211 replies to this topic

[Robert B]

I haven't bothered to see this movie yet but apparently AO Scott of the New York Times gave it a negative review and Sam Jackson called for fanboys to protest....and fanboys have flooded Scott's email and twitter.

When did the geeks turn into the bullies in our society?

[Chris D]

When did the geeks turn into the bullies in our society?

When the internet became a household commodity? It's easy to be a bully on the internet.

[Rory Abel]

I haven't bothered to see this movie yet but apparently AO Scott of the New York Times gave it a negative review and Sam Jackson called for fanboys to protest....and fanboys have flooded Scott's email and twitter.

When did the geeks turn into the bullies in our society?

There didn't seem to be any thing more to his negativity other than it was spectacle movie and a corporate IP. Basically he said, there are some nice small character moments and the rest is large CGI spectacle which are hollow.

Superheroes, Super Battles, Super Egos

Scientists estimate that we reached Peak Superhero in the summer of 2008, when “The Dark Knight” sucked the attention of every critic, pundit and sentient moviegoer into its inky nexus. It is not as if the number of movies featuring troubled guys wearing costumes and fighting evil has diminished since then. Quite the contrary. But the genre, though it is still in a period of commercial ascendancy, has also entered a phase of imaginative decadence.
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The best scenes are not the overblown, skull-assaulting action sequences — which add remarkably little that will be fresh or surprising to devotees of the “Transformers” franchise — but the moments in between, when the assembled heroes have the opportunity to brag, banter, flirt and bicker.
[cut]
The secret of “The Avengers” is that it is a snappy little dialogue comedy dressed up as something else, that something else being a giant A.T.M. for Marvel and its new studio overlords, the Walt Disney Company. At times — when various members of a game and nimble cast amble in and out of the glassy, metallic chambers of a massive flying aircraft carrier, cracking wise, rolling eyes and occasionally throwing a punch — the movie has some of the easygoing charm of “Rio Bravo,” Howard Hawks’s great, late western in which John Wayne, Angie Dickinson, Dean Martin and Ricky Nelson did a lot of talking on their way to a big and not-all-that-interesting shootout.

The difference is that, in keeping with the imperatives of global franchise entertainment, the big shootout in “The Avengers” must be enormous, of a scale and duration that obliterates everything else. A hole opens in the sky, disgorging metallic warriors on Jet Skis and big snakey things that inflict serious digital damage on the Manhattan skyline. Before that there are similarly overdone combat sequences. None of them matches, in cinematic wit or visceral surprise, a sucker punch landed by the Hulk on Thor’s lantern jaw or a cartoonish smackdown delivered by that same angry green fellow on Loki, Thor’s adoptive brother and this episode’s main villain.
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“I aim to misbehave,” Malcolm Reynolds famously said in “Serenity.” But for all their maverick swagger, the Avengers are dutiful corporate citizens, serving a conveniently vague set of principles. Are they serving private interests, big government, their own vanity, or what? It hardly matters, because the true guiding spirit of their movie is Loki, who promises to set the human race free from freedom and who can be counted on for a big show wherever he goes. In Germany he compels a crowd to kneel before him in mute, terrified awe, and “The Avengers,” which recently opened there to huge box office returns, expects a similarly submissive audience here at home. The price of entertainment is obedience.

Edited by Rory Abel, 03 May 2012 - 09:28 PM.

[craggy]

CGI isn't solid, therefore it cannot be hollow. This man does not understand.

Also, yeah, sort of a dick move on everyone's parts there. People sometimes disagree about things.

[Dave Wallace]

Okay, so there officially is a second post credits scene attached to the US prints. And I assume will also be added to international prints this week too. I wonder how many people in the theater might leave after that mid credits scene?

To be honest, even if that scene had been included on the original UK release I don't think I'd have stuck around 10 minutes for it when it's such a short little throwaway payoff - and I know I'll be able to see it online within a few days.

Still, it's a nice consolation for the US audiences that had to wait an extra week compared to the international viewers.

Adjusted for absolute assurance of undeniable-by-anyone accuracy.

Not a fan of Steed and Peel, then?

[Arjan Dirkse]

I haven't bothered to see this movie yet but apparently AO Scott of the New York Times gave it a negative review and Sam Jackson called for fanboys to protest....and fanboys have flooded Scott's email and twitter.

When did the geeks turn into the bullies in our society?

Huh, that's crazy. I wouldn't have expected Samuel Jackson to done something insane like that.

Personally I sort of agreed with his review, at least from the part quoted in Rory's post. It is a very enjoyable CGI spectacle with bright pretty suits and cool people wisecracking, but not without its flaws.

Which is a personal perspective, and everybody is invited to disagree and hail it as a masterwork....

[craggy]

Not a fan of Steed and Peel, then?

told my gran I'd been to see Avengers at the cinema...she asked who was playing Steed and Peel.

[Will Carper]

Scott's review can't even name what he claims to be the movie's major failing. Just some vague talk about cynicism and authoritarianism. Aren't the Avengers saving the world from an alien invasion (I'm seeing it tonight!). It's simple, dude! It's cool that he liked the banter and distinctness of the characters--but, uh, unless the movie's one long fight scene, isn't that saying it was really effective? Sorry that the superheroes fight sometimes, man!

Anyway. Seeing it tonight at midnight. Can't freaking wait.

Edited by Will Carper, 03 May 2012 - 10:24 PM.

[Dave Wallace]

told my gran I'd been to see Avengers at the cinema...she asked who was playing Steed and Peel.

I've actually had more than one person I work with make similar comments. I don't think that changing the name to "Avengers Assemble" in the UK has made any difference to the potential confusion over the name. If anything, it's just led to jokes over the verb "assemble" (are they putting together IKEA furniture? Is it like a shareholders' AGM?).

[craggy]

I've actually had more than one person I work with make similar comments. I don't think that changing the name to "Avengers Assemble" in the UK has made any difference to the potential confusion over the name. If anything, it's just led to jokes over the verb "assemble" (are they putting together IKEA furniture? Is it like a shareholders' AGM?).

it mostly made me chuckle because the cinema's display's missed out the "emble" part of the name.

[Will Carper]

You British people and the shows you grew up with being different from the shows I grew up with.

[craggy]

okay will, did a lot of people mistake wrestler Stone Cold Steve Austin for Lee Majors' Six Million Dollar Man?