Due to the rise of Netflix and my own increasing frugality/laziness it's rare that I actually see a movie in theaters so I'm seeing most films at least five months after wide release but it allows me the option to pile on summer blockbuster after summer blockbuster. This is exactly how I came to watch Iron Man 2, Thor, Captain America, and X-Men: First Class which fully qualifies as a superhero bender. I was equally pleased with all of them but I was surprised at how much I enjoyed X-Men mostly because I was skeptical of how the origin story would hold up. I realized afterward that part of the reason I enjoyed it was because there were no countless references to the upcoming Avengers movie.
It's not that I didn't enjoy the other movies. I did. I thought Thor was very well done especially considering how difficult it is for the screenwriters and director to keep a movie about a Norse god living in a parallel dimension somewhat grounded in reality and able to live in the same fictional universe as the Iron Man and Hulk characters. Captain America was average and Iron Man 2 felt like two different movies. There was the Iron Man 2 sequel plot line and then there was the storyline Marvel clearly wanted added in as promo material for the Avengers.
It's not that this constitutes lazy writing or a cheap gimmick. (Tangent rant alert) Disney currently holds that belt for tacking on 3D technology to old animated films and regurgitating them back into theaters so the viewing public can not only pay theater prices to films they've already seen in theaters but also the public has the joy of paying an extra 4 to 5 bucks for a 3D ticket. Who can blame Disney though when nostalgia driven theater-goers put up $100 million in ticket sales to see The Lion King again? Given the success of The Lion King who knows to what movies Disney will apply 3D for re-release.
This would qualify as "rock bottom".....IN 3D!!!
But back to the topic at hand of Marvel including an Avengers recruitment story line in nearly all of their superhero movies. While I do find it an interesting (as well as unprecedented) strategy the main problem I have is that this Avengers secondary story line can become burdensome to the main story line as well as interrupt the flow of the movie. Watching Iron Man 2 was like trying to watch a movie with somebody poking you in the stomach every ten minutes saying "Did you know they're coming out with an Avengers movie?" or "Hey.....hey......hey, look at me. The Avengers movie is coming soon." It can become a distraction to the main story that the filmmaker is trying to tell. Certain movies handle the plot lines better than others. Thor does the best job at blending the two together but I wonder how much better Thor could have been if the director had been given those 20 minutes of film to better develop his characters or the main story arch. Imagine how much less of an impact the Christopher Nolan Batman movies would have if he had tried to work in Batman's recruitment into the Justice League.
I'm looking forward to seeing sequels to Thor and Captain America where there is no need for mentioning the Avengers and the movie can just focus on those individual characters. Full disclosure: I'm fully aware of how much of a fan-boy I sound like in this posting.
As I said at the beginning, I'm looking forward to the Avengers movie coming out and I'm sure it will be incredibly entertaining. But part of the fun of superhero movies is that most superheroes are a bit of an underdog. We root for them because they take on evil individually even though the chances are small that they will succeed. Grouping them together stacks the deck to the level that it would be improbable that any villain could defeat them. The suspense is removed.
If only I could put this amount of effort and brain power into studying for the GMAT.
Regardless, it will be interesting to see if America embraces this concept of high profile individuals joining forces on the same team. It's not like there have been previous examples of this that the public has rebelled against right? Right?
I'm looking forward to seeing sequels to Thor and Captain America where there is no need for mentioning the Avengers and the movie can just focus on those individual characters. Full disclosure: I'm fully aware of how much of a fan-boy I sound like in this posting.
As I said at the beginning, I'm looking forward to the Avengers movie coming out and I'm sure it will be incredibly entertaining. But part of the fun of superhero movies is that most superheroes are a bit of an underdog. We root for them because they take on evil individually even though the chances are small that they will succeed. Grouping them together stacks the deck to the level that it would be improbable that any villain could defeat them. The suspense is removed.
If only I could put this amount of effort and brain power into studying for the GMAT.
Regardless, it will be interesting to see if America embraces this concept of high profile individuals joining forces on the same team. It's not like there have been previous examples of this that the public has rebelled against right? Right?
Not a good sign
