A Bag of Cats...My Opinions On the Major Marvel Movies

So the Marvel series isn't the best in my opinion. Marvel in general is a mediocre comic book universe and so it follows that the movies would be of fun and average qualities. I admit it's hard to define what exactly is fundamentally flawed in the Marvel world, but there is something. For me, I think it may be the lack of semi-reality. Obviously comic book movies don't have to imitate real life, but on some level, I think there needs to be something that we (the audience) can connect to on a character level. The majority of the heroes in Marvel are so over the top or at least so distanced from humans in their quirks and flaws and natures, that it's hard to empathize with them to a degree other than "oh, look, superheroes, we should like them because they're the good guys." I'll get into this more with each of the movies. For now, let's just say that I can only ever enjoy Marvel movies, I don't find them particularly interesting on a genuine story or thematic level. They're just well-made and entertaining films for the most part. Well, some of them are anyway...

Iron Man

I like Tony Stark only in the way I like Robert Downey Jr. He's an adequately flawed hero, but the way he's written as a character (in both films) is so overdone, so snarky, so smarmy, so self-congratulatory, and so egocentric that it undermines a great deal of the enjoyability of the movies themselves. The banter gets so over-written between him and Pepper and others that it becomes too much of a centerpiece for the film. Do you think Pulp Fiction relies on its dialogue? No. The dialogue is a strong element and helps to define much of the film in general. But there's also the structure, and the plot (as much as there is one), and the characters. Iron Man becomes so self-involved with creating rapid-fire Sorkin-esque chit chat that I literally lose focus on what the hell is going on in the film story-wise. I was legitimately surprised when during the last half hour of the first movie, Stane turns out to be the bad guy and starts going all Transformer-smashing through the labs and shit. I was like, "Oh, yeah, there's supposed to be a plot."

Also the inherent character plot to Stark is rather super obvious and kind of un-convincing. To me at least. Bruce Wayne loses his parents and all the life he's ever known at a young age. He becomes twisted and introverted and weird and scary and is actually traumatized by the event. THEN he becomes the hero as an adult. Stark is a douche. He makes guns. He gets captured for a bit and shows how he can be a badass and learns a lesson from some random dude who then dies. He then breaks out from his jail relatively easy as pie and decides he's changed on the whole making guns thing. But then he's also still sort of a douche. Except when he wants to be angsty because he's got a thingy in his heart which has CHANGED HIS LIFE. But he's still a douche most of the time. THEN he becomes a hero. It just feels muddled to me. He's a decent person and does some nice shit, but what has changed exactly? I'm not saying a dude has to CHANGE significantly to become a hero in a superhero movie, but this film gets praised so much for being so well written character-wise and I'm like...yeah, no. Not really. It's there, but it's confusing and often kind of dropped for the sake of the so-called plot or whatever.

But really the movie's well made. It's fun. It's bright and cheery. But the darker stuff could've been dropped and left to the Batman movies to figure out.

The Incredible Hulk

It's loud. It's long. It's really fucking loud. But most of all it's pretty stupid. But I enjoyed it. It has a sense of humor about itself and doesn't get too serious with its drama and characters. The Hulk is an inherently silly superhero anyway, there's no real way to empathize with Banner when he's big and green, is there? He's just big and green. The anger aspect tries to be legitimately dramatic and stuff which is nice, but really the quality of the writing is pretty subpar and uninteresting. The only stuff to look at and enjoy is the eye candy of the action which is pretty okay and distracting. It doesn't try to be anything super smart, which is fine. It's all just pretty adequate.

Iron Man 2

This movie is a complete and utter repeat of the first one and basically fulfills all of the requisite superhero formula regulations. The thing that makes it less interesting than the first film is that it tries much harder to have genuine drama with its characters. It fails miserably in that regard. There is absolutely no consistency in the subplots regarding Stark and the villain(s). Everything tries to have significant stakes and then just fizzles out. It ends up being more of the same from the first one- lots of fun visuals and action. It's bright and exciting, but not much else.

Thor

This movie is awfully enjoyable. And awful. It really is. There's so much that's at least borderline entertaining about it, but ultimately everything is just kind of wrong. Roger Ebert sums it up best in his overly-harsh review of the film when he basically says the fundamental flaw is that an audience cannot possibly connect on any human level with Thor. Why? Because he's a god. I don't care about him. He's a spoiled dick who stops being a god for a while, learns one single incredibly obvious lesson, and then becomes a god again. What the hell was the point? But the most egregious issue I take with the movie as a whole is the fact that the writers try so very hard to have a complex script in an incredibly silly concept. This film shouldn't be as complicated as it is plot-wise. Be direct and one-note. Don't try to inject macho pathos into Thor and his daddy issues and with Loki's problems with...EVERYTHING. And worst than all that is the fact that the plot itself is so poorly depicted on screen, I literally had to watch a Marvel movie three times before I could finally understand everything that happened. And this wasn't in a Gosford Park, multiple layers kind of way. It was in a my brain can't follow this story kind of way. It annoys me primarily because it shouldn't be that difficult.

But it's still fun. The visuals are nice, even in 3D. The action is adequate. In fact everything production-wise is just adequate. It doesn't try very hard, but it doesn't exactly end up being bad per se because of its lack of effort. It's just average fun.

Captain America: The First Avenger

I love this movie. It's like if Indiana Jones were a comic-book movie. But more so. I find there to be legitimate drama and characterization in this movie. Is it significant or original? No. But it tries. And it succeeds. Everything about it production-wise is fantastic and dazzling. It has that awesome retro-visual style where the CG emulates old-school comic books as well as WW2 propaganda movies and sensibilities. Also Chris Evans is adorable. Everything's adorable in this movie. It's so patriotic and simple-minded. It doesn't try to be sophisticated really, but it has its semi-serious moments. A solid mixture which is really what's important in these kinds of movies. The action is exciting. The visuals pop. And the plot, though overly-familiar, feels fresh in this age of super serious modernity. When's the last time someone did the Nazi's as legitimate villains in an action movie?

The Avengers

Joss Whedon. Enough said. Could've been a disaster. Saved by him. Witty, fun, dramatic, funny, exciting, EPIC, all in all, a perfect summer action blockbuster. I haven't had that much fun (and I mean actual, legitimate fun) at the movies in a long time.