THE AVENGERS (Joss Whedon, 2012)

-

Basically it's a movie created for the fanbase. I didn't enjoy it as much as I'd anticipated, or at least as much as I enjoyed Kenneth Branagh's onscreen adaptation of THOR (my favorite of the recent Marvel movies). The story doesn't really get my interest until the second half, and to my surprise the seemingly quiet character manages to provide the most fun. The HULK deserves an award for best comedic and show-stopping performance.

THE AVENGERS is a movie propelled by star power, but I have to admit that Joss Whedon does a good job of piecing together the stories of the superheroes, and uniting them against a common enemy. Robert Downey, Jr. is always charming to watch as Tony Stark; so are Chris Hemsworth as Thor and Chris Evans as Captain America. Meanwhile, Mark Ruffalo competently and most appropriately portrays the mild-mannered Bruce Banner, whereas Jeremy Renner and Scarlett Johansson give fierceness to their characters Hawkeye and Black Widow, respectively. Even Samuel L. Jackson as the team leader. Nick Fury is credible. The story gets real interesting because of the ego clash among the characters, where no one wants to bow down, especially not Tony Stark. But where they have differences in opinion, they share a common aim to thwart evil. In this case, it's Thor's half-brother Loki (Tom Hiddleston). 

But what will make THE AVENGERS memorable? I cannot help comparing it to the separate films involving each of the characters. IRON MAN 1 and 2 succeeded because of Stark's realization of the impact his arms business has on the global scale, and his continuing battle with his ego. THOR has a great Shakespearean sibling rivalry catharsis. CAPTAIN AMERICA has a stirring back story. I don't want to play favorites with the two HULK movies. In short, THE AVENGERS in my opinion pales in comparison to these separate films about its characters. It is a neatly-written film featuring a side lesson in teamwork and some extravagant fireworks, but there really is nothing new, and this coming from someone who hasn't followed all those comic books. I haven't read the source materials, but judging by the film alone the story could have used a plot twist or two, just to elevate it from the status of several superheroes simply coming together for a common goal.  

RATING: 3/5

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

ANINO SA LIKOD NG BUWAN (Jun Lana, 2015)

-
Image
* English title "Shadow behind the Moon" The best term to describe Jun Lana's latest film would be a cinematic charade- a game of identities, of motives, of suppressed passions, and of uncertainty. Or the film equivalent of a Russian doll, if you will. "Anino sa Likod ng Buwan" only has three characters- husband and wife Nando (Anthony Falcon) and Emma (LJ Reyes) and military man Joel (Luis Alandy). What started as a seemingly routine banter among friends gradually and intensely escalated into an examination of society, where the definition of immorality is blurred during a time of insurgency.  And in fact, the film does discuss the subject of immorality from various paradigms. When does adultery become acceptable, and to whom? Is sexual liberation more heinous than murder? Why is immorality always a double standard? The film plays out the ideas in endless games. Or are they really games at all? Lana could have stopped there, but he didn...
Read more

TUHOG (Jeffrey Jeturian)

-
Image
Film within a film-structured movies are always interesting watch. Not only do they provide a much-needed deconstruction of form and content of cinema itself, but also that much-needed emotional punch a cinephile would surely love.  Like in BAD EDUCATION (Almodovar, 2004), we witness the characters tell the back story via montage, as if we are part of the cast of characters watching an actual movie. The form was successful in evoking pain and regret, and also of empathy. In TUHOG, Jeffrey Jeturian and screenwriter Bing Lao tackles sensational media in the Philippines, especially in cinema. The film opens as a film producer hears a pitch for a possible movie- a story of a grandfather who rapes his own granddaughter.  The director of the film soon after visits the victim of the crime, Floring (Ina Raymundo). Coercing both she and her mother, Perla (Irma Adlawan) to sell them the movie rights to their story, we witness as exploitation cinema unfolds. To think of it, capitaliz...
Read more

BIGKIS (Neal Tan, 2014)

-
Image
As an advocacy film, BIGKIS (INTERTWINED) gets its message across. The state of maternal healthcare in the Philippines is downright depressing, with mothers seated on the floor of public hospitals due to shortage of beds, medical equipment and hospital staff. The baby better be gaping through the birth canal before the mother receives serious medical attention.  Such social issue has been featured countless times in local documentaries and even in a feature film (2011's BAHAY BATA), but BIGKIS pushes the envelope further by bridging a connection between mother and child by means of breastfeeding, and in doing so, promoting breastfeeding in the process.  As a drama, the film tends to squeeze too much tragedy from the downtrodden lives of its characters that a lot of the dialogue feels staged for us to feel sorry for their countless miseries. Mariel (LJ Reyes), a teenage mother deals with an unwanted pregnancy and worse, the abandonment of her baby's father (Pancho ...
Read more