The A-word.
It's the bane of cinephiles, everywhere.
That book you love; the comic you remember; the show you used to watch; the game you lost an entire summer playing? Oh, someone's adapted it and it's getting made into a movie! Whether a cause for pre-emptive celebration or foreboding caution, it leads to only one thing: expectation. And expectation is the death of the 'clean' movie-viewing experience; no matter how closely the film sticks to its source material, or how much it tries to distance itself, it will be faced with the hurdle of comparison.
And while the movie industry loves the pre-built marketing buzz of 'now a major motion picture!', they loathe the comparative references which will be made from the first review onwards. Because many punters will expect to get exactly the same reaction from a completely different medium, to a story they already know. And therein lies the problem.
In this monthly series, we'll look back at some of the most respected and best-loved properties which have made the perilous journey to the big screen; often with some controversy, and almost always with far too much hype. This isn't so much a review of the films themselves, more an appraisal of their suitability as an adaptation.
And so, Adaptation-season jumps through the smaller screen for its televisual-phase, beginning with the 1960s. An expertly crafted mix of espionage, action and wry humour, ITV's The Avengers*1 was a mainstay on British TV screens throughout the decade. The show quickly elevated its supporting star Patrick Macnee to leading-man status as John Steed, then paired him up with a succession of more-than-capable female counterparts. Of the 161 episodes made, only 139 are known to survive intact to this day. Even so I'm not made of time, so I took in a sampling from the Emma Peel (Diana Rigg) era of the show, watching nine episodes from 1965, '66 and '67 (series 4 and 5)*2.
The first thing that strikes you is how effortlessly charming the series is, despite being inescapably cheesy. When Steed and Peel aren't discussing plot-based matters, they're zinging off each other with almost every line, their flourishes and quips working in tandem rather than competition. Both Macnee and Rigg carry this off perfectly. What's particularly nice for a 'vintage' show is that Emma Peel's character is treated as an equal (narratively at least), rather than an ornamental sidekick who's there for the dads. That said, there does seem to be a concerted effort to have her in a form-fitting black leather jumpsuit by the time of the inevitable melee at each episode's climax. And while there's the occasional mild flirting going on between the leads, there's never any suggestion that it's anything other than verbal sparring, which is kind of sweetly refreshing.
That said, these episodes were never made to be viewed back to back, and in the age of binge-watching the show's structural mainstays and callbacks quickly begin to look… formulaic. From each installment's prelude showing some nefarious force at large, to Steed calling round at Peel's house to brief her on the case, to the bit where they split up and arrive at the villain's lair separately pretending not to know each other like an episode of Hustle, all the way through to the impactless gunshots, shonky fight-choreography, and a coda of the pair driving calmly victorious down the road; you get the feeling each script more or less wrote itself, bar the initial setting and the antagonists' character names.
Once we get into series 5 the presentation moves from black and white into colour (a big deal at the time, I assure you youngsters). With it, the production budget seems to have been raised, too. There are far more exterior location scenes (these were used largely as establishing shots in the earlier episodes), and Emma Peel's wardrobe goes from suave sophistication to full on swinging sixties (which helps accentuate the shows's colour, to be fair). But something seems to have been lost in the transition, with the more formal feel of the monochrome days behind it. By this point, the James Bond series was four movies into its stride and providing stiff competition in mixing spies, stunts and satire. While the Avengers episodes I watched from series 5 were still entertaining enough, there's the feeling that the writers were starting to feel constrained by hour-long, standalone stories. The programme was far from over of course, and went on for another thirty-three entries for its sixth and final series, before being rebooted as The New Avengers in 1976 (which lasted for a comparably short twenty-six episodes over two series).
All in all though, The Avengers is great, stylish fun, and proof that if the premise is strong and your leading characters have enough personality, the rest of the show will fall into place around them. It makes absolute sense that a big-screen adaptation would be on the cards at some point. I imagine this is why the film was commissioned, at least.
One thing which isn't addressed in the episodes I watched though, is who are the Avengers working for? Although we see a couple of his informants, Steed isn't shown having any contact with superiors or managing organisation. Who's alerting them to these injustices that they find with alarming regularity? Who are they accountable to if they mess up or even fail completely? Week in week out, people are dying here, and there doesn't seem to be any sort of handover or cleanup operation. Again, I suppose it's refreshing in the 21st century to watch a spy franchise which isn't bogged down with procedural bureaucracy, but still. Apart from anything else, who's bankrolling Emma Peel's wardrobe? She wears a lot of white in the early episodes, and that blood isn't going to come out, mark my words…
My favourite line comes from 1967's A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Station. Steed is having a face-off with the evil genius he's unmasked as being behind a mysterious series of deaths on a train line running into King's Cross:
Villain: You see, I am going to blow up your Prime Minister!
Steed: Oh… how do you know which way I voted?
I saw this film upon its cinematic release at Dreamland Cinema, Margate. I have vague memories of vaguely enjoying it, although not to the point of a) renting or buying the domestic-release or b) actually seeing it again, at all. I certainly didn't pan it to the point of most critics, otherwise it wouldn't have been chosen for Adaptation. Of course, I watched films differently in 1998. So a revisit after nineteen years should prove interesting...
Yeah, it's not great is it? Alarm bells start to ring when you notice the run-time is only 86 minutes, which isn't usually a great sign with live-action movies. And if writer Don MacPherson*3 and director Jeremiah Chechik are scaling up 50-minute TV episodes but can't break the hour-and-a-half mark? Well, it does not set the mind at ease for the journey to come...
And what a meandering and turbulent ride that is. The very dictionary-definition of British™, Ralph Fiennes dons the mantle of Steed, while his opposite number Mrs Peel is portrayed by Uma Thurman, who was at that time hot off the back of Pulp Fiction, Gattaca and Batman & Robin. Well, quite. Sean Connery and Jim Broadbent have been employed to play themselves (as per), and there's a bit of textbook stunt-casting in the form of Eddie Izzard and Shaun Ryder as evil henchmen. Well. Quite.
So what went wrong? The core idea of the film, that a crazed scientist is holding world leaders to ransom with engineered lethal weather patterns, is perfectly apt for the Avengers. The series was never about hard espionage, but the movie version borrows as much from the feel of 1996's Mission: Impossible as it does the James Bond pantheon. We're at least introduced more properly to Steed's employer this time, in the form of 'The Ministry', and it's interesting how much foreshadowing of Kingsman this entails*4. But the problem here is in the execution, not the concept...
No matter the genre or method of delivery, some titles feature the cast emoting, interacting and… well, acting, whereas others just feel like the performers are standing in a room waiting to deliver each line. The Avengers is the second one. A leaden script weighs down proceedings all round, but never moreso than the leading pair; Steed and Peel quip and snipe as usual but there's an uncharacteristic level of actual flirting here, while Fiennes and Thurman paradoxically share absolutely no screen-chemistry. They're also not entirely suitable for the parts they're playing. Thurman manages the British™ accent well enough, but that's about it. Fiennes meanwhile is far too posh for this role. Patrick Macnee's Steed (the actual definitive version, remember) was well-spoken and unfailingly polite, but not 'posh'. This means when it comes to getting his hands dirty, the 1998 iteration of the hero carries a look of disgust, rather than determination.
Dragging along the other end, Connery is neither good nor bad, of course; he is just Connery; an act which either works for a film or does not. Funnily enough, this outing makes an interesting viewing companion to his appearance in last month's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. I think the fundamental problem is setting this film in 'the present day'. Had it been a period-piece in the 1960s (a la Man From U.N.C.L.E.), it might have retained some of its innate charm. Unlike Bond and M:I, the primary-phase Avengers didn't try to move beyond their era, they embraced it and bowed out gracefully. As opposed to being booed off the stage.
I'm very aware that my pre-amble at the top states that this wouldn't be a review of the film, but its suitability as an adaptation. Unfortunately, the manifold problems with 1998's Avengers are precisely why it fails to carry on the legacy of Macnee and RIgg. Had this been an unbranded spy-caper it would have disappeared without trace, and certainly without the malice it attracted (or earned, depending on your point-of-view).
Misguided, certainly, but quite not a total failure, the oversize teddy bear costumes and CGI hornets of The Avengers aren't even the most painful part. Bad writing and terrible casting conspire to hobble what could (should) have been a fun, disposable cinematic romp. A lesson for us all, Chechik's film at least serves as evidence that Steed and Peel belong on the small screen...
Hell, yeah.
Hell, no.
The early one as a televisual history lesson; the latter out of morbid curiosity.
Not in the TV episodes I watched, and I didn't hear one in the film.
Level 1: The TV series featured, across its considerable run, appearances from Christopher 'Dooku' Lee, Peter 'Tarkin' Cushing, Julian 'Veers' Glover, Caroline 'Mothma' Blakiston, Brian 'Nass' Blessed, Michael 'Needa' Culver, Bruce 'Rieekan' Boa, Drewe 'Red Leader' Henley and Peter 'All Of The Stunts Throughout The OT' Diamond.
The movie version features Christopher 'voice-work on Battlefront and The Old Republic' Godwin. Outside of the iconic Laurie Johnson TV theme, scoring duties are handled by Joel 'Shadows of the Empire' McNeely. Not quite as impressive but you do what you can, I suppose.
*1 Arriving on our TV screens on 1961, the show pre-dated Marvel's famous comic-title by two years. And even though the ill-fated 1998 film had been subconsciously blanked-out by most movie-goers for over a decade, when it came to the 2012 MCU teamup, the decision was made to amend the UK title to 'Avengers Assemble' to avoid confusion between the two properties. No, seriously. After all, you wouldn't want a punter looking at a poster of Captain America, Iron Man and The Hulk while saying to their partner "let's not bother with this Avengers film, it's obviously a continuation of that misguided Ralph Fiennes outing from the last century and clearly nothing to do with the concentrated marketing blitz of Marvel/Paramount that's being going on for four years now…"[ BACK ]
*2 If you want an indication of how society in general has changed, the show's leading actor Patrick Macnee was born in 1922. So at the time of the 1966 episode of The Avengers, The Danger Makers, he was forty-four years old. While he's obviously dressed 'in character' for his part, the man is nonetheless perfectly suited to his level of sartorial maturity and accompanying deportment. I only mention this because while I was admiring his suits during watching, it really hit home that there was a comparison to be made. See if you can guess which one of these is me…
I am minded once more of the words of vampire and raconteur, Louis de Pointe du Lac:
"But times were different then. I was a man at your age…"[ BACK ]
*3 And sorry to go leaping in here right off the bat, but for the script's inclusion, mangling and butchering of a Blade Runner "time to die" reference, it can fuck right off. [ BACK ]
*4 Bizarrely, there's also an unintentional foreshadowing of 1999's Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, with a road-chase between Steed/Peel and a horde of giant mechanical hornets. The pursuit takes place on narrow, unmarked country roads - typical of the famous British countryside. But there are also intercut shots clearly produced in post-production pickup filming, with different colour-timing, where the road is twice as wide as the UK standard, and is divided by a central, unbroken white-line.
I am minded once more of the words of Mr Austin Danger Powers:
"You know what's remarkable? How much England looks in no way like Southern California...."[ BACK ]
DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
Okay, you read that spoiler-disclaimer up there, didn't you? The one which says "HUGE PLOT SPOILERS"? Yeah. Good. I'm entirely serious, don't read the rest of this review if you haven't seen the film. I'm just very aware that Age Of Ultron isn't out in the US yet*1 and yet I've seen it three times so I'm all like 'oh what, this old thing?' and some folks are like 'Hey! Don't tell us that [REDACTED] dies, you monster!'. Well don't worry, that's what this spoiler-break is for, so that any of the things I'm going to look into don't get picked up by your RSS feed or somesuch.
So while you mull it over and decide whether you want to scroll on, here's a picture of a Beagle dressed as Thor to calm your troubled mind…
Still here? Smashing, the spoilers will be here in a moment, but first here's the timeline of Marvel Cinematic Universe movies so far…
[2008] Iron Man
[2008] The Incredible Hulk
[2010] Iron Man 2
[2011] Thor
[2011] Captain America: The First Avenger
[2012] Avengers Assemble [2013] Iron Man 3
[2013] Thor: The Dark World
[2014] Captain America: The Winter Soldier
[2014] Guardians Of The Galaxy
[2015] Avengers: Age Of Ultron
[2015] Ant-Man
[2016] Captain America: Civil War
[2016] Doctor Strange
[2017] Guardians Of The Galaxy 2
[2017] Spider-Man
[2017] Thor: Ragnarok
[2018] Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 [2018] Black Panther
[2018] Captain Marvel
[2019] Avengers: Infinity War Part 2 [2019] Inhumans
Now the reason I mention this is that we're 11 films into a 22-movie series (confirmed so far), and the end of Avengers: Age Of Ultron has left me with one question...
Why won't Marvel kill off their heroes?
The final scene of AoU introduces us to the next iteration of The Avengers; Captain America and Black Widow, who we already know and love, a welcome spotlight for War Machine and The Falcon, plus Scarlet Witch and The Vision. That's quite a change of lineup when you consider no-one died to make it this way. Tony Stark decides he's going to pootle off back to Pepper for a bit, Bruce Banner has stealth-moded off the radar of an organisation which seemed to have no trouble tracking him down previously, Thor has just remembered he has some pressing admin which needs doing on Asgard, and Agent Barton's bought the farm. And not in the usual cinematic sense. No-one, in fact, buys the farm.
The Avengers who are phased out are essentially put on ice, like toys put back in the play-box because new ones have arrived on Christmas morning. In many ways (read: business) it's a responsible attitude, but one which restricts development of the timeline. It's certainly not that we don't want to see Iron Man's super-facetious version of a super-hero, and watching The Hulk single-handedly destroy an entire building then spend ten minutes looking remorseful about it hasn't lost its appeal quite yet. But this practice of restricting permanent change in the timeline starts to leave you with the feeling that very little's actually changing at all. Plenty of induction-days, not so many funerals.
In fact, the only (named) characters who actually die in this film are the ones introduced in it, too. Poor old Quicksilver does his best but is never quite as charismatic as his X-Men incarnation, and a fatal spray of anti-armour artillery from an Ultron-piloted gunship sees him stretchered off onto SHIELD's rescue heli-carrier while his sister has a bit of a meltdown (although given how many Ultron-drones were closing in on the magic-plunger at that moment, everyone would have been royally screwed if her wave of anger and grief hadn't fried every toaster in a five-block radius). That said, the script had already explained that the source of Quicksilver's power was a super-fast metabolism, and those shells look like they passed right through, to me. All I'm saying is, don't be surprised if he makes a return in the future. Agent Coulson survived worse.
Then there's Ultron himself; the film's uber-baddie who seems far more flippant and sarcastic than any comic version of the character I remember, and also considerably less of a genocidal maniac (he still is one, of course, just less somehow). For two hours we're shown Ultron constantly upgrading himself and inhabiting thousands of bodies simultaneously; he disappears into the internet itself and essentially absorbs the sum of all human knowledge, a move which even The Avengers admit will make him almost impossible to destroy. Then they destroy him. Maybe in his haste to crush all of everything in the world ever, Ultron didn't leave a backup of his personality back at the workshop or… y'know, on any capable machine connected to the internet anywhere in the world? It seems unlikely to me, so while we get a fantastic final scene between Ultron and The Vision, again I wouldn't be surprised if he manages to crop up again to annoy Earth's Mightiest Heroes (his ultimate indestructibility is his calling card in every other version of the character, after all).
Then there's the reasons for the other heroes' departure. While I'm very aware that the movies can't (indeed shouldn't) be straight-up adaptations of the comic stories, Tony Stark took a break from being Iron Man in the mid 1980s to attempt to conquer his alcoholism, and James 'War Machine' Rhodes wore the armour in his stead. While it's great that Don Cheadle gets to wear his character's regular armour (hey, I loved Iron Patriot but let's dial that back a little), surely this would have been a more solid reason for Stark's (temporary?) abdication from the group? The three Iron Man films did a great job of painting a more rounded picture of Tony-Stark-The-Man than they did Iron-Man-The-Hero. Wouldn't a natural extension of this be showing that he's still battling his internal demons, rather than "well, I supposed I'd best go and spend some time with the missus - you know what they're like!"? I'm also not entirely convinced that Iron Man should have been in this movie at all, but that's a ponder for my next review. The fact remains that there are (presently) no more standalone Iron Man movies scheduled, so unless a TV show is in the works, why retire the character so noncommittally?
Then there's Bruce Banner. Not dwelling on the fact that his exit isn't a million miles away from that of the last Batman, I'll give it to Marvel that The Hulk really is a character that needs a little solitude between appearances. It's how the 2008 Edward Norton movie ended, and pretty much how every episode of the Bill Bixby-era TV series closed, too. So it's what the character's used to, if nothing else. It's also an ending which sets the character up perfectly for another spin-off adventure, but there's nothing scheduled there, yet.
Then there's Thor. He spent most of the film stewing over the hallucination given to him by Scarlet Witch and has gone off to investigate the perceived meaning. That's fair enough, as he's the only one of the group to have a working knowledge of the Infinity Stones, and he's due to appear in a standalone/sequel in 2017.
Then there's Hawkeye. Lovely, cuddly Clint's backstory has been so hastily assembled that the glue's still drying when The Quinjet touches down behind the barn. It's deserved, of course. The guy's been essentially playing second-fiddle since his cameo in the first Thor movie, and it's nice to know he's more than just a bow, an arrow and a frown. But Age Of Ultron heavy-handedly points towards the delivery of Barton's KIA Medal in just about every scene he has… then doesn't have the bottle to kill him (again, I must stress that I like this characters. I don't want them to die, as such. I just want to see some consequences). Sure, The Hawk can be wheeled out for a future appearance or cameo, but will there be an accompanying scene of him sitting glumly at home, promising not to get killed?
But it's not like it's just Age Of Ultron that's doing this. In Thor: The Dark World, the film essentially ended in the same place it started, other than the wrecking of Greenwich Observatory's new lawn and the death of Frigga, a character who was incidental at best. Sure, she's Thor's mum, but it's not like the whole Asgard dynamic was about those two squabbling. Secondary characters turn up in that film, scowl and then die (and Odin doesn't count as there's little chance he died off-screen). The Winter Soldier achieved a greater amount of scene-shifting by essentially dismantling the SHIELD organisation, but again this was done with minimum cast-casualties (first-appearances or previous background characters only). Now obviously in Age Of Ultron, the dynamic *has* changed massively, but it's still be done in a very non-permanent way. Is this an insurance policy so that if MCU Phase Three and beyond doesn't go down as well as hoped, the original Phase One lineup can be pulled back out of stasis?
So. Tell me why I'm wrong. Tell me why packing the kids off to Summer-camp is fine in this instance. Tell me why the film's final battle only apparently has one casualty (although I'm pretty sure there'd be a shitload of civilians killed or trapped in the wreckage in Sokovia, and more than a few who just fell off the edge). Tell me why Marvel can't bear to kill off any of their heroes, even the one that got kebabbed with The Loki-Pokey Stick.
Comments-box or Facebook, either will be smashing, thanks.
Hang on, do I have to answer these every time I see the film?.
Well, they're self-imposed rules, so I suppose I do.
I mean obviously, you should go and see this in the cinema, as that's where it'll look best.
That said, I wouldn't bother with the 3D unless that happens to be the screening you're saddled with.
It's not like it ruins the film, but it doesn't really make it any better.
Any what's the point of paying extra for something which is only going to make the film a bit darker and not really improve it?
This again? Okay, Chris 'Captain America' Evans lent his voice to the 2007 animated T.M.N.T. movie, which also starred James Arnold Taylor who voices Obi-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars: The Clone Wars.
I can't believe you want a different one of these each time, especially since Mace Windu's in the film…
*1 I have no idea why the UK gets an early release. As I recall, we did for Guardians Of The Galaxy, too. For obvious reasons I can't really complain about it, but if I lived on the other side of the pond I'd be a bit miffed about it, frankly.
DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
So a second-pass of one of 2015's biggest movies certainly helped me see a little more clearly through the fog of war. Still not always as clearly as I'd have liked, though, and it still seems apparent that the film is trying to fit far too much story into the gaps between the action. This is the normal way of things for the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but the plot-gaps are smaller than usual here.
That's not to say I'm not completely in love with the film, but I'd happily have had more and longer scenes with Black Widow and Hulk, as both Johannson and Ruffalo are giving us something really great; just not enough of it. Also suffering from development-vs-time-constraint are Scarlet Witch and The Vision, although I suspect (alright, hope) that will be addressed in some future installment of the timeline.
Still on the subject of exposition, Whedon's screenplay skips fairly deftly around the origins of Witch and Quicksilver; namely the conflict of interests between Marvel Studios continuity-strand and that of Fox's X-Men series. Quicksilver appeared in last year's X-Men: Days Of Future Past, of course, with a rather scene-stealing showcase of his powers. Fox have the rights to use the character as he's the son of Magneto and therefore falls under the umbrella of their licensing agreement with Marvel. Usually this would preclude a super-hero's appearance in another cinematic timeline, but Quicksilver is also a paid-up member of The Avengers*1, hence him appearing in Age Of Ultron, this time with his twin sister. There's no mention of mutants, but the script is deliberately non-committal on whether the Maximoff-twins had any degree of their powers prior to Baron Von Strucker's research programme (that's not a spoiler, it's the post-credits scene of Winter Soldier).
More plot-driven than Avengers Assemble, certainly in terms of the larger narrative, Age Of Ultron is a film which asks far more questions than it answers. The more of the MCU timeline you know before sitting down, the easier you'll find things to follow; although that will also be the same source of your questions. Ridiculously loud and over-the-top, Marvel go to great lengths to provide an even bigger climactic setpiece than the three heli-carriers in The Winter Soldier, and it's fair to say that in terms of spectacle, they've outdone themselves. Again.
Go and see Age Of Ultron then come back and we'll talk spoilers. Serious spoilers.
And am I the only one who's slightly disconcerted that Ultron's mouth moves when he speaks?
This is like Optimus Prime all over again…
For fans of the genre and/or franchise, yes.
Buy it and watch it lots of times.
Ms Johannson certainly gets to do more actual acting than she has previously, which is always a good thing.
It certainly does.
not a lot less, but a bit. Probably.
There is. It's worked into Captain America's first casualty in the Sovokian woods.
Visual effects by (among others) ILM and audio mastering performed at Skywalker Sound. I think that'll be close enough for this pass, seeing as I've already mentioned that two of the cast are Star Wars cast-members.
*1 The short version, for those of you less familiar with Marvel's print-setup, is that in the various strands of comic continuity, all of their heroes and villains inhabit the same version of New York; Avengers, mutants, scientists and freelance photographers alike. They're constantly round each others houses borrowing sugar and the like. In the late 90s / early 00s, when the film rights were divided up between various studios, Fox got the X-Men and directly related characters as well as The Fantastic Four. Sony got everything that falls under the Spider-Man property, and Paramount ended up with most of everything else, enabling the Avengers timeline, which was then bought back by Marvel Studios after Iron Man 3. Generally speaking this hasn't caused too many problems (other than the fact that the Chitauri from Avengers Assemble should really have been The Skrulls, except those fall under the Fantastic Four property), and has only led to mild consternation from comic-fans that it feels like something's 'missing' from each set of movies. Marvel and Sony recently announced the merging of Spider-Man with the MCU though, which is great news (despite another apparent reboot for Spidey), but this business with Quicksilver is downright messy. The 'Marvel Cinematic Universe' should really be the leading-authority on Marvel's characters, yet it feels like they're somehow lying about two of their own...
DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
And here we are at the dawn of a new era. The gang of Avengers we've come to know and love are still on the hunt for the Loki-pokey-stick, determined to prevent it from being used for nefarious ends by the remnants of Hydra. But when The Ultron Project, an A.I. designed to protect humankind, becomes self-aware and more than a little peeved at the world it discovers, it can only mean an extra item on the to-do list for Earth's Mightiest Heroes.
Eleven films into the saga, Marvel have decided that the cast list should be positively heaving, with faces old and new alike. Some characters enter the stage, some characters exit the stage, some get the character-development they've been crying out for, while others just pop in to say hello. With a couple of notable exceptions, Age of Ultron features a sizeable number of supporting players from earlier Marvel Cinematic Universe movies making appearances. In addition to this we're treated to several new characters from the Avengers pantheon. Fans of the comics or animated incarnations will recognise the names and faces, but may well raise an eyebrow at the backstories and origins which have been tweaked for the MCU. But this all makes sense within its own timeline, which is what we've come to expect.
It's all far too much to take in on the first viewing of course, but that's what'll make re-watching so rewarding. Even with so much going on, it's clear that Age of Ultron is a far more transitional movie than any which have come before it. Welcome to Phase Three…
The business-end:
• Is there a Wilhelm Scream?Yes.
• Is there a Stan Lee cameo?Yes.
• Is there a mid-credits scene?Yes.
• Is there a post-credits scene?Not in the UK-print. I only make the distinction because the US print of the first Avengers flick had the Shawarma scene which - as I was reminded this evening - doesn't feature in the UK cinema-version. If you're watching Age of Ultron in the UK, you can make your way out as soon as the names start scrolling up the screen.
It is.
Well, I'd say it's a buy-er, but if you're not interested in seeing it at the flicks, you're probably not interested at all are you?
For a couple of the characters, yes. For the rest, not quite.
More than.
Maybe just a bit.
There is.
The film stars Sam 'Windu' Jackson, AND Mr Andy Serkis, from off of The Force Awakens.
DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
The final screening of Avengers at our local Cineworld was on Tuesday 12th June. A six week run is pretty impressive at a five-screener, especially in Summer-season, and it's been long enough since I last saw it for me to 'return' to the film with fresh eyes (so to speak). You can read my firstthreereviews at those clicks, there. Today, I have only one final thought about what's shaping up to be my Film of the Year.
I'm not entirely convinced that Agent Coulson is dead.
In the lead-in movies, as Agent Coulson, he was the quiet, unassuming face of a faceless organisation. Probably one of the good guys to you and I, but the other Good Guys weren't sure of that. The embodiment of efficiency, he's an example of why S.H.I.E.L.D. works as an agency.
In Avengers Assemble, as Phil Coulson, he's still quiet but he's warmer, funnier and holds far more passion for his job than we knew. We learn that he's a trading-card/comic-book geek, and that he's built a rapport with Pepper Potts to the point where they're on first name terms and trust each other more than Coulson and Stark do. He tells us that he's had a hand in re-designing Captain America's outfit, and It's implied that he's so married to the job that he prefers to unwind outside of work by playing the cello. In fact, his faux pas to Steve Rogers about watching him while he was sleeping, coupled with Natasha Romanov's later line, "I thought he was going to swoon" to that same Rogers, pretty much outs him as gay. Which is pretty fucking awesome when you consider they didn't show him snuggling up to a dude in order to do that. It may not be the most subtle way to tackle it, but there's a lot of shouting, screaming and punching going on in that film, so I think they've got the balance pretty spot on.
Anyway, what this leads to is that Phil Coulson is pretty much the most interesting character in Avengers Assemble. In my humble opinion. There are people with zippier lines, mightier powers, and deeper frowns, sure. But in terms of character development; in terms of an audience learning something about a character so they view him or her differently at the end of a film; in terms of the character actually being different themselves at the end of a film; …Coulson gets all the action here. No matter how likeable the Stark/Iron-Man combo is, no matter how much more depth Bruce Banner has this time round, and no matter how much more I want to learn about Hawkeye and Black Widow… everyone else walks off at the end of Avengers Assemble not much different than they were two and a half hours earlier.
Now in all seriousness, why would messrs Whedon and Penn take the time to layer Coulson up like that, only to kill him for no reason? I've mentioned this before, but when he walks into the holding chamber and faces off Loki with his S.H.I.E.L.D. issue BFG, takes a shivving from the Asgardian bastard, and then quietly lays the truth on him before blowing him through the wall, he may get a pleasing pay-off line but five minutes later, Loki's getting into a helicopter like he's just been slapped in the face. And it's not about the lack of brute-force of the blast - all The Hulk does later on is slap him into the ground a few times, and that subdues him for the rest of the movie. Maybe the gun was style-over-substance, but Phil Coulson died for nothing. Apparently.
So we know that Director Fury told a little white lie about the trading cards in Coulson's pocket to goad Iron Man into action (because let's face it, there was only Iron Man and Captain America in the room, and Cap would go to the opening of an envelope in the name of Justice™). So what if he told a larger white lie about Coulson dying? What if the paramedics revived him? Where do you think Fury got that blood from to smear on the cards? It seems a little harsh to be rubbing them over the body of a dead man just to convince an already-sold Stark to keep fighting, so what if he took the blood knowing Coulson was alive? You see it smear on the table, so you know it's someone's blood. Whichever way he's ruined a perfectly good set of trading cards, the philistine.
So what do you think? Is there an argument for Coulson being alive? Is there anything to be gained by leaving the character deceased? Isn't it a little odd that the only named person to die in the entire film does so for no actual reason?
DISCLAIMERS: • ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
The Avengers
The Avengers
