THE AVENGERS REVIEW

Avengers was on my most awaited films of 2012 list.
So, does it disappoint? Of course NOT. I never doubted you, my dear Whedon. 

There are tons of reviews out there, and you can pick any one of them up and read them and it won’t change the fact that you’ll be watching this film (unless you’re an idiot, in which case, get back to your made-for-TV romcoms). So why read this? Because it’s a review by a comicbook fan for a movie for comicbook fans (and others) directed by THE comicbook fan of our era.
And Avengers is (arguably) the greatest most perfect comicbook adaptation ever.
Now, I’m not saying it’s the greatest comicbook movie ever (Batman Begins/Dark Knight still holds that position) but it is the best adaptation of a comicbook ever. Dark Knight doesn’t feel like a comicbook, but it is a better movie. But this one, it feels so much like a comicbook. And I think that’s because of Joss Whedon, who’s got quite a lot of experience writing comics (Astonishing X-Men, Runaways, Buffy the Vampire Slayer) and he’s marvelous here. HE’S THE REAL STAR. Nobody else could have done it better. He handles the characters amazingly well, and gives each character their time to shine. A character like Hawkeye or Coulson is given as much importance as Iron Man or Thor. And Hulk…he’ll have you cheering and screaming and laughing, because this is the best interpretation of the Hulk so far.

A lot of twitter reactions say that Iron Man overshadows every other character in the movie. Those reactions are absolutely wrong and possibly written by RDJtards. Nobody overshadows anybody. They stand together in the movie. Side by side. As a team. As. They. Should. And I absolutely applaud Whedon for that. I had some fears that Iron Man would serve as the leader-type given his current popularity, but that isn’t the case. Captain America LEADS the Avengers, and Whedon gives us good reason why he SHOULD lead them and why everyone else is listening. But since Whedon has to appease Robert Downey Jr’s ginormous ever-expanding ego, he does something really cool with Iron Man, but handles it so that it doesn’t overshadow other characters.  To get these guys together and to do such justice to them… Whedon accomplishes an absolutely impossible feat and I congratulate him for that.

Hiddleston is amazing as Loki. It also helps that he looks so much like the Loki of the comicbooks. When he gives you that maniacal grin, you know that they couldn’t have gotten anyone better for it.
I love the Avengers. I love how they were handled and I love how they are treated with such respect.

What I didn’t love in the movie is Nick Fury. Whedon writes him as a manipulative General who’ll do anything in his power to save the world and it isn’t his fault that Fury doesn’t shine. It’s Samuel L Jackson’s. A person’s badassocity can only carry a character till so much, and I feel SLJ isn’t fit to play Fury. Sure, Fury’s shrewd and manipulative, but he’s also noble. And that’s where SLJ fails. He just didn’t shine like the rest of the cast, and it wasn’t because he was underwritten or anything… SLJ just couldn’t pull it off. And I’m saying that as a huge Samuel L Jackson fan who keeps on using his dialogues in real life situations, mind you.
Another thing I didn’t like was the story. It felt as if someone handed Whedon an outline of the Ultimates comicbook and told him to write a screenplay off that. I feel Marvel didn’t really trust him enough to come up with a marvelous story. So the story as a whole is lackluster. But you’ve got some great dialogue and some magnificent action sequences, so all is forgiven. Avengers could have been a much better movie, in my opinion, if they let Joss Whedon off the chains and let him do whatever he wanted. Maybe he’ll get more freedom while doing the sequel (which is very likely given the Nerdgasm-inducing mid-credits scene.)

And then there’s the Chitauri (AKA Skrulls) (it isn't a spoiler, they're namedropped five seconds into the movie) who look nothing like Skrulls and behave more like Random Alien Army. But that isn’t a problem because the last hour or so of Avengers is absolute carnage. But within this carnage is drama. These aren’t just a few cool scenes that show off CGI unlike the Bayflicks. You do get the sense of something happening. You care about the characters. You want them to win. And you’re most probably cheering for them and you don’t even know it.
The dialogue is amazing and smart and all kinds of awesome and it is an absolute act of sin to not listen to it. Do yourself a favour: if anyone’s talking in the theater, tell him/her to shut the fuck up and if they don’t listen throw a tub full of popcorn on their head (as I did). Whedon is a maestro of dialogue, and every bit of it in this movie is nothing short of brilliant. And most of it will make you laugh out loud. I guarantee.
Avengers is a movie made by people who love the characters, and it shows, because that love kind of crosses over to you from beyond the screen. And I love that. This is how movies should be made. Out of love and a little bit of respect, and not out of formulas or magic potions or whatnot the industry believes in.
8/10
Avengers opens on 4th May in the United States. It is currently running in European and Indian theaters. 

Vampires suck, they really do.

VAMPIRES have been an object of fantasy ever since this object of fantasy was thought about. The vampire frenzy started with Count Dracula and the Nosferatu, two classics which fail to diminish from our culture. Over the years the concept of Vampires has been fucked about, molested and totally raped by Hollywood into a pathetic mess of chick flicks and action thrillers like the somewhat tolerable exploits of the sexy vampire Selene in Underworld to the downright annoying Stephanie Meyer shitsap that is Twilight. Oh, don't get me started about Twilight. It's the only thing that annoys me more than the comedy in the Harry Pothead flicks. Twilight has totally raped the horror and wonder of the Vampire lore into a pathetic movie with a sick sense of romance. And the people love it. It is beyond me why people INDULGE in Twilight, which is primarily a movie about a bitch who bitches about things who falls in love with a vampire who fights a werewolf who looks like Sharkboy and has to take his shirt off every five minutes or so for no reason whatsoever. I hate Twilight fans. If you are a Twilight fan, my only message to you will be "fuck off". And because of Twilight fans, vampirism has entered the world of comics and that ain't a good thing.

X-MEN v/s VAMPIRES. I know, I know, what the fuck does that even mean. Apparently the X-Men, Namor and Blade are now fighting the supernatural. Whoa. Wow. I am so excited. NOT. So, I picked up X-Men #1 hesitantly and read through it. Believe me, it sucked. But for some misplaced loyalty to X-Men, I started picking up every subsequent issue. But hey, the writing is good and it's way better than shit called Twilight. But the overall story feels stupid and a mere ploy to get Vampire fans to get a hold of this comic. And its not only the mutants who have to fight the Vampire menace, in the Ultimate Universe, the newly formed black ops team Avengers have to face off against these supernatural forces as well. And this one sucks balls. Any comic written by Mark Millar is expected to be classy, but this one is downright boring and bullshit and only keeps us hooked to it because of the crazy twists in the story. Its like a Nolan film without the amazing dialogues, without any tension and definitely without ANY emotion and thats not a compliment. The first two volumes of Ultimate Avengers were amazing. Volume two had supernatural elements but was done amazingly well and it remains one of my favorite Millar comics of all time. But everything gets screwed up with Volume three, coz the vampire storyline doesnt pick up much heat, and the artwork is not as edgy as a Millar comic deserves. So it totally sucks. 

VAMPIRES aren't meant to be screwed with. The folklore should not be tweaked and reduced to chick flick material. Vampires should be what they were meant to be : brooding, dark creatures of the night who can scare the living hell out of you and suck you dry; not the eight pack abbed shit we have reduced them to.