I've waited a whole week for this due to traveling commitments, and also the movie isn't released in Bangkok until today!
So this morning, I went to Siam Paragon, where one of the largest and best cinemas in the whole of Asia resides; and caught the earliest show this morning before I fly home this evening. Unfortunately, it's a 4DX version - meaning it's a 3D screen plus chairs that give you environmental senses including scent and water effect. While I usually won't opt for this type of cinema because the cinema-going experience has been enhanced, and in my case it's not for the better, my rating for the movie may be compromised by just a tad.
But I walked out of the cinema smiling. It has been worth the wait. As a fan, this was a great movie experience.
The effects got better, the action sequences were bigger - that opening fight sequence was a reminiscent of the X-Men: Days Of Future Past opening sequence; and Joss Whedon really upped the ante on this one. Not by a lot, but enough.
What I really enjoyed, other than bigger and better action, was the character development for the individual Avengers. Mostly Jeremy Renner's Hawkeye. And Whedon also addressed a lot of the non-super-being issues of Hawkeye and Scarlett Johansson's Black Widow, and saw how they added value to the team. But especially Hawkeye as he had the best humorous scene towards the end.
The inclusion of Aaron Taylor-Johnson's Quicksilver and Elizabeth Olsen's Scarlet Witch added a lot of dimensions into the Avengers line-up. I was afraid for their accents but I thought as a whole they worked. They were actually valuable assets to the movie.
Whedon had the tough job of weaving through nine superheroes this time around, that's no easy feat; and this isn't including the supporting cast of Cobie Smulders' Maria Hill, Don Cheadle's War Machine and Samuel L. Jackson's Nick Fury. But especially Renner's relationship with the twins, I thought that was written in very well.
But even so, with so many characters to juggle, it almost felt like weight of it all was almost too much for Whedon. We saw a couple of characters, most notably Mark Ruffalo's Hulk in the final fight and Chris Hemsworth's Thor, disappeared for a few minutes before joining back in the fight again. Even Chris Evans' Captain America had to ask Thor, "Did you fall asleep?" (But still so much better than Transformers when it comes to characters just disappearing.)
Paul Bettany nailed the part of Vision. His portrayal of an android that didn't choose between machine and humans was very convincing. And James Spader voicing Ultron, I had my reservations at first from the trailers as I thought he sounded too human, but those reservations were put to rest. I wouldn't change a thing about Ultron - other than for him to be more of a menacing threat physically at the end. That kind of fell short for me a little bit.
As a movie, the geeky side of me was more excited and more satisfied because, if we're going to talk about a movie that resembled the pacing of a comic book - this was it. But for the casual movie-goers, I'm not sure they would have enjoyed it as much as I did. I'll have to watch it again to get a more accurate feel for it.
Before I end, just a few comments in the SPOILER section:
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Many speculated that one of our heroes will die as Whedon loves to kill off characters. And my money was on Quicksilver. Most obvious reason, X-Men also has a Quicksilver and it will get a bit too confusing for the casual movie-goer. Plus I was hoping that they kept Olsen around for longer; after all, Scarlet Witch has a deeper connection with Vision in the comic books. We also got a glimpse of that when Vision saved her towards the end.
I also love how Whedon has a few teases for the geeks. Best one came in the final second, when Captain America was about to utter the iconic battle cry, "Avengers Assemble!" which was never used before in the movies. But Whedon cut him off just as he was about to say "Assemble".
Also, a scene that already came out in one of the featurettes, how Captain America moved Thor's hammer, Mjolnir. What was that about.
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