets reduced to an annoying cartoon character and lacks the emotional levels that we see in this first movie and then later in The Avengers and in Iron Man 3. I’ve only seen Iron Man 2 once so I’ll see if I still feel that way when I re-watch it.

DH: Yeah, you’re not far off there--and the Altmanesque style of dialogue that seems so effortless & breezy in the first movie gets tired really quickly in the sequel.

RG: Again, not to get ahead of myself, but the emotional layers that Marvel Studios gave all of the characters (except Hawkeye) in these movies is, I think, a huge part of their success. But the humour keeps them from being overly angsty (Man of Steel).

DH: I feel like they truly are some of the first comic book movies where the filmmakers actually saw the value in the source material and honoured it (even while updating it for a moviegoing audience). As much as I enjoy pretty much every Batman movie ever made (well, maybe not the Shumacher ones), you can tell that the filmmakers in each case really just made the movies they wanted to make and didn’t really look to or care about the comics that spawned them. Even Donner’s Superman--as much as I love Hackman’s Luthor, he’s basically a Bond villain in comic book drag. But Iron Man set the template for how these movies could work if you actually acknowledged that the original comics were on to something. And that they could be fun without being TOO goofy, yet serious without taking themselves TOO seriously.

And maybe one day they’ll get Hawkeye right. He’s one of my all-time favourites in the comics, but I feel like they really missed the opportunity to give us a younger, cockier Hawkeye who had no interest in taking orders from a relic of the second World War. But maybe they’ll actually give him a personality in Age Of Ultron!

“My whole thing is that that I saw ‘The Dark Knight’. I feel like I’m dumb because I feel like I don’t get how many things that are so smart. It’s like a Ferrari engine of storytelling and script writing and I’m like, ‘That’s not my idea of what I want to see in a movie.’ I loved ‘The Prestige’ but didn’t understand ‘The Dark Knight’. Didn’t get it, still can’t tell you what happened in the movie, what happened to the character and in the end they need him to be a bad guy. I’m like, ‘I get it. This is so high brow and so f–king smart, I clearly need a college education to understand this movie.’ You know what? F-ck DC comics. That’s all I have to say and that’s where I’m really coming from.”

— Robert Downey Jr., Moviehole, 2008

RG: They spend a lot of the first act in the caves, which I think is ballsy but important. I think they could have done an Iron Man movie without a Mach 1 suit, but I’m so glad they took the time to include that. I love how the Mach 1 suit looks. And I love that he immediately gets his arm caught in the wall when he’s wearing it.

DH: That Mach 1 suit really is great. Even watching it again this time, I was struck by how cool it looks--how they obviously modified it and updated it, but how it’s still instantly recognizable as the original armour from the comics. And the fact that it’s largely done with practical effects is the icing on the cake.

“They had no script, man…They had an outline. We would show up for big scenes every day and we wouldn’t know what we were going to say. We would have to go into our trailer and work on this scene and call up writers on the phone, ‘You got any ideas?’ Meanwhile the crew is tapping their foot on the stage waiting for us to come on.”

— Jeff Bridges, In Contention, 2009

RG: Jeff Bridges is so goddamn good in this movie. The scene where he rips the arc reactor out of a paralyzed Tony's chest and holds it in front of his face while he monologues is so badass. He’s a fun choice for a villainous war monger. I don't think I've ever seen a villain quite like him before in a movie. I mean, the seemingly nice but actually evil father figure is nothing new, but he's just so loose and funny. The scene where he brings pizza back from the NYC board meeting is great.

DH: I love that he rides a Segway! That detail is both instantly dated and a dead giveaway that he’s the villain. Who the hell else beside Gob Bluth would be seen on one of those other than an evil bastard? Also, if I can get really nerdy here (and believe me, I can), the whole thing is kind of a reversal of the power dynamic he was a part of way back in the original Tron. This time though, instead of being the hotshot techy whiz kid, he’s the evil corporate dickbag!

RG: I’m kind of amazed that the tech in this movie doesn’t really look dated. Except the phones. It's weird to see Tony Stark with a regular old cell phone. I'm writing this on my iPad and it kind of makes me feel like Tony Stark. I probably couldn't even fathom an iPad in 2008.

DH: The phones and, again, the Segway.

SHE WAS TOLD TO LOSE 12 LBS FOR THIS ROLE!

RG: Gwyneth Paltrow and Robert Downey Jr are so great in every scene together. I remember getting really annoyed with them in Iron Man 2, but I love them in this and in Iron Man 3 and The Avengers.

I read one interview with Gwyneth Paltrow where she talks about how she had to lose 12 lbs of “baby fat” to play the role. Like…who told her that? “Listen, Gwyneth, we’d love to have you in the movie, but, y’know, you’d have to deal with this whole situation. I mean, who would ever believe that you could be Robert Downey Jr’s love interest when you are such a fat mess?”

DH: I feel like this movie was a turning point of sorts for non-powered female characters in superhero movies. Previously, the female lead--Vicki Vale, Lois Lane, MJ--was usually just a screamy hostage. But the filmmakers really make Pepper into more of a sidekick. And, for the most part they haven’t really gone back, which is nice.

RG: Yeah, that’s a good point. Enough with the female characters just getting tied up and gagged!

They do a great job introducing the suit. Without dragging it out too much, because we already watched Stark build the Mach 1 suit in the cave, the scenes where he’s working in his lab with the cool 3D blueprints are very fun. That scene where Stark tests the boots for the first time in his workshop and immediately goes flying backward and hits the wall is so damn funny.

DH: The robot stuff in this movie was particularly interesting this time, given where everything is headed with Age Of Ultron.

This is how I want to get dressed in the morning.

RG: I love how complicated the Iron Man suit is. It “makes sense” the way they present it, with all the intricate pieces being attached to his body by robotic arms. The "inside the helmet" tech view looks really great, too, and allows us to see more of RDJ while he’s in the suit. Jarvis is very well done too.

DH: For sure. But as a longtime Avengers nerd, I really would have loved to have seen human Jarvis in these films (portrayed by the guy who plays Molesley on Downton Abbey, ideally). I mean, I know there’s a human Jarvis on Agent Carter, but one of these days, I just really want to see Jarvis bringing Captain America a cup of tea or something.

"Hey, would you watch a show that's mostly about me and some other agents? It will be set in the Marvel Universe, but with no super heroes..."

RG: I completely forgot that Agent Coulson was in this. Already! Man, what if this movie had somehow failed? Would we have gotten any more?

DH: It’s fascinating to think that somewhere out there in the multiverse there’s a world where this movie flopped, and there are petitions and Kickstarter campaigns to have the rest of the Avengers movies made, while Green Lantern made a billion dollars worldwide and spawned a DC movies dynasty.

RG: Terrifying.

I like that Tony Stark likes his drink, but they don't go full drunk in these movies. I expected, mostly due to RDJ, that they were going to get into Demon in a Bottle territory, but they never do. I much prefer this version of the character to drunken downward spiral Tony. And they kind of are able to use his PTSD in the third movie to tell a similar story.

DH: I don’t know that they could pull off an entire movie about his alcoholism. Would anyone want to watch that? I don’t think I would. It’s an interesting character detail for him to have that he likes his cocktails a bit too much, though--just a nice bit of shading, and a hint at a darker side of his personality.

I think I remember actually applauding this moment in the theatre.

RG: The first action scene with the suit is so awesome and fun and funny and also brutal. Stark goes on a crazy killing spree right off the bat. He's also so full of stubborn idealism in the aftermath scene back at his workshop with Pepper, it got me thinking about how his character kind of always was on the path that we now know leads to a 'Civil War' with Captain America.

My husband Matt's comment during the final fight: "I don't understand why the Transformers movie couldn't have looked like this." Exactly. These are some great looking robots.

DH: Whenever a new Transformers movie comes out, I always think of the Hugh Jackman movie Real Steel and think, “Why couldn’t the Transformers looked like the robots in this movie?” Those are some fun and cool robot designs, and the movie’s a lot of fun besides.

I'll bet the family in that car never stops telling people this story.

RG: Here is what I am struggling to remember: was the Nick Fury appearance at the end of the credits a total surprise, or did we know to expect it? In my memory it was a total surprise and we all lost our minds. It was early days of social media, so it wasn't as hard to avoid spoilers. But was it a closely guarded secret? Dave?

DH: I remember it being one of those “worst kept secret in Hollywood” kind of things, like Sean Connery’s cameo at the end of Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves. Why else would we all have stuck around through the credits, unless we knew the key grip or the craft services people or something? I had a pretty good idea what we’d see, but the notion of connecting this movie to a planned series of Avengers solo movies, leading up to an Avengers movie...this was pretty impossible to comprehend at the time. I wasn’t really going to believe it until I saw it for myself.

I love Jackson as Fury and I like that scene overall, but I always thought the dialogue in it was a little too on the nose. “You’ve just taken your first step into a larger universe…” Way too nudge-nudge-wink-wink for me. Reportedly that scene was an uncredited Brian Michael Bendis job, and I can believe it. Subtlety is not his strong suit.

RG: Iron Man has a strong suit!

I feel like Iron Man 2 is what it would sound like to live in a Bendis comic. But we’ll get into that later!

RG: Marvel made a rare and very smart move when this movie came out: they re-launched the Invincible Iron Man comic series to align more with what people saw in the movie. This sort of thing is rarely done, for whatever reason. When The Dark Knight came out later this same year, DC killed off Bruce Wayne in the comics for awhile. And now that everyone is interested in Winter Soldier, he's living on the moon. But with this movie Marvel really nailed it with the comic book series. It was just really nice, working at a comic shop at the time, to have a good comic to recommend to people who had been introduced to the character via the movie.

DH: Yeah, the Marvel comics right now are kind of going out of their way right now to have their comics universe be basically unrecognizable to movie fans. Captain America is Sam Wilson, Thor is a woman, Iron Man is evil, and yeah, Winter Soldier lives on the moon. Ballsy, and some good comics (particularly Thor) have come from it, but is it wise? Probably not.

RG: Now that I think of it, the best bet comic for people interested in the film characters is the Black Widow series, which is awesome.

DH: I really feel like Jon Favreau’s part in helping to kick off the Marvel Cinematic Universe has kind of been swept under the rug after the first sequel was poorly received. Iron Man 2 is a mess, no doubt, but I don’t know that it can all be blamed on him; the expectations were impossibly high, not just for the movie but for its part in setting up all the other Marvel movies that were still in the planning stages. I also get the sense that Mickey Rourke just kind of did whatever the hell he felt like (another recent Oscar nominee throwing their weight around!).. However, I think he deserves a lot of credit for pulling the first Iron Man off so successfully--I’m not sure anyone else could have.

RG: It’s true! Jon Favreau: Man of the Century!

"No, the whole movie will be about me running a food truck. Do you think people would watch that?"

So next we’ll be watching Ed Norton’s short-lived contribution to the Marvel Movieverse, The Incredible Hulk. Stay tuned!

November 06, 2008

I can't say I wholeheartedly recommend Ultimatum.

November 06, 2008/ Rachelle Goguen

And the award for most homoerotic panel in Ultimatum #1 goes to...

Man, what a terrible comic. Seriously. I know Jeph Loeb sucks at writing comics, but man...it's like, I have read menus with more compelling stories. And they had better-constructed characters.

I did enjoy Dr. Doom's musical number, though:

I loved this promise at the end:

Oh, Jeph. It couldn't possibly.

Blog