I know a lot of people may not have watched this, so I tried to limit any spoilers in my review to what's been revealed in trailers. If you have chosen to stay away even from trailers, you should stop reading right now.

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THERE MAY BE SPOILERS

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The good
- The lead actors: in particular Tom Holland's energetic Spidey and Keaton's menacing presence, but also some heartfelt cameos by RDJ and Marisa Tomei
- The pace: the energy never let up but also didn't drag out its peak action moments for too long that it gives you fatigue
- The scope: while not quite as miniscule-scaled as Ant-Man, it certainly befits Spidey's title of "your friendly neighbourhood superhero". No aliens, no otherworldly beings, no Infinity Stones, not even an international diplomatic crisis. Just a bit of brick work off the Washington monument (oi) and a climax that is more or less confined to an unidentifiable abandoned...beach?
- Tony Stark: for once he's the highlight for playing the straight guy. The few scenes he share with Spidey have a nice dynamic that brings out a whole new facet to Tony's character
- The humour: it gets the tone just right between witty, awkward and self-effacing

The bad
- The sum is less than its parts
-- I can't remember a single iconic heroic moment in this movie - e.g. Wonder Woman climbing out of the trenches to gunfire, or Stephen Strange using the Eye of Agamotto to reverse the damage to Hong Kong. The Staten Island ferry scene was hardly the climax it seemed in the trailers.
-- The character arc for Peter is vague and muddled, and I can't confidently say that he's learned any significant lessons by its conclusion
-- It's missing the core value of its 2 previous incarnations "with great power comes great responsibility" by avoiding Uncle Ben too much. In fact, previous MCU stories have always been good with its key messages that is conveyed through their character growths (e.g. Thor and humility, Iron Man and empathy, Cap and remaining true to ideals), but lately, in particular in Dr Strange and Ant Man and certainly here, these "life lessons" haven't come through
- Some really weak plot devices: come on Tony, surely you don't write your code to be cracked within seconds by a high school sophomore
- Karen: ARGH I'm so sick of chirpy intrusive AI's that sound like too much like real people (i.e. have emotions). The only AI that deserves to have lines in MCU is JARVIS.

The usual Marvel weaknesses
- A paper thin villain - that's thankfully saved by Keaton's very scary air. Some father-child moments could have really elevated this character
- The utter lack of stakes and ramifications
- Lots of seemingly important side characters not doing much at all
- The lack of emotional continuity
- Lack of character/emotional building: again, Spidey is one of those universes where family could have been a big emotional anchor and there's plenty of missed opportunities with Peter but also with several of the side characters

The verdict
In a way, this movie is perfectly timed to debut with this tone, having just come off 2 heavy The Amazing Spider-man movies and an Avengers universe that is starting to get darker and splintered, having this light-hearted and energetic outing is like a return to the good ol' times. The actors turn in wonderful performances, and with the quick pace and light-footed humour, it keeps you engaged until the end, but you really only have to dip your fingers beneath the surface to notice the usual MCU shortcomings and a somewhat uncharacteristically incohesive plotline.

In a movie that draws heavily from Oriental philosophy/ideology, and in fact has multiple parallels to the Dreamworks panda story, it's only appropriate to use Master Oogway's icon to represent it.

I actually ended up watching this movie twice, more out of circumstance than because I felt particularly compelled to, the first time in 2D and the second time in 3D. I don't know if it's because 3D glasses never fit me very well but although the visuals were indeed a tad more impressive in 3D (it would be much better on IMAX, I'd imagine), you miss out on the nuances of the actors' expressions, in particular Tilda Swinton.

I think people have already said all that's needed to be said about this movie. It's a par performance by Marvel, upping the bar for imagination and visual representation, and barely clearing it from a plot and character point of view.

Unlike his incredibly popular turn as Mr Holmes in Sherlock and (for me at least) a riveting presence as Khan in Star Trek: Into Darkness, Benedict Cumberbatch's Stephen Strange is just...par. I mean, from where I stand, there's definitely humour in the familiar caricature of awkwardly narcissist surgeons, but whether it's the slightly distracting almost-American accent (he sounds much better than RDJ sprouting British, so there's that) or the failings of the story, Strange is unfortunately not as charismatic as Tony Stark or Thor, not as funny as Peter Quill, not as morally straight as Steve Rogers, and not as personable as Scott Lang. Marvel's leading men had always led the story, the plot there only as an embellishment to display their best qualities. It's not as though Benedict hadn't pulled his weight, and it certainly isn't that he is incapable of doing great or lovable, but unfortunately Strange is neither, and that is this movie's greatest misstep.

There were some great acting from everyone involved, which unfortunately only further highlighted the thinness of the plot. Rachel McAdams did what she could with 15 minutes of screen time for a warm and compassionate ED doctor (where do you find one of those these days? LOL), and was a lot less grating than the last token girlfriend *cough*Nat Portman*cough*. Mads Mikkelsen also did what he could with a largely 2-dimensional villain in Kaecilius.

I think my greatest frustration is that the stems of the plot are there, but the story wasn't allowed to develop into a rich canopy. To draw on the Kungfu Panda analogy - if a cartoon could make you shed a tear at a doddery turtle's ascent to the stars, there's no reason it couldn't have done the same here. Similarly Kaecilius and Mordo were both short-changed in terms of their character (well, in terms of character even Stephen Strange was short-changed, so I suppose all that's not surprising). The betrayal these 2 students felt, and in particular in the case of Mordo, if the movie had given a little back story to explain why he was so fiercely adherent to the idea of "rules", then Marvel would have created one of their best antiheroes next to Loki, but alas.

There was a lot of controversy about the casting of Tilda Swinton. It's ironic to call it "not whitewashing when the character was white to start with" when the original character was Asian and much of the movie's imagery and even some of its philosophy draws on Asian culture. To her credit, Tilda Swinton makes the Ancient One great, but I have no doubt there are equally capable actors of Asian descent that could have done this. That said, her portrayal of the Ancient One with a mischievous twinkle and fleeting moments of vulnerability certainly made her the most interesting character in this movie.

She also has the best quote - "We never lose our demons, we only learn to live above them." - neatly foreshadowing perhaps not only her students' downfall but also her own.

I am very fond of Benedict (and also of Rachel and Chiwetel), so I do want to see more of them, but while this has been a stunning visual experience, I really hope the story gets much better by the second time round.
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As an aside, I've seen a few sites talk about when Doctor Strange was set, and one of the makers came out and said that the movie started in 2016. Without arguing over how long Strange would take to master sorcery - just from a medical point of view, the guy was in a car accident (it's amazing how he managed to get out of it without brain injury when his face is all smashed, but hey, creative license). Then we see him wake up with external fixators, then he flips through 3 hand X-rays, representing a progression in time - the first one when the ex-fix's were in, the second when they were out, and the 3rd when more pins were removed. Following that, at least one major surgery was depicted, followed by a period of rehab. The impression you get from the movie is that he had more surgeries (likely with rehab in between) before everyone had given him up and he had to search out Pangborn.

In the "leanest" case scenario, we're talking about: accident - ex-fix - ex-fix out - pins out - rehab - surgery - rehab. This is a process that would have taken at very minimum 3-4 months, though if I were to factor in other surgeries and in real life terms, I'd be estimating a year or even two. This does still give enough time for Strange to arrive at the same chronology as Thor: Ragnarok by 2017. To be honest I think it doesn't really affect the Marvel continuity if he had been around earlier because he would have been immersed in training, and may not even have heard about Sokovia or whatever.

Of course I've watched Age of Ultron a while ago (twice, in fact, cos Dad wanted to watch it too haha) but the movie was a bit like a bowl of ice-cream in summer - felt delicious while eating, but afterwards felt like you had a lot of nothing.

Antman is a bit like Guardians of the Galaxy. I think canonically he's actually a fairly big presence, but the basis and name seemed ridiculous, which is probably why he took so long to get to the big screen.

Let's start with the broad strokes - the movie is quite well-done, within the limitations. It's a heist movie as promised. It's much smaller in scale than the other heroes, which I think is a good thing. Like most superhero movies, the story is rather simple and linear, though what makes it stand out is probably the multiple central and side characters.

Antman decided to take the second iteration of the character, Scott Lang - a man recently released from jail for corporate theft. Unable to get a job because of the record and desperate to negotiate visits to his young daughter, he gets drawn into a heist to secure enough money to do so. This causes him to cross paths with Hank Pym, the original Antman, who values Scott's unorthodox resume in his own plans to topple a wayward corporation.

That both Scott and Hank were in this film together was a stroke of genius. Apart from being absolutely unique in the last dozen Marvel films to have two superheroes sharing the same mantle, there is an unforced parallel between Hank and Hope, and Scott and Cassie. Family relationships are a sadly neglected subject in the superhero world. The best of it had been in the Thor movies, which was unfortunately bogged down by all the other terrible stuff that was going on. There were some nice parent-child moments in Guardians, but more about the absence of it. The nice part about Antman was the uneasy relationship between Hank and Hope, which brings out my next point.

Hank is the most grumpy old fart next to Yondu LOL

He actually turned out to be my favourite character. I like how flawed he is, despite being in the mentor role. I like that he's arrogant, obstinate, bad-tempered, unforgiving, hamfisted...he's highly intelligent but you would not necessarily call him wise. I like that he keeps a grudge for decades to the point he'd rather employ a thief than enlist the help of anyone involved with Stark. I like that he's awkward with his daughter, that he wants the best for her but didn't know how to tell her that, that he wants to mend the relationship but just makes things worse each time. I like that he's a proud man who's used to achieving great things but the events in the film forces him, bit by tiny bit, to concede that age is catching up and he's no longer quite the capable man he used to be. I also like how even the climax highlighted how single-minded Hank is - that in a way he would destroy something to protect it. Michael Douglas brings a presence to the movie that Anthony Hopkins did to Thor and Robert de Niro did to Winter Soldier, but he seems to - or perhaps the script allows him to - put more heart into it than the former two.

Scott is a likeable character, though unfortunately debuts after Peter Quill and probably overlaps too much with him. They're both criminals who still have a sense of justice, enacted by two people known more or less for comedy or "boy next door" type roles. The difference though is Scott has more justice than scoundrel compared with Quill, and I don't know if it's intentional, seems a much cooler and reserved sort of guy than a lot of the other superheroes. He's someone who lingers and watches on the side before taking a dive, but he's also someone who dives in with relish and works hard at something when he's accepted the task. He's an engineer sort of guy - not the hot-headed type who tries to wing it by ear, but the type that has the minutiae worked out and has multiple backup plans that he can draw from and improvise with on the spot. That said, I'm not sure he can hold a franchise together, and I feel the movie would not have been quite as good if Hank had not been there.

A lot of people have waxed lyrical about Hope and the step forward for representation of women in superhero movies. I'm not too sure Evangeline Lilly was quite on spot for all of her scenes, but Hope managed to distinguish herself from the Black Widow, despite both being excellent fighters and capable sharp-tongued women. I think, after revisiting Winter Soldier, the difference is that Hope doesn't have Black Widow's past - and so she's less aware of herself (e.g. she would never use her sexuality like Black Widow could as a weapon), less cold-blooded but also less vulnerable.

The three of them are probably far more relatable and "normal" characters than others of their ilk.

The movie's strength was its humour, with excellent timing, especially of juxtapositions, and it was a shame this never came through in the promos. The pacing never made you feel like it dragged, despite its small scale, and it prodded the 4th wall at some good places. The villain was again Marvel's weakness, and to be honest there could have been something better from the Darren Cross's (I don't think I'm spoiling anything - it's revealed pretty quickly that he's the villain) interaction with Hank Pym. The imperfect mentor and the frustrated student trying to prove something to his Master - it had been done reasonably well in Kungfu Panda. There were hints of it, and the two actors certainly tried to make something of it, but there wasn't enough to make you care for Cross, which was a real shame.

In all, a decent standalone movie that introduces you to a surprisingly pleasant group - but I'm not too sure about how they would go about making this a franchise. That said, I'm certainly looking forward to Scott's appearance in Civil War, and I'd love to see cameos from Hank and Hope somewhere down the line too.

Certainly was nice to hear the Winter Soldier jig whirring away in the background during that post-cred scene. Speaking of post-creds, they're probably the two most fulfilling post-creds in a while, and worth staying for.

I actually garbled a lot about this after watching it yesterday, so I'm in a bit of a word-drought regarding it.

I think people are fairly divided as to which was the best Marvel "Phase One" pre-Avengers movies - while the majority seem to favour Iron Man, a large number are divided between Captain America and Thor - which is a good thing, really. It is after all a huge franchise, and you can't appeal to everyone at once - so the next best thing is to appeal to different people with different franchises.

Personally I thought Captain America was a weaker outing for Marvel. Something about him just didn't quite connect with me, and while the underlying message echos with anyone who had ever been bullied, the rushed and perfunctory 3rd act left behind a generally sour taste. Added to that, while all of the characters were cheerfully likeable, none of them were all that memorable.

The Winter Soldier is a much more...heroic movie, in the sense that all major characters had a moment to shine. You don't remember Steve Rogers for dancing around the stage in tights and leather boots, but you will remember him for silently analysing the crowd who joins him in the elvator, before he laconically wonders aloud, "Before we get started, does anybody want to get out?"

I don't think the movie passes the Bechdel's test, but as someone had pointed out, at least 4 important hanging-by-the-thread rescues were engineered by the strong female cast. For once, there's more than just Black Widow kicking ass, too, even if she does the bulk of it. The Black Widow actually gets a bit more beefed out in her role. Scarlett Johansson's particular shade of carrot is still disagreeing with me, but she's no longer the token female ninja warrior, and saves Steve's ass in more ways than just physical combat.

In a sense, The Winter Soldier is almost an ensemble movie, though not quite. Whereas Thor was very much self-dependent, a lot of the plot in The Winter Soldier could not have happened if it was just Steve Rogers alone. Steve is a much more reactionary character than his superhero peers, though that is not exactly surprising given his role and his inherent inclination to trust people.

My only disappointment is that I feel I still don't have a grip on Steve's character. He's selfless, yes, but he also has very personal attachments. It won't be the first or second time he's run after Bucky into danger. But at the same time he's also the person who can detachedly tell his comrades that he was going to 1) crash his ship, 2) shut off the space portal with Iron Man still stuck outside or 3) bomb the ship he's still on. I feel there's some sort of conflict in this, that in crisis he can make these noble, difficult and somewhat emotionless decisions - and yet he seems very much driven by compassion and emotion.

However, whereas the first movie like a awkward tie-in with The Avengers and hence leaving a bad taste behind, the gigantic SPOILER that happens at the end of this one capped it for me. It was brave and promises new directions and new battles and new stakes. The problem with success is that once you find it, you become terrified of changing, and you reach a state of stasis that inevitably degenerates into tedium and disappointment.

The fact that Marvel was keen to ruin one of the most convenient and in a way stabilising existences in their universe was encouraging to see. I think the issue with Marvel and in particular their formula of a villain lasting only one movie ends up with some poorly developed villains but also movies that don't have any sense of stake. You know your heroes will survive.

I hope in the near future (though when I say near, that will still be at least 2 movies away) the stakes become higher and it would be great to see one or two heroes being written off the roster. It's not a thriller unless no one is sure that everyone will still be there at the end.



Edit August 2014:
Captain America: The Winter Soldier blu-ray proves that this is a film that still performs on rewatching. Even after transitioning to the small screen, the iconic action sequences - the Lemurian Star, the car chase, the elevator scene and the other car chase - are still gripping and intense. The Nick Fury car chase sequence loses some of its majesty (though I'm not sure that's the correct adjective) but still keeps you on the edge of the seat throughout the whole ten minutes.

Action aside, the story has enough nuances to still feel fresh on repeat. A good artist does not pass judgement; he merely raises debate. There's something patronising about impressing a message into a movie that will be screened across the world in different languages and cultures, and most mainstream movies avoid that for commercial reasons more than anything else.

Nevertheless, the ethical dilemma raised in the movie is still thought-provoking the second time around. The concept is not new - I'm sure I've seen it in any number of Japanese and Hollywood dystopian settings - and it's frightening because of its familiarity and imminency. What if, you could eliminant threats before they happen? What would you sacrifice for security? Freedom? Privacy? The presumption of innocence? Can you really reduce an individual down to a mathematical equation of probability?

On second viewing, I think my disappointment lies with the titular Winter Soldier. As the directors said on commentary, the hero is often only as good as the villain. Tony Stark has managed thus far with terrible villains because he's actually his own worst enemy. Thor was only interesting because Loki was fascinating. Everyone is an enemy to each other in ensemble movies like The Avengers and Guardians of the Galaxy so the point is moot.

I think the Winter Soldier could have been more, yet at the same time I don't think they could have fit any more without slowing the pace down too much. I hope this is addressed in the next movie because it would make up for what's lacking in this movie - the dynamic between Cap and Winter Soldier, the tragedy and disbelief and the see-sawing between trust and mistrust that made the Thor-Loki dynamic so magnetic. The Winter Soldier was a terrifying menace, and Sebastian Stan did bring a hint of vulnerability in the rare moments that his character was exposed, but there was not much more.

That said, the Steve-Bucky bromance is probably the least convincing of all I've seen. Oddly, the Steve/Sam dynamic is the most natural brothers-in-arms of the lot. Tony/Rhodey always has a sense of vague insincerity in that Rhodey has a conflicting obligation to the army, and he seems more exasperated with Tony than friendly.

BEWARE OF SPOILERS BELOW

Watched Iron Man 3 a couple of days ago, and in some ways it's better than I expected. It's somewhat like the feel of The Avengers, in that despite its multiple imperfections, it's a far more enjoyable product than the sum of its parts.

There's no arguing that the Iron Man franchise is the international money horse of the Disney/Marvel-owned cinema universe (in distinction from the Sony-owned Spiderman who due to these factors is unable to join the Avengers on their foray despite being a key member of the team). One can argue that without the success of the first Iron Man, there would be no Marvel cinema universe...and perhaps there would be no rekindling of RDJ's career.

It's worthy to note that RDJ's contract with Marvel actually ends with this movie, so he is not contractually obliged to continue his stint as Tony Stark, though he clearly is very fond of the character.

Assuming that this is RDJ's final outing (as unlikely as it seems at this point), I think it makes a good final installment of a trilogy - or perhaps in all, Tony's 5th official appearance.

I was a bit hesitant about the news of Shane Black directing. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang was critically acclaimed, but I thought the flavour was too macabre and cynical for Marvel. The feeling of KKBB is like a dark fairytale, like maybe the original Grimm tales, full of gore and betrayal and happy endings at a Pyrrhic price.

In that respect, I was wrong. And as Shane Black and RDJ promised, the third movie stripped down the superfluous action and got closer to Stark's vulnerabilities. The script reads tighter than IM2, though the awkward ad-libbing is still obvious in some scenes. It doesn't quite reduce Stark to the level of helplessness in IM1, but it puts him in a tight spot for most of the movie and allows for an easy flow of an abundance of well-choreographed action scenes.

It was also nice to see a continuation of The Avengers storyline. Several of the pre-Avengers movies were accused of being too light on its own plot and too heavy on hinting to the combined movie. IM3 is fortunate in that it's the first movie to follow The Avengers and it doesn't need to carry the mantle of building up the Avengers' second outing. All it needs to do is acknowledge that Manhattan had happened, and it does so nicely by extending Tony's range of emotions and hence actually requiring RDJ to do some of his excellent acting.

In fact, as the story flows, we forget to wonder why Iron Man didn't call for help from the Avengers. For Tony Stark, his fight has always been personal. When Captain America stood on the Helicarrier and accused him of fighting only for himself...there was no argument. Tony is not a soldier or a mercenary, he's a self-made vigilante who would never drag other people into his personal battles.

One thing Shane Black excels at is creating some very dimensional characters. Despite a large number of new characters introduced into the cast, many of them are quite memorable, and yet the old characters are still further developed.

Pepper Potts manages to be amazing in this movie. She's not the helpless damsel-in-distress she's always been, but a totally kick-ass woman in her own right. Gwyneth Paltrow has been saying for a while (since completing filming) that she wanted to leave the franchise, but apart from replacing her I don't see them writing Pepper out of the picture. This version of Tony is far too attached to her, and he'll just have a major meltdown if anything happens.

SPOILER ALERT FOR THE NEXT BIT

Now, onto the flaws, and there's a few. Firstly, the trailers are pretty misleading, though that in itself is not necessarily a flaw. But the trailer gave the impression that the Mandarin was the major villain in this movie...when in actual fact, he's not, and that is a pity.

Sir Ben Kingsley is an amazing actor, who can turn from a threatening dictatorial presence to a doddering old junkie in the next, so it seems an enormous pity that the plot wastes his talent in revealing the Mandarin as nothing but a mannequin. In the comics, the Mandarin is Iron Man's greatest nemesis. He is to Tony Stark what Loki is to Thor (though obviously...different in many ways). I do hope he makes a reappearance at some point...and that brings me to the second point.

Aldritch Killian is too weak as a villain. Oh, physically he is almost invincible, sort of like a conveniently more destructible version of the Wolverine. But as far as villains go, Iron Man has had a run of three poor villains. The first was motivated by greed, the second by revenge, and this guy by...what? Both? Tony Stark still stands as the most visible superhero within the Marvel cinematic universe. He is a weapon-maker who spouts ideals of peace and green-love and all things, that would to a cynical eye look, hypocritical. It is time that he meets someone who can match, not only his cleverness and strength, but who can also shred his flimsy ideology to the rubbish it's worth. People adore him because he wins...but what happens when he loses, will his ideology still look so appealing then? That would be very interesting to explore and I think it should take someone like the Mandarin to test his mettle.

Thirdly, while the action scenes are very fun to watch, there's a lot of flaws abound. The logic of the suits and of the Extremis virus haven't been planned that well, and the abilities of each armour unit and each Extremis host vary wildly from scene to scene, from battle to battle. The thing about video games is that it doesn't just have to look cool, there has to be rules and the rules have to be enforced. IM3's most visible flaw is that no one's bothered to think of the rules and as a result there is a movie filled with enemies that would be indestructible up until the moment they're dispatched with one simple blast.

Aldritch Killian and the Mandarin were not the only ones who were slighted in their development. I expected more of Rebecca Hall's character...but she didn't last long. And despite her being pretty spunky and Pepper being actually cool, the movie still failed the Bechdel test.

It was a very enjoyable movie, and it amended at least one flaw of the previous Iron Man movies, which was that the climax here actually deserved to be called a climax. What it would benefit from is actually finding some villains with good ideological conviction. Other than that, the logic of the suits and the powers of the Extremis hosts could have done with some more thought...because it does get distracting eventually.

Things you need to know before watching The Avengers (film universe events)

******** Contains spoilers to previous movies ********

Captain America, or Steve Rogers, is a war hero from WWII. He was given the super soldier serum by Tony Stark's father which enhanced all his human capacities without giving him any superpowers. The Captain's shield is made from vibranium and is extremely resistant to kinetic forces. In his final mission in the war, Captain America crashed near the arctic and was frozen for 70 years. How he retained his youth is not yet explained.......

Thor is the son of Odin All-Father, the king of Asgard, a realm that exists in parallel to Earth. His hammer, Mjollnir, can only be lifted by someone worthy of it. During his brief banishment to Earth, he fell in love with Jane Foster and became good friends with her mentor, Erik Selvig.

Loki was raised as Thor's brother, but Loki later discovers that he's actually the surviving child of Asgard's mortal enemies, the Frost Giants of Jotunheim. Eager to please Odin and prove himself the more worthy child, Loki attempts to destroy Jotunheim, and when rejected by Odin, chooses to fall into the abyss of his own creation and vanished from Asgard.

Tony Stark is Iron Man and requires no introduction beyond "uhh...genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist?" Suffice to say that he's also a drama queen who craves applause who would and did build a tower with his own name plastered across the top.

The Arc Reactor is a clean energy source created by Tony's father but perfected by Tony. He has a miniature version in his chest to prevent shrapnel from reaching his heart.

Inside the nervy scientist Bruce Banner lies the alter-ego Hulk, a giant green monster that arose from a failed super soldier serum experiment. Hulk's main identity is anger and is almost uncontrollable when unleashed.

Hawkeye's name is Clint Barton whose main prowess is with bow and arrow. Black Widow is Natasha Romanov. Both are spies and assassins under SHIELD. For a while Black Widow was undercover as Tony Stark's secretary.

SHIELD is the secret security subdivision that first advanced the Avengers Initiative, uniting a group of superheroes in preparation for overwhelming threats. Nick Fury is the organisation's badass eccentric director. Agent Phil Coulson is the field agent SHIELD sent to recruit Stark and to investigate various phenomena in previous movies.

The Tesseract (or Cosmic Cube, though I'm not sure if that name is ever used in the movies) is an unlimited power source first discovered by Captain America's enemy, the Red Skull, and was lost when Captain America crashed his plane. Erik Selvig was called upon to work on harnessing the power of the Tesseract at the end of Thor.



Ugh...after writing all that I realised how much there was going on. While The Avengers follows directly on the heels of Captain America, most characters and plot-points are actually laid down in Iron Man and Thor.

I would have gone and watched this movie anyway even if all the trailers continued to be as boring unrevealing as the initial ones. But the lastest trailer just made me squeeeek the heck out XD

One day I may actually read the comics (nah).


Avengers trailer #1 (teaser)

Avengers trailer #2 (Superbowl)

* I love the song in the first trailer
* I love how the 3rd trailer balances out the action instead of being Iron Man-centric

None of Marvel's movies have been very good so far in terms of plot or, in particular, climaxes...Iron Man 2 probably the worst offender with Thor coming close in second =_=++

But their characterisation have so far been quite well-written (or well-casted). As much as I found Thor bull-headed, he was probably far more likeable than he otherwise would have been ==; The only one I didn't care much for was Captain America, but that's because he's written as a flawless hero in his own movie, so a clash with a reluctant and very flawed hero like Tony Stark would be interesting. It seems to be Thor vs Captain America and Iron Man in that forest confrontation, but judging by the character clash later on, I'm hoping it will be a three way fight instead XD

I think Tony Stark just about pissed everyone important off in the trailers XD I finally spotted the scene where Loki shoves him (unsuited) out the window of his tower (*first trailer, probably soon after the snark in the 2nd trailer).

I hope there's a good end for Loki. I like Loki. But I think I like Tom Hiddleston more because he's just so damn pleasant and positive and British LOL. I could probably say the same for all the other guys, Hemsworth and RDJ and Evans are just so funny and personable in interviews I'm looking forward to the promotional material as much as I am to the actual movie.

I still find Hawkeye and Black Widow redundant. Perhaps that's related to me finding Jeremy Renner and Scarlett Johansson so clashingly sour in interviews >_>