Avengers

Michael Traven said:
Saw this again today, and yeah, the jello on that tracking shot of Cap'n was astoundingly obvious. To pinpoint the shot for anyone who wants to look for it, (SPOILERS!) in the final battle, Cap'n, Black Widow and Hawkeye are down on the bridge. Cap'n says "They're [the citizens] fish in a barrel down there." He asks BW and Hawk if they've got things up here on the bridge, they say yeah, and then he jumps off onto the bus. Blasts from the Chitauri guns explode behind him, he jumps off it, and then I think we switch to looking at Cap'n from his right. He runs, he steps up onto a train of smashed vehicles and the camera zooms in and tracks alongside him as he runs up onto the wreckage.

The camera isn't wobbling all that much, but you can't really see s--t because the rolling shutter is just torquing the hell out of it. I think it kind of looks cool, I guess, if it's an intentional stylistic effect, but it throws me off every time I see it because I can't focus on anything except the fact that the movie is now being projected through a fish tank in place of a lens.

-JMT

On an unrelated note, the film should break $400m domestic by either the end of Thursday (14 days) or evening Friday (15 days).
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Well that shot was the 5D MKII, so the rolling shutter was bad. However I thought they corrected it pretty well overall. Most of it didn't feel like rolling shutter to me, just shaky-cam. There's a number of shots in that whole sequence where the 5D was used. Quick cuts, but it's not just the cars flipping over, there are some larger shots using the 5D. I spotted most of them I think. The huge DR difference between the 5D and the ALEXA is easy to spot, as is the softness, etc.
 
While I disagree with Pfister's conclusion that the film was "appaling", I do think it had average cinematography. But that's ok, cinematography has never been Whedon's strong suit. He is best at juggling multiple characters in a fun and quirky way. And Avengers was most definitely a lot of fun, it just wasn't really anything beyond that. It had nothing to say about anything. It was pure popcorn, mostly forgettable.
 
I don't pay $10 - $15 to go to the movies to watch "cinema". I go to be entertained. And "The Avengers" entertained me five times over.
 
the post ran a bit long, power outage made me bored.

There was an avengers animated movie a few years back that was pretty good, like there was a green lantern animated movie that was ok/ better than the recent movie. the one before the movie came out not the more recent animated green lantern movie. Maybe they should at least let that team come up with the fully finished script, at least one thing would not suck, and it would just be mediocre execution problem.

expendables 2 was ok/entertaining, the avengers was pathetic, weirdly enough they both had weak cinematography with speeding up action, close-up on the action, target practice useless bad guys (some scenes in both movies were worse than shot shots part deux), one of them had the main villain called villain, weird shots of sets that does not establish anything (hey these set cost money, we have to put them in the movie), scenes end abruptly, ...etc.


but at least expendables had a plot as thin as it may be, execution might not be perfect, but at least it hit some notes, main throwaway character get 2(not one but two) dramatic moments before dying, simple plot, over the top villain, forced one liners, simple revenge elements. that was ok.


avengers was just fueled by fan-boys. the concept is just for fanboys, there is no story, reason, goal, character development, plot, ...etc. there was nothing going on, nothing at stake, they did not even protect the city from destruction(for the sake of vfx shots), the main villain army that conveniently changed in numbers when the plot required were already in the city before the portal closed, and the rest of the army stopped coming from the portal, when the plot did not require them to. i actually felt it was a comedy when the movie started, i was expecting it to be be a strait up comedy. but no, that was just purely bad execution. the sound-track was ridiculously loud and precieved anything about to happen, it did not fit the movie.


not even an important battle with a worthy villain. the main villain that had mysterious magical powers was conveniently captured and imprisoned when the plot required, beat down by any of the main characters, plot point changed on what the avengers actually were doing or what there goal was, the sub plot on the main villain.


they were fighting a few weak henchmen, and they managed to destroy the entire city, and for the sake of pg ratings, not kill anyone in all that destruction. the movie ends with a nuke, how unoriginal.
 
what was up with, oh a computer virus/override turn off the entire ship to one scene later, oh it's just this physical metal piece lodged in the propeller that is needed to lift the entire aircraft/ship that seemed in the air the whole time, it did not even bank, the entire movie was a physics cluster-****. oh we need an explosion and an earthquake because the vfx guys that they can do that in post, don't tell any other blockbuster coming out the summer, and we cant do it in the city, oh well, we will just ingest ""science"" into it to stabilize the already fully self operational portal that the main villain already used at the start of the movie.
 
Avengers was the let down movie of the year for me. Thought the story was child like at best. There were some entertaining moments so not a total loss. Id rank it lower in sophistication than Madagascar 3, which fwiw entertained me from start to finish.

EDIT: Wanted to come back and make a note - my point above isnt "if you liked it you're childish" nothing like that - just in my eyes thats how I perceived the story and realise thats simply my perspective.
 
My thought process is, if you want character development go watch the stand alone Iron Man, Thor and Captain America movies. With a big ensemble cast like the Avengers I expected minimal, if any, character development but lots of over-the-top action, eye-candy, in jokes and possible hints to future movies. I think Joss did a great job of balancing all the characters and not heavily favoring one or two above all the others. It was a fun, very entertaining movie. Not every comic book movie needs to be brooding re-imagining of the source material.
 
adkimery said:
Not every comic book movie needs to be brooding re-imagining of the source material.
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Yeah, that's one of the things I appreciated about it. It was a living comic book, from a time back before comics stopped being fun and started being explorations of deep dysfunction and even depravity.
 
so if every main character gets about the same screen time you are a happy camper, how low is that standard. i did not think thor or captain america were any good.
 
Amr Rahmy said:
what was up with, oh a computer virus/override turn off the entire ship to one scene later, oh it's just this physical metal piece lodged in the propeller that is needed to lift the entire aircraft/ship that seemed in the air the whole time, it did not even bank, the entire movie was a physics cluster-poo poo. oh we need an explosion and an earthquake because the vfx guys that they can do that in post, don't tell any other blockbuster coming out the summer, and we cant do it in the city, oh well, we will just ingest ""science"" into it to stabilize the already fully self operational portal that the main villain already used at the start of the movie.
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You were probably just expecting too much from a movie that featured a collection of aliens, viking gods, a frozen soldier, a guy with a reactor for a heart who flies around in a robot suit, and a scientist who turns into an angry green giant. Yeah, movies with characters like that aren't too grounded in reality to begin with.

Most of the rest of the world population just wanted some snappy, fun, feel-good comic action while they ate popcorn and drank coke. And in that resect The Avengers did exactly what it said on the tin.
 
Most of the rest of the world population just wanted some snappy, fun, feel-good comic action while they ate popcorn and drank coke. And in that resect The Avengers did exactly what it said on the tin.
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i don't think people went in not expecting at least a thin story and scenes that made sense and did not change objectives or lost it's footings along the way, i think they expected at least expendables 2 level story and execution and a big final battle, not with weak henchmen and a weak main villain, that's not too much to ask for. it was actually done in the animated movie. however people went to the theater to see transformers 2 after watching one, and then, a large percentage of part 2 went to the third movie. but still a smaller percentage than the second movie. they still have some brain function.

production quality on action films in the 70s-80s-90s were better with smaller budgets.
 
People enjoyed this movie, and they enjoyed it for legitimate reasons. Primarily, they enjoyed watching these characters interact with each other, which is not something that can be bought. The actors had chemistry together and Joss Wehedon's dialogue had more genuine snap and wit than is usually found in comic book films. The movie got more hearty laughs with the audience I saw it with than many comedies do. Films are not this successful because audiences have been conned into buying tickets. That only takes you so far. There are films that are hugely successful that I hated (Alice in Wonderland comes to mind), and I honestly don't understand how anyone can like it, but I just chalk that up to personal taste. Not everything is for everyone. It's fine to air one's personal opinion of something, but leave it at that.
 
it's not an opinion or a matter of taste when you have the main characters and plot of the movie change or get lost, or when there is no reason for anything happening on screen, when the problems and goals or subplots change mid scenes. that's not a minor continuity error, and it happened a few times. even characters changed their state of mind and mid shot sometimes. there is no danger, nothing at stake.

that''s fundamentally not a movie. it does not tell a story, again, it does not have to be a masterpiece, but at least make something somewhat coherent, or something on the level of expendables 2 for example, it knows what it's doing. but you can't rank that thing as a movie just because character you like were in the movie, you already decided it's a good movie before watching.
 
Amr Rahmy said:
it's not an opinion or a matter of taste when you have the main characters and plot of the movie change or get lost, or when there is no reason for anything happening on screen, when the problems and goals or subplots change mid scenes. that's not a minor continuity error, and it happened a few times. even characters changed their state of mind and mid shot sometimes. there is no danger, nothing at stake.
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I honestly don't know what you're talking about. I did not see any of this in the film. The story made sense to me. The characters behaved consistently to me. I don't think it's a masterpiece but I felt it was a decently put together film with characters I enjoyed watching.

EDIT:

Sorry, Amr, I was confusing comments you made in a different thread with this one.
 
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I agree that the story (thin as it may be) was there and was coherent. All the characters actions and motivations were consistant with their characterization in this and their previous films. It was carried by the amazing performances, great directing, fast witty screenplay, and impressive visuals and action scenes. I think the 92% critic rating and 96% user rating on rottentomatoes and the 8.4/10 rating on IMDB shows that, on the majority, regardless of what people went into the movie expecting, they came out with it at least meeting, if not exceeding, their expectations.
 
WildTrackDave said:
I agree that the story (thin as it may be) was there and was coherent. All the characters actions and motivations were consistant with their characterization in this and their previous films.
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The only thing I'll agree was a bit hazy was the way The Hulk's arc was handled. Felt like there was a scene or two missing between his first Hulk out, and his showing up at the end being able to control the Hulk fully. One can surmise that the first Hulk out happened under duress, so he wasn't in control, and the second one he initiated so he was able to rein himself in, but more clarification on it would have been better.
 
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Like I said, it was a story true to the comics when the comics were fun. That's all it ever needed to be. "Dark, gritty realism" is all the rage right now, but it would have been totally wrong for this.
 
Amr Rahmy said:
so if every main character gets about the same screen time you are a happy camper, how low is that standard. i did not think thor or captain america were any good.
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I think the pedestal you've placed yourself upon is so high you are having difficult reading and comprehending what's being written 'cause I didn't say anything remotely close to that.
 
Finally saw this, at home on Blu-Ray, and have to say that I'm siding with Amr here. In my humble opinion, this film is a complete mess. For me, it's perhaps the biggest mystery on the all-time box office top 5 (or even 20). This sucker simply printed money; there's no two ways about it, but...

The story? Wow what a clusterf*ck. Like others have pointed out, protagonists become antagonists and vice-versa, and then back. The real antagonist is a yawn...the overall storyline is a pathetic muddle...somebody stop me...

The acting? Yecch. What a waste of talent. Some very fine actors there (Downey is a personal fave), but it appears that almost all were (mis)directed into a uniformly flat line-reading style, such that even when there was some decent dialog (which there was, occasionally) it had an overwhelming tendency to lay there like cold pizza. I see a lot of this in films these days. One might theorize that misplaced concern with 'overacting' may have lead to something of an epidemic of underacting (although most James Cameron and Christopher Nolan films, among others, thankfully, are notable exceptions to this). The antagonist, whose name I've mercifully forgotten, was one of very few exceptions, since he played that 'english-accented, cape-wearing, sneer-lipped, vaguely foppish, sword-wielding-villain 101' caricature we've seen in oh...like 50 billion bad movies. Except somehow simultaneously weaker *and* overacted. Quite a feat...

The script? Journeyman-like at best, trudging in cast-iron boots the rest of the time. And the VFX didn't help, dazzling though they often were. For me, they're the icing, not the cake.

A disclaimer I must make is that I didn't watch it in one sitting as I certainly would have in a theater, and as I would guess, based on the posting dates in this thread, most people commenting here did. So it was a more 'fragmented' experience, which may have diluted the integrity of its narrative thread for me. That might be the upside-view of that fact, but the *reason* I didn't stay with the film all the way through was that I was *bored out of my skull by it*. Which didn't change from one view-sitting to the next. Boring, boring boring. Even when it went all crash-bang-boom-zoomy, if there's nothing in the story or characters to care about, there's nothing to care about if/when they/it get blown up or not...

Overall, I'd give it three Z's

But, as always, the above is just:

My $.02...
 
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