Hey guys! Sorry for not making any posts for so long! There was a lot I wanted to talk about, and I just kept forgetting. This review is for the Avengers! I hope you all like it.

The beginning is really quite interesting. It establishes that this movie is about space and magic and the Chitauri without being over the top with it. The Tesseract is an odd thing, considering it is the power of the universe in a little cube, but I feel that with Phase One’s establishment of the Tesseract, it makes it not as out of the blue as it could have been. You really don’t have to see the other movies to love the Avengers though, and that’s something I love about it.

Loki’s character development seems really quite intense to me. I do understand that he just let himself fall into the abyss of space and how that could certainly be mentally damaging, but Loki is all tricks in Thor, and he seemed so much more in the mindset of ‘kill kill kill’ in this movie.

Now, after brainwashing the agents in the laboratory and having Clint shoot Nick Fury, Loki trips. This entire beginning of the movie, he’s sweating, and his eyes are sunken in throughout the entire movie- much like Clint’s when he’s been taken over. Loki appears to have a case of heat exhaustion (The symptoms of heat exhaustion are confusion, dizziness, fainting, fatigue, headache, muscle cramps, nausea, pale skin, profuse sweating, and sunken, dark eyes from dehydration). This could mean that maybe Thanos has partial control over Loki- how much he’s changed from Thor could allude to that too -, and/or that he tortured Loki (assuming that you can torture a Frost Giant with heat). This is all speculation, but I think it’s one of the best ideas that’s come out of the Avengers fandom.

The only issue I have with Steve Rogers/Captain America in this movie, is how he was written. He came off as too much of a comic relief character. Steve Rogers is incredibly smart, so I don’t understand how he couldn’t understand what Tony was talking about. I can see him saying ‘slow down’ or something of the sorts, but at times he came off as just an old man, and Steve Rogers honestly is not an old man- all jokes I make aside. This was the movie that made me fall in love with the character, but after Captain America: The Winter Soldier, it made me reconsider how he was written in his second movie appearance.

I love Mark Ruffalo as Bruce Banner/The Hulk. I think he was much better than Edward Norton, in appearance, how he was written, and how he played it. How Bruce Banner was written was really quite perfect. Him being in Calcutta, a place that’s incredibly loud and crowded and disease-filled, makes much more sense when you really think about it. Bruce is a scientist, he’s incredibly smart and most likely knows how to treat many of these diseases, he’s very caring and patient, – as we see when he runs across town with the little girl just to have Natasha tell him that S.H.I.E.L.D needs him – and he’s very calm. Calcutta would be the best place for him to feel like he’s actually helping, instead of what he most likely thinks; being a ticking time bomb, waiting to explode and destroy everything.

Tony Stark/Iron Man was fantastic. There isn’t much to say about him though. He’s obviously become more giving and compassionate, as we see from him being in a relationship with Pepper Potts and the sacrifice of his own life at the end, and I appreciate that. I also really love Pepper Potts. I think their relationship fit in really well with the movie. I don’t think it overwhelmed either of the characters. Pepper Potts was still Pepper Potts, Tony’s partner, but not just Tony’s partner.

I really don’t have anything to say about Thor. I liked his new design, but I certainly do feel like his character development came in Thor: The Dark World.

I’m really happy with how they wrote Black Widow/Natasha Romanoff in this movie. The original members from the comics in the Avengers were Ant-Man, Wasp, Iron Man, Captain America, and Thor, so making her character exist in Iron Man 2 was a good choice, like Hawkeye in Thor. Having the character be a part of that world instead of just being thrown into the Avengers is obviously quite smart. She was built upon so well in the Avengers, she was really her own character, not just there for men’s eyes or to be the only female lead. The only time she was a ‘vulnerable female lead’ was when Hulk was raging in the helicarrier, and even then she really wasn’t made into a stereotypical female like it usually would with different companies and their movies. She had a psychologically understandable fear with the Hulk. It wasn’t an ‘oh please help me male lead’ sort of moment- it was a human moment. Her abilities include manipulation, agility, melee combat, and range combat. You cannot shoot, punch, kick, manipulate, or even in some cases get away from the Hulk. The Hulk is a monster. And Natasha isn’t. She may be a superspy, able to control her emotions, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t have them. I really do want her to have her own movie, and I feel like it could be a real game changer for female heroines.

Maria Hill, Phil Coulson, and Nick Fury were all incredible. Nick Fury having a bigger role in the Avengers was the obvious choice, considering he’s the director of S.H.I.E.L.D, and how he was written was fantastic. Having Samuel L. Jackson’s usual exasperated, sailor-mouthed character he usually plays show through was perfect for Nick Fury. While Maria Hill had a more minor role, I still loved her. There’s not much to say about her, just going off the first movie she appeared in. And Phil Coulson was incredible. I think his character was perfect, and I loved him almost immediately. His quiet, yet kind and professional way of speaking is nice, and the fact that he’s a huge closet fanboy is great too.

Steve Rogers and Phil Coulson’s relationship is especially cute to me. Phil’s nervousness around Steve, his childhood (and probably adulthood) hero, and Steve’s professional and/or nonchalant sort of demeanor towards him. With the fact that Coulson also had mint condition collectors cards of Captain America, (not anymore thanks to Nick Fury) it’s obvious that Coulson really does admire Steve. I feel like in the sequel they could really build off of this relationship. I love the fight scenes and Loki’s second fight scene was cool and interesting.

Steve Rogers and Tony Stark’s relationship is really quite interesting to me. In 2006 through 2007 Marvel released a comic series, and to put it very shortly, the U.S. government issues the Superhero Registration Act in which Tony is on board with it, revealing that he is Iron Man, but Steve isn’t. The extreme opposing opinions causes Tony and Steve to fight, making just about every other superhero choose a side, and causing a Civil War. We all know that there is a fifty-fifty chance of them going to the Civil War route in the movies, and I feel like the writers did a great job having conflict between Tony and Steve without getting controversial. Although I will say, that Steve could have come with much better comebacks than he did throughout most of the movie. Steve and Clint are the wittiest and sassiest of the Avengers.

I enjoy Thor and Tony Stark’s relationship. It’s sort of like a sibling relationship, and I’m excited for it if they build on that in the sequel. How they met was really rad too.

Bruce Banner and Natasha Romanoff’s relationship is really interesting to me, because Natasha is obviously afraid of the Hulk, but she respects Bruce and isn’t afraid of him. I feel that Bruce is overall afraid of hurting people, but that he still is fond towards Natasha. I’d love to see what their relationship might evolve into.

I enjoy Natasha Romanoff and Clint Barton’s relationship the most, because they are completely equals. They quite obviously care for each other, and if one of them was hurt or if they were killed, the other would most likely kill eighty people in two days. That’s one of the reasons why I want a Black Widow movie so much. I feel like we could learn a lot about their past relationship without forcing unnecessary romance into the film.

I think the Avengers was the smartest thing for Marvel to do, and they executed it almost perfectly. It has a great blend of comedy, sci-fi, and action. The fight sequences were really quite good, especially the ending one. With Clint and Natasha fighting like this happens all the time, Steve leading the policemen to guide the civilians away, Thor and Hulk bringing down the bigger guys, and with Tony’s sacrifice, I feel like it shows them working all together perfectly and shows their roles in the team amazingly. This was honestly a great movie.

Natasha and Tony saved the day, and I love that. Tony sacrificed himself for an uncountable amount of people, including his loved ones, and Natasha sealed the portal so that it would actually work. And while Tony’s sacrifice is definitely important and shouldn’t be swept aside, neither should Natasha’s intelligence and bravery.

Next week, I’ll be talking about all thirteen of the Doctors from Doctor Who. Have a Marvelous weekend!