Will and I saw Avengers today in 3D. It was AWESOME ! of course and we had dinner afterwards and I ALMOST went to see it again.

But I didn't, I want to though.

The biggest laughs were: Hulk thwapping Loki all over the place and when the guy on the bridge switched back to playing asteroids (is that right?) when Fury left. I think it was just so unexpected and relatable.

There was so much in the movie and yet it didn't feel like there were too many plotlines, subplots or characters. The movie did have the benefit of the previous movies to establish characters, but there was still info for people who hadn't seen the movie.

Like Redtails had multiple subplots and a ton of characters and it felt like too much for one movie. Avengers was more balanced and it felt like layers on top of layers. And there are so many little things like when Stark and Caulson step out of the elevator and Stark's offering his personal jet to fly to Portland and, um, I'm blanking on other ones but there were moments and they were nice.

Black Widow was awesome! Natasha was seriously awesome I knew about the interrogation in the beginning but didn't realize she pulled the same thing on Loki.

Also I wasn't sure who Alexis Denisof was exactly, is The Other the one who Loki kept talking to? I need to watch it again. Enver was easy to recognize - young cop!

Was it Jilli who said she felt like Dru "Do it again!" because that was me.

That was me, actually.

Disaster assessment firm says the damage to Manhattan in Avengers would cost $160 billion.

Heh.

Living in NYC in the Marvel Universe would kind of suck, but on the other hand, property values would be pretty reasonable.

Matt okay, I was completely blanking and I associate Dru with Jilli which is how I came up with that line of reasoning.

Oh also I thought the flying creatures were really really cool. They were one of my favorite bits and if anyone makes a toy or model of those I want one.

Dark Shadows report! Color me pleasantly shocked, because itis far, FAR better than I had feared. Every "zany!" moment in the trailer was apparently picked to give people the completely wrong idea about the movie. It's almost every paranormal Gothic Romance Novel cliche rolled into one, and covered with brooding atmosphere. The "zany!" moments from the trailer are just that, moments. The rest of the movie is far closer in tone to Sleepy Hollow.

It wasn't perfect, but it wasn't the train wreck I dreaded. In fact, I want to go see it again, and I'm definitely going to be buying it. The parts that made me cringe were the scenes where 70s music was being used to lighten the brooding, tone. For instance, I would have been much happier if the hate!sex scene between Barnabas and Angelique had been played for unease and horror, instead of having a 70s funk-hit soundtrack.

So, I'm not just relieved, I'm happy!

Yay, Jilli! Now I can go see it.

I felt a little bad for the people in the theatre who were expecting the movie the trailers promised, because it really wasn't that. But I kept making flaily-hands of glee at it.

It's like Tim Burton decided to make a movie out of every Victoria Holt novel ever.

Jilli, TCG wanted you to know that the Jilli stamp of approval is good enough for him. He was on the fence about seeing it based on the trailers.

Oh, Jilli, that is good news.

Avengers, round two. Shawarma in 3d!!

So many continuity-gasms in this movie, thank you Joss. P-C, I totally missed that Tony landed in front of the Shawarma Palace, but I did see when the "RK" and "ST" got knocked off the Stark Tower. And that Hawkeye hurts his knee when he smashes through the window ; during the second post-credit scene, he's got that leg propped up on Natasha's chair. On a related note, awww.

And speaking of Natasha, not only does she use people's emotional weapons against themselves, she uses their physical weapons against them. She ended up using the Chitauri speargun thingies, she uses an actual Chitauri (Chitauron?) to fly her up to the tower, and she winds up with Loki's "glowstick of destiny."

Dammit, I want a Black Widow/Hawkeye movie. I want that backstory. I want to know what happened in Budapest, and why he didn't kill her. Also - I don't speak Russian, really, but I was around it for two years, and ScarJo does a pretty decent rendition AFAIK. She gets the "mouth feel" right, where it sounds like you're talking around marbles.

After the first viewing, Nora and Tom and StW and I were discussing over beers, and Tom asserted that Nick Fury sent Agent Coulson down there. And he totally did - I heard him do it this time. But I also believe that Coulson knew what Fury was doing, he knew his boss, and it was a sacrifice he was willing to make. He did his job. He gave them something to avenge (and how much do I love that Coulson didn't actually say "avenge," but it was clearly the next word).

In conclusion, "do it again, do it again!"

eta wow, ScarJo learned the Russian phonetically in two days - [link] She's got a good ear, and must have had a damn good dialogue coach.

One more one more thing - I was not expecting how much 3D *ahem* enhances things like Black Widow's tush, Hawkeye's biceps, RDJ's eyes...