I will kill time by going to buy a Captain America shirt. (Why yes, I am a slacker.)

One of the things I really enjoyed was watching all these groups of women coming in together. Kind of explodes the myth that women don't like comics. For a while, the women in the audience outnumbered the men. We decided it was because women were less invested in seeing the movie in 3-D. (The 3-D line was almost exclusively male.)

One guy asked me if I was a "supportive mother" because, admittedly, I'm 20 years older than all my friends that I went with, and he was quite surprised when my friends immediately spoke up and said "oh no, not related to any of us, she's a nerd girl like us."

the loss of narrative focus in the second Iron Man movie

You misspelled "Tony's drunken dance party in the Iron Man suit." Why did moviemakers not learn from Spider-Man 3? The Batusi should never be emulated.

the lack of an emotional hook in Thor

Shirtless Thor aside, I felt there was plenty of an emotional hook. Sure, the plot's been done a million times, including by Shakespeare, but it worked for me.

Shirtless Thor aside, I felt there was plenty of an emotional hook.

Compared to Capt. America it felt a little emptier, more bombast. But whatevs, I enjoyed Thor but didn't think it was as good as the first Iron Man or Captain America.

Compared to Capt. America it felt a little emptier, more bombast.

Cap definitely got the bigger emotional wallop. Rightly so, I think. Just a different hero's journey. (Steve throwing himself on the fake grenade kills me every time. Damn.)

Thor is the Golden Boy, acts like a jackass, banished, sadface, learns his lesson, heads back home. Not the deepest of all emotional journeys, but it worked.

Dana Stevens from Slate didn't like it very much: [link]

But a colossally scaled blockbuster like The Avengers lacks both the agility and the motivation to question its reason for existence. Its primary purpose is not to explore or subvert the superhero movie, but to lay the groundwork for more of them

You can keep reading negative reviews (and there are a few) to dampen your enthusiasm! Although more likely, they'll just make you annoyed.

Dana Stevens from Slate didn't like it very much:

I read that, and I thought, well, if you go into it saying you've pretty much had your fill of comic book movies, then maybe this is the wrong movie for you.

I thought Thor had plenty of emotional hook. You had:

1) When will my parents start treating me like an adult angst
2) My little brother is being a brat again, because I'm a big show-off, maybe I should quit being a jerk sibling rivalry
3) The flip side, my brother is hogging the spotlight, I just want my parents to notice meeeeee angst
4) This hot chick must like me because she keeps running me over, but damn she's smart and I admire that, I must give her up for the better (back of hand thrown up over eyes) of the world

I only had a little problem with #4, that particular arc I found not as compelling as the others, but there was enough to go around with the first three

Day like this are when I feel like a very different sort of geek than y'all. Cause I saw the trailer and thought to myself "I might actually go to that one." because it looks pretty good. But I'm done now. Which makes me feel like I'm missing Christmas morning or called the Beatles a bunch of homely English guys. I'd be happy to get a movie about The Black Dahlia case that didn't completely suck, but I suppose I'd be worried about America Henry Goldblume style if that one had midnight showings and lines around the block...what would I want like that with fannish intensity... a big-screen Deadwood movie?(carefully timed to not fuck Justified flatter than hammered shit, of course, because even though Justified isn't Mommy, I've come to love her very much.)

Dana Stevens often has weird, almost idiosyncratic tastes. Something I think she would like she doesn't, and vice versa. I don't get her.