rusty_halo

The Good

1. Loki. This character is like all my fannish id tropes wrapped up in a bow and presented on a silver platter. He's all damaged and broken and made of fucked up family issues, he's manipulative and snarky, he's overflowing with emotion and in over his head, he clearly does not understand himself or why he's miserable or what he wants at all. Oh yeah and the actor is really hot. Those eyes! The way he actually cries a tear as he stabs Thor!

Of course he's also a nasty little shit, but whatever, he's entertaining. The longer I'm in fandom, the more I realize that the "morality" of fictional characters is completely irrelevant to me. I just want the characters that push my id buttons, regardless of their position within the narrative. Someone please point me to the darkfic that explores what a mess Loki is. :)

2. Tony/Pepper. OMG I LOVE THEM SO MUCH. I don't need fic because the movies give me everything I want. I have always adored their snarky banter, I think both actors are fabulous and their chemistry is perfect, and I loved seeing them in an established relationship where we get to see them actually working well together. Their ship is one I love in part because they are both quite damaged and needy, and the foundation of the relationship is clearly a fucked up power dynamic and all kinds of weird personal issues, doomed to failure, AND YET IT WORKS DESPITE ALL EXPECTATION TO THE CONTRARY, BECAUSE THEY ARE BOTH AWESOME. ♥♥♥

3. Natasha. I loved that 1) she completely subverted the damsel trope by cooly using her vulnerability to achieve her goals, 2) she got to brood over her mysterious dark past in a way usually reserved for male characters, 3) she rescued her (boy?)friend, and did so by kicking his ass, 4) she was a badass fighter, in a way that looked like it took real effort, not of the "tiny woman inexplicably kicks ass" River or Buffy variety. I was totally expecting her to be sidelined as "the girl"/eye candy and was pleasantly surprised in every way. It was such a contrast to Iron Man 2 where the character seemed pointless and uninteresting.

4. The writing was actually good. Like, someone paid attention to the script (!), and wove dramatic themes throughout, in ways that were complex and coherent and interesting. Hulk's "secret," Tony's willingness to sacrifice himself, "sentiment" vs true emotion, performance and manipulation (from the child lying about her sick father in the beginning, to Natasha's "interrogation methods," to Fury's playing up Coulson's death with the bloody trading cards). I have many issues with Joss Whedon, but he deserves major kudos for being an actual good writer, as does whoever had the good taste to hire him.

5. The characters actually seemed to hurt when they were in pain, and to get exhausted and overwhelmed, and to be scared and traumatized (and of course to still get up and keep fighting). It made them all far more sympathetic than your usual cartoonishly unstoppable comic book movie characters.

6. The really hot guy who shot arrows, even though I thought the arrows were stupid.

7. All the relationships between the characters. Again, GOOD WRITING. Tony & Bruce bonding as science geeks. Tony & Steve as opposites attracting. Natasha & Clint. Thor & (or /) Loki. It was all interesting to watch, and seemed true to the characters.

8. They pulled off "New York" quite convincingly. It was weird watching it in midtown, then going outside and being like, oh yeah, that didn't really happen.

9. Actual good actors, acting together. In a US movie! Of course Robert Downey, Jr. is always good, and Gwenyth Paltrow is amazing with him, but throwing Mark Ruffalo and Tom Hiddleston into the mix led to a totally unexpected extravaganza of people who actually know how to act.

10. This is the most epic crossover in film history. I'm super impressed by the long game they played in building up to it.

The Bad:

1. Don't get me wrong, I am all for sneaking archaic profanity past the MPAA, but sexist slurs are, you know, sexist.

2. This was the least offensively sexist movie I've seen in the theater in ages. The women weren't purely objectified! None of them ended up half naked! They all had actual character traits beyond being "the girl." There were women among the background military characters! And yet... women were vastly outnumbered by men, there was only one lead female amongst the sea of prominent men, there were only three female characters that mattered at all, and the movie didn't even pass the Bechdel test. How pathetic that this counts as "better than most."

3. The September 11 comparisons, especially the scene at the end showing the wall with all the pasted up notes and mementos. If you're actually going to make this comparison, then it's really fucking offensive to show Loki getting carted off home like a miscreant teenager instead of, y'know, executed like the mass murderer you're comparing him to. Just, don't. Let it be a comic book movie, so we can suspend our disbelief and have fun with it.

4. Not the movie's fault, but AMC Theaters are lying about theaters being "IMAX," so we paid a premium to see this movie on a regular screen at the AMC Empire 25 in Times Square, and it turns out it's not playing at the only real IMAX in NYC, at Lincoln Square. Total cheat. I know it wasn't filmed in IMAX, but I still would have really loved to see it on a real IMAX screen. And I want my extra $6 back. :(

5. Alexis Denisof was unrecognizable. EMERGENCY ALERT! TALENTED ACTOR IS BEING WASTED! SOMEONE HIRE HIM FOR SOMETHING GOOD, STAT.

Originally published at rusty-halo.com. You can comment here or there.