Avengers

This post is brought to you by my awesome husband who took me to see The Avengers yesterday for my Mother's Day gift--I think this ranks up there as one of the best gifts I've gotten in a while.

Let's put some of this in context of my movie-going history and personal opinion on Marvel/DC comics. This marks one of my first trips to see any of the newer super hero movies in the theater. I like super hero movies, but generally I'm not enough of a fan to really want to see it in theaters. I'll wait till I can get it from Red Box or some other movie rental place. Actually calling me any kind of fan of the genre is a bit of a stretch. I liked watching X-Men and Batman and others as cartoon series when I caught them on TV when I was much younger. I did not watch them religiously. I did not collect or read the comics. In fact when Iron Man came out I really drug my feet getting around to watching it. I didn't think I'd like it. I admit I'm super picky about what I watch and what I like, and Iron Man just didn't look like something I'd like. I think the only reason I finally sat down to watch it is that one of my cousins was on the tech crew for the movie. To show some familial support, I did eventually sit down to watch it. I was incredibly surprised at how much I enjoyed it. I loved how Robert Downey Jr. brought the character to life.

My viewing of Iron Man sparked an interest in that line of super hero movies. That is probably a good thing considering I was growing increasingly disappointed in the X-Men movies, didn't care much for the Superman movie, and felt that the new series of dark Batman movies, although good, were over-hyped, and the whole genre was about to get dropped from my list of movies that I wanted to watch at some point. Ok, so I'll say I did really like Batman Begins, but I just couldn't get into Heath Ledger's version of the Joker in The Dark Knight. In any case, a lot of the hero genre movies were decent, but they never really clicked with my tastes. Anyways, the purpose of this post is not to rant on those movies, and I'm getting off topic. =) So, I watched Iron Man, and I loved it. I have also watched Captain America, Thor, Iron Man 2, and The Hulk (the remake--I still haven't seen the first one that Ang Lee directed), and I enjoyed all of those. I appreciated the balance of character, story, action, humor and drama. I waited to watch all of those until they hit DVD. I liked them enough, though, that when The Avengers was announced, it made my incredibly short list of movies I wanted to see in the theater. There are certain movies that attract my interest, but usually it's only things like The Lord of the Rings that make that list--in fact it is quite possible that The Return of the King was the last movie I told my husband I wanted him to take me to see. No, wait. I asked to see Hunger Games a month or so ago, but before that, I think it was The Return of the King. This year might actually break personal records given that I'm also going to ask to see The Hobbit this December. I'm sure this will make my husband happy since he really enjoys movies and it's a rare treat when I actually want to go to the movies.

Anyways, that said, The Avengers did not disappoint, which, in my opinion, is impressive because I went in with high expectations. I find that if I go in with low expectations, I'm more likely to enjoy the movie. Yes, I'm a cynic when it comes to a lot of things. Anyways, back on topic. One of the biggest things I liked about The Avengers was that each character got a fair amount of screen time (unlike say X-Men 3 which might as well have been named Wolverine considering how much the movie focused on him compared to other characters). I think I would have a tough time picking out a favorite; I like all of them, and so I really appreciated that the movie didn't focus too much on any one of them. I liked that there was depth to the characters and a lot of it was worked subtly into the story. I liked the balance of humor and seriousness in the plot and character interactions. There was a lot to the movie that I really liked, although I haven't mulled over it enough to really put my opinion into words--it usually takes me some time to convert feelings and impressions into coherent sentences. =) Overall though, I loved the movie. I want to draw stuff for it (yes, this is my standard response for things that I get excited over), and I probably will--be watching for some of that come June (once the next round of craziness dies down--more on this next week ^_~ ). I'm sure there are a lot of details that true comic fans will find wrong with the movie, but maybe it's worth it. The Avengers movie and the series of movies leading up to it (and I'm sure we can add the series of movies that are going to come from it considering the box office success) has certainly done a lot to draw me into American comic fandom, and that's something that may not have ever happened otherwise.