My thoughts on "Avengers: Age of Ultron"

            A whole that is not as great as the sum of its parts.  Really ironic all things considered.  Much like my issues with “The Amazing Spiderman 2” this seems more like multiple scripts put together as there is stuff that just does not have to be in there.  Since this is one of the most watched movies of the year and came out months and months ago I feel comfortable talking about numerous issues at once and will be moving between them freely, kind of like how I reviewed “X-Men: Days of Future Past” (which also had a robot apocalypse as its plot… and it’s sequel will have an Apocalypse apocalypse).  There are SPOILERS thru out this review and that cannot be avoided.

            Why is Ultron Magneto?  In the comics Magneto has three children: a green haired woman with magnet powers, Polaris; a silver haired guy with super speed, Quicksilver (Pietro); and a red headed magic user, Scarlet Witch (Wanda).  In the comics all of Magneto’s children realize that he is dangerous and join superhero teams to thwart him, Polaris joins the X-Men while Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch join the Avengers.  In this movie, Ultron talks frequently about evolution, humanity’s need to change, and talks to Wanda and Pietro in terms of being rejected.  Their ultimately turning against Ultron makes him act very hurt and betrayed.  There is also a scene of Ultron using magnetic powers to pull and toss Iron Man.  I feel like this script would have worked better with Magneto in the role of Ultron… Or they should have done away with Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver.

            Wanda and Pietro are kind of useless to the narrative.  They are colorful goons for Ultron and they ultimately turn to heroes when they see how he wants to kill everyone, but their role in the story could have just been played by Vision.  Have Ultron create Vision after escaping Avenger’s tower and he fills the same role in the story as Wanda, using the mind gem to drive all the Avenger’s into strange VISIONS of their own nightmares and turning the Hulk into a rampaging monster in Africa.  As the movie continues have Vision be defeated by Thor, have Ultron carry him off and put him into that pod, the movie could then continue mostly unchanged, as the Avengers capture the pod, download Jarvis into it, rewriting Vision as a good guy.

            Thor’s side quest to be shirtless in a pool of water was a waste of screen time, by having him fight Vision or Ultron in the middle of the movie (like I talked about in the previous paragraph) he would have been put to better use.

Though Marvel might have it in his contract that they must have a shirtless scene with Hemsworth.  The man lives on nothing but white rice and lean chicken for months at a time, have to make the most of that.

            While having Wanda and Pietro in the movie was unnecessary but if they had been taken out we would have missed out on the best scene in the movie, Hawkeye being the team’s dad figure.

            “Hey, look at me.  It’s your fault, it’s everyone’s fault, who cares?  Are you up for this?  Are you?  Look, I need to know because the city is flying.  Okay?  The city is flying, we are fighting an army of robots, and I have a bow and arrow. None of this makes sense.  But, I am going back out there because it is my job. Okay?  And I can’t do my job and baby sit.  It doesn’t matter what you did or where you were.  If you go out there,you fight.  And you fight to kill.  Stay in here, you’re good.  I’ll send your brother to come find you.  But if you step out that door, you are an Avenger.”

            I can picture in my mind a younger version of Clint giving a similar speech to a younger version of Black Widow, saying instead, “You step out that door you are a SHIELD agent.”  And contextualizing that speech and what we know about how he has a family you can picture him using he skills as a field operative as a dad, and his skills as a dad in the field.  He greatly deepens his character.

            Tony Stark is TOTALLY CORRECT in trying to create Ultron. Captain America is ENTIRELY WRONG in trying to stop it.  Earth is under threat of alien invasion at all times and since Thor refuses to let Earth utilize the Tesseract (Cosmic Cube) to build ray guns and other super weapons, Earth will be at a hopeless disadvantage should a full fleet of alien ships come and attack.  Constructing a legion of robots that are capable of repelling such an eminent threat should be a top priority before it shows up again, waiting until the attack comes is not a winning strategy, and relying entirely on the Avengers to protect Earth is a foolish decision on the part of Captain America, and one he should in no way be in charge of making as he is a tactical genius, not a strategic one.  We cannot count on Thor and Asgard to protect us from someone like Ronan or Malakith, who were only defeated by the slimmest of margins.

            Vision is awesome.  I like his look, I like Paul Bettany in the role, I like how Jarvis became Vision, the only problem I have with Vision is that he was not in more of the movie.

            This movie is too long, especially the action scenes which often go on for such a long time that I start to get bored by them, which is a shame because they are all so good, that had they each been the final highlight fight of another movie I feel they would have worked better.  By the time we get to the flying city I am so tired from all the action that the whole final act drags for me.

            Unfortunately Hulk and Black Widow’s romantic subplot does not get enough time.  I saw it in the first movie more than most people (for some reason people thought Hawkeye and her, but I never saw that, do those people just not have friends of the opposite sex?)  And since they are both living weapons as a result of outside forces compelling them to become such monstrous things I think they make a good match to one another narratively.

            I would also like to point out and underline: TONY DID NOT CREATE ULTRON.  He and Bruce were not in the room when the machine switched itself on.  The OS they were using to create Ultron was taken from Loki’s scepter, which in turn was (most likely) created by Thanos.  Thanos is in love with Death, and the idea that the software he used for the scepter would be an artificial intelligence bent on omnicide makes sense.  Sure Ultron was the name of the robot legion Tony wanted to create, but it is pretty clear Thanos was the guy who got the ball rolling on all of this.  Just like you can’t blame Hulk for being mind-controlled to rampage, you can’t blame Tony because his robots were high jacked by a killer alien computer (especially because he left it turned off).

For some reason this has become the most used image of Ultron afterword.
Which just looks like he is about to give the audience the finger.

            Pepper Potts and Jane Foster should have made guest appearances in this movie.  What is the problem?  The script is already bloated but you don’t have time for existing valuable supporting characters?  Just drop hints that they might get their own powers because in the comics they both end up doing just that.  Pepper gets a suit of armor and becomes Rescue, a super hero who specializes in fighting natural disasters.  Jane gains the ability to wield Mjolnir and becomes THOR, while Thor becomes Odinson… Which is stupid on several levels as his name is Thor, but whatever.

            As I mentioned in my Predictions for future Marvel movies, I do not think Vision destroyed Ultron, and instead Ultron is trapped in the Mind Gem on Vision’s forehead.

Score: 6/10

______________________________

If you like or hate this please take the time to comment, +1, share on Twitter or Facebook, and otherwise distribute my opinion to the world.  I would appreciate it.

Marvel's "Civil War" (the comic)

This movie trailer just dropped.  It looks great.  I am going to talk about the god awful comic that inspired the movie.

I have a theory, the reason most smart people in the Marvel Universe (and comics in general) tend to be scientists rather than lawyers is simply because in comics you can make up bull shit gibberish and call it science, you can't make up law and everyone just say, “Yeah, I can see how that might pass and spike controversy”.

Unfortunately Marvel Comics back in 2006 decided to base one of the biggest events of the decade around a legal misunderstanding… and it made not a lick of sense.  After a number of incidents relating to superhero misconduct (for instance, the Hulk destroyed a good amount of Las Vegas while being mind-controlled, and Star Fox date raped a woman and fled the country) the last straw came in a very stupid way.

A group of young superheroes called The New Warriors found a group of escaped super villains hiding out in Connecticut.  What they should have done is kept their distance, formulate a plan, and call for back up if they needed it, one problem though, the team was being followed around by a camera crew because they were part of a superhero reality show akin to “Cops”.  The bad guys saw them, a fight broke out, and one of the villains, named Nitro, caused an explosion that killed hundreds of people including dozens of children.  Several of the heroes died as well.  This was the 9/11 of the Marvel universe and prompted a change in how the government interacted with the heroes.  All the superheroes now needed a license to use their powers.

Strangely the actual bad guy, Nitro.  He is barely mentioned in the rest of the event.

Captain America saw this licensing issue as unethical and took to leading a group of superheroes who did not want to register as a freelance group of heroes, he gave them all new cover identities and they continued to fight crime.  Iron Man was on the other side, since he was a former Secretary of Defense (yes, Tony Stark) Iron Man was made head of the licensed heroes and given the directive to stop vigilantes from operating, either they registered with the government (which means they would receive training, pay, benefits, and have to take orders) or they would be jailed until they registered.

As I previously mentioned writing law in comics is difficult and in this instance it was especially bad because at no point did they print the literal text of “The Registration Act”.  So no one could actually point to the law and say what it was the argument was about.  No soft language that would require review.  The registration act was unwritten not because it was complicated, but because Marvel's editors did not know how you would word a law to make such a disagreement possible.  There is an issue of She-Hulk that explains her legal justifications for why Registration is correct (there is no corresponding argument from another super-lawyer because it would require the creative staff to really hammer out a legal fiction that could illustrate the point).

I actually find this to be a sad state of affairs because Dan Slott wrote excellent super-cases for his run on She-Hulk (can a ghost testify against his murderer, can Starfox be tried for rape because his love powers can manipulate a woman's will, can a supervillain sue a hero for excessive force, what constitutes cruel-and-unusual punishment for a super-max prison?)  All of those topics were really cool to explore... And unfortunately no one else can really write that kind of stuff.  (Really, Dan Slott’s writing on that comic went into the toilet toward the end too, so maybe even he couldn’t have fixed this).

There is a massive argument going on that has no foundation on either side.  So instead we have to infer what the argument was about from each side’s behavior… AND HO-BOY everybody acted out of character

 

Whose side are you on?
I don't know.  What the hell is this all about?

The single biggest issue I have with the story is that both Iron Man and Captain America seem to be going against what I think their positions would be.  Both suffer tons of characterization, and in the case of Iron Man (outside the main "Civil War" book) suffers outright character assassination.

1) Captain America has had a teen sidekick die and has advocated against other teen heroes namely the Young Avengers.  Captain America is always the first hero to advocate against new people getting into the life of a superhero, and that makes sense he was frozen and lost his entire life to being a hero, why would he want someone to make that same sacrifice?  He is also critical of heroes who use too much force or use being a hero as an excuse to have fun or seek thrills.  The idea of heroes needing to receive training and licenses to operate makes a lot of sense.  But he is against it, and during the series he employs the Young Avengers (a group of teen heroes he told to stop operating) to help his cause, all of which makes him a massive hypocrite.  And then the Punisher shows up having murdered two super criminals and is immediately teamed up with by Captain America.  Hypocrite.

Also, Spider-man getting this beaten up by the two chuckle heads that Punisher killed is kind of disrespectful to Peter Parker as a character.

2) Cap's identity is known to the government, he lives in the helicarrier when he is not in Avengers tower or mansion, he gets a pay check from the government to go on missions for them and has a tremendously flexible work load that allows him to apply his skills and abilities to those missions he sees needing his abilities and his moral compass.  If anything he should be advocating that other superheroes receive the same support from the government to help them escape unfair persecution (“Spiderman, Hero or Menace” for instance).

3) Cap has used his legal status as "Champion" to form his own team of Avengers in the past so he is clearly not above using the rules.  This is more an extension of #2.  SHIELD was initially against or resistant to a new Avengers team forming because of how a previous team had ended (Scarlet Witch went crazy, killed 4 team members, and nearly destroyed all of New York), Captain America was so adamant about wanting to create a new team that he invoked his special status with the government to overrule all objections and create a new team.  Does he feel those rules are a detriment?  If so he gives no indication of such.

4) Iron Man is also acting out of character so let’s talk about him some.  Tony has been managing from behind the scenes the superhero community for years.  He formed the group called the Illuminati along with leaders from other super teams to help coordinate their efforts; Charles Xavier, Mr. Fantastic, Namor, Black Bolt, Doctor Strange, and Iron Man have all been taking the lead without the government’s oversight.  I think that these characters ESPECIALLY TONY, would not want to relinquish this control to the government which has shown itself to be run by idiots on more than one occasion.

Poor Charles Xavier, it is hard to do an action shot when you're an 80 year old man in a wheel chair and your powers are completely imperceptible.  He looks like he is having an ice cream headache.

5) Tony has gone to war with the Government to keep his armor technology from being misused.  The entire reason he became Secretary of Defense was to end the perceived abuse of his inventions.  So now he is going to sign up to give the government control of literal super geniuses?  Even if the government had no access to his armor, there are other super inventors whose inventions they could misuse.

6) Let’s get back to Cap.  Steve has his team give up their true identities and live under assumed names with no end to the war in sight, claiming that living under an assumed name is temporary, and the fact that these people cannot go home till their insurrection is over should be seen as a necessary and noble sacrifice.  Tony does not require that, if you register your identity doesn't have to be public and you get a paycheck, back up, training, and benefits/retirement. Cap is actively causing people to give up their lives, Tony is benefiting their lives.  Really, this aspect of the registration should be seen as a good thing by both heroes, and since Tony has been funding the Avengers and has in the past tried to set up shell corporations to fund hero retirement it would make sense for him to still create these kinds of systems but not be on the side of registration, Tony (by analogy) would be in the rich people, “let’s privatize social security” camp.

I do not think words can express how much I hate this quote.  It all at once encapsulates everything that is wrong with political discourse in this country and in the world as a whole.  You could replace Captain America with literally anyone, be it Glen Beck, Bernie Sanders, Jared Fogle, Jenny McCarthy, Bill Nye, or the Red Skull and not change a word.  It is empty rhetoric, and all Captain America does to justify his position in the entire story is say crap like this.

             7) After years of fighting super criminals and murderous mad science, the SHIELD agents sent to capture heroes are dubbed "Cape Killers" even though no heroes are killed by them.  It actually makes little sense on numerous levels.  In fact there is an incident in which a registered hero tries to take in a non-registered hero and the registered hero is killed in the ensuing fight.  (Seriously, how is training and accountability a bad thing?)

             8) To help keep unlicensed heroes (and you know BAD GUYS) jailed during the Civil War Tony Reed Richards and Hank Pym invent ultra-prison in a dimension called the Negative Zone.  Why are heroes being jailed in the negative zone? I do not understand both the moral "why" and the legal "how" that allows this to be accomplished.  This is less a character issue and more of a “why didn’t they write down the registration act” thing.

             9) Tony Stark and Mister Fantastic clone Thor in an attempt to create more heroes (kind of like the Ultron program in “Avengers: Age of Ultron”).  Unfortunately the clone is not ready and it uses lethal force to subdue a “hero” named Goliath (it should be noted that Goliath was 50ft tall and charging clone-Thor at the time and knocked several SHIELD agents off a building.  It should also be noted that Goliath is a black guy, and I think that it was SUPER AHEAD OF ITS TIME commentary on excessive force).  Regardless I don’t so much see this as out of character, but another thing that should have happened differently.

Maybe Thor should have used a TASER to take down the charging suspect?

With the above listed reasons I feel that the whole of Civil War should have been different.  I think that the Iron Man led Illuminati should have been against registration and Captain America should have favored registration.  I think that Tony should have made the clone-Thor as a way of evening out the fight with the mounting government forces and it causing the death of a hero should have prompted Iron Man to surrender.  Everything in the comic was backwards.

If they had shown the registration act and had Captain America explain the issues that caused him to react as such, and Iron Man explained why he did what he did, I would understand why this was happening, but none of it makes any sense.

Thankfully the movie is going to sidestep all of this.  Rather than arguing over the place of young heroes and training, instead it is a very different Captain America and a very different Iron Man fighting over (I think) whether Bucky Barnes needs to go to trial for all the terror and murder he was forced to take part in.

The only complaint I have with the movie universe (so far) is that Tony and Cap seem to not be friends in the movie universe.  Tony seems to see Cap as a stick in the mud who would be useless without the inventions of Howard Stark (Tony’s dad).  And Cap sees Tony as lacking morals, having only taken action to help people after suffering a personal attack (while Cap tried and failed numerous times to get into the military trying to fight and make the world better).  As to whether the argument which causes the fight will make sense… I think it will, this is the creative team behind “Winter Soldier” and that is my favorite superhero movie.

Don't even get me started on how fucking stupid Spider-man acts thru this whole thing.
(Though it is still less stupid than Black Panther)

______________________________

If you like or hate this please take the time to comment, +1, share on Twitter or Facebook, and otherwise distribute my opinion to the world.  I would appreciate it.

Movies of 2013, Superheroes, pt1, Iron Man

Science Fiction (Superhero)

            Considering how much Science fiction stuff there was this year I tried to spread it out with Apocalypses, Superheroes, and Other Science Fiction...  And one of them wasn't science fiction at all and is really a parody of superheroes and should have really been in the crime section but whatever, shut up.  I see a lot of Genre movies and even some other stuff could be considered Sci-Fi and is kind of arbitrarily slotted.

Iron Man 3, or "Thank god they did something else with the bad guy."

Overall: 8/10

I'm Falling to Pieces...

            This is actually a very well structured movie thematically, though I don't know if people will believe me when I say that because it does have a big plot hole and I disagree with the ending a good bit.

            These movies, by which I mean Marvel films make money from Action figures.  Much like Star Wars created the quintessential ensemble adventure film where in everyone has their own look and weapon, the Marvel movies have very distinct characters with variant weapons, costumes, attitudes, and tone.  This is why Thor has 75 Space-Viking side kicks, it is why Captain America lead the multi-ethnic Commandos (and why none of the bad guys wear swastikas, because you can't sell an action figure in Europe of a Nazi, even as the bad guy), and it is why this movie has 40 Iron Man armors, a repaint of the War Machine Armor, numerous bad guys.... What I am trying to say is, this movie is a toy commercial.

            All that aside, and back to my original point, this is a well structured movie.  Tony Stark nearly died fighting space aliens in "The Avengers", combine this with all the other stuff in his life and he has collectively become the Superhero poster boy for PTSD.  How does he cope with this?  He builds a stockpile of weaponry, like you do.  What is more his main suit in the movie is literally falling apart (like Stark) and trying to pull itself together to fight the bad guys throughout.  That is called a METAPHOR.  A lot of this can be attributed to writer/director Shane Black who made one of my favorite films of all time, "Kiss Kiss,Bang Bang" and is a master of fitting a lot of things together on the screen.

            Beyond that the movie continues to demonize the defense industry.  The first movie's villain was a defense contractor trying to sell weapons to the US to make a lot of money.  The second film's villain was sponsored by a defense contractor who wanted to put Stark out of business and make a lot of money.  This movie is about a Defense contractor using disaffect veterans and a lot of showmanship and lies to try and create terrorism and make a lot of money.  I love what they did with the Mandarin.

            In the comics the Mandarin is a boring character by today's standards, he made sense when he was made, he was a displaced noble from China who wanted to use his magic/alien technology to reestablish the dynastic system he had come from... But nowadays that doesn't make sense.  I don't think there is a person alive today that could claim conscious memory of China before the Communist party.... So to change him to a Modern Terrorist makes some sense, but he couldn't pose a real threat to Iron Man.  In the first movie Iron Man kills goons who wield conventional weapons with ease.  Giving Mandarin alien technology would be feasible... but that was already done with Red Skull.  So instead lets just make it a lie.  The terrorist boogey man is just a construct used to scare up more business for defense contractors.  Holy shit: ANOTHER METAPHOR, this time for the war on terror.  It is almost like this movie has resonant themes.

This is a reference to "1984" a book that I don't think of as all that good prose-wise, but has a lot of good ideas.

            A good companion to this movie is (sort of) "Star Trek Into Darkness" which has a supposed terrorist being used as justification for a military build up.  But while that movie has a labyrinthine plot that makes less sense the more you think about it, "Iron Man 3" keeps things clear, and its twists are clever.  No one was surprised that Khan was the bad guy in Star Trek, everyone was surprised by the Mandarin, and that surprise made things a lot more interesting, it made it a lot more resonant.

            Another good contrast is with Malekith the Accursed in "Thor the Dark World" (lot of Darkness this year).  Malekith had a plan to cloak the universe in darkness and end life as we knew it, had an army of super powerful and creepy space elves, and required Space-Vikings to be defeated... Malekith is barely part of that movie, nearly excised completely for more time spent with Loki around whom most of the character of Thor is greatly bolstered by contrast.  Malekith is what the Mandarin would have been played completely straight, a very typical bad guy with chaos and destruction as his goals.  Mandarin would have been boring without the twist in "Iron Man 3", he would have been Malekith.

            Also, the ending is the part that I mentioned disagreeing with.  At the end Tony blows up all the suits, signifying that he no longer needs his stockpile of super weapons to feel safe from the threats of the world, the he (not the suit) is the hero of the story (METAPHOR)... I wanted a post credit sequence of Nick Fury screaming at someone that Tony just blew up Earth's best defense against alien invasion.  Hell, they could have added that to "Thor the Dark World" which has an alien invasion that if not for Thor and his plucky science pals would have ended the universe... Having a legion of Iron Man armors would have been hella' helpful in that situation.  In universe, Tony destroys the Earth's best defense against super villains, true there are not a lot but the fact that no one calls him out for this is kind of insane.

HE DID WHAT!?

            There is also the fact that the Legion of Iron Men (automated Drones fighting terrorists... METAPHOR... Wait, no, that is just sort of literal)... would have fit better as an end to "Avengers 2" because their main bad guy is going to be a killer robot, and the first instance I know of in a comic book that Tony controls dozens of suits at once happens in an Avengers comic book.  (The reason this is in here is the aforementioned toy commercial, and they were unsure if they could get Downey back as Iron Man in anymore movies and needed to tie up the franchise with one big hurrah... And I must say that considering how Iron Man has been a character for 50 years I actually kind of think Downey is really over paid and that much like Christian Bale as Batman, Downey was made a star from the role more than they contributed to the success of the role.

            Aside from all this the movie has any number of things to like as a dumb action movie, is has action scenes that are dynamic in environment, capabilities, and are well paced throughout.  I still am on the edge of my seat when watching the Air Force 1 rescue.  It is so exciting.  The film is also funny and fun, with cute moments with sidekicks and friends that make things a lot more fun and light hearted breaking up the dark message of the film (that war is a business and we are disposable assets).

"Avengers" Review, No Spoilers

            I saw "The Avengers" a few days ago, and I loved it, what is more I still love it, I am looking back on it remembering scenes that were awesome, funny, exhilarating, or pathos inducing and wishing I were watching it again.  I have watched a good 8 episodes of the cartoon series (which is spectacular, go watch it on Netflix, I would say it is in many ways better than the "Justice League" cartoon from 10 years ago if for no other reason than the Avengers don't form for 7 episodes and an over arching plot is established in the first episode, basically it just has a more epic structure).  What I'm saying here is, I find myself saying over and over again, "AVENGERS ASSEMBLE" and picturing myself in the action alongside these characters helping to save the world.

This has so much fun in it.

             I am a huge comic book, and more specifically superhero fan.  My uncle John introduced them to me when I was a kid and grew up with the 90's X-Men and Spiderman cartoons alongside Batman and Superman, but the first comic book I ever bought was an issue of Thor, and I had a subscription to Captain America (comics I read so many times that they literally fell apart, something I really regret because I had the first appearance of the super villain, Superia who has become really important in the Avengers recently and the comic probably would have been valuable).  There is an underlying nostalgia in this movie that, to a degree colors my ability to evaluate it, but even when I turn that part of my brain off, I still love the movie.

            It might seem insane to say this, but the greatest strength of "The Avengers" is the structure.  It should go without saying that movies should have foreshadowing, effective pacing, character interactions, action beats, and awareness of plot elements, but many movies don't have those basic elements, and few movies can claim to do it as well as "The Avengers" do it here.  There is punctuation to scenes, small jokes, visuals, little elements that makes everything transition on a high note.  Like a comedian telling an effective joke, each seen has set up, the meat of why the scene exists, and then a mini pay off which makes an impression on you so that when they reference the scene later you can easily remember it.  This ties things together better.

            There is even good camera work.  There is a shot in which two characters, Bruce Banner (the Hulk) and Tony Stark (Iron Man) are talking as Bruce and Tony, and they are each explaining how neither of them asked to be a hero.  Bruce getting his powers through a lab accident while trying to recreate the Captain America program, and Tony having to build a mechanical heart for himself because terrorists used his conventional weapons against him.  Bruce and Tony's development mirror each other as Tony stops manufacturing weapons for use by anyone other than himself as Iron Man, and Bruce literally has to run from the military to keep them from using the Hulk as a weapon.  This conversation happens on either side of a clear glass screen, so that Tony's reflection on the glass overlays Bruce, and in the reverse shot Bruce's reflection overlay's Tony, the glass screen serves as a literal frame around each of them.

Seriously, these two have great chemistry on screen and do a lot to sell the movie.

            And what is the screen between Tony and Bruce?  It is a stylish computer monitor that is busy processing two different functions.  They are looking for the bad guy, Loki and they are hacking into SHIELD computers because they don't entirely trust who they are working for.  In others words, they are both weapon makers, hunting down a guy who would use weapons to inflict evil on the world, and while doing that they are making sure they are not going to just turn this weapon in to a group who would use it for evil, and they are doing this because both characters have been burned in the past.  This is a flawless visual metaphor.  It is a perfect scene in a movie, and in addition to all it tells you about the characters through their great dialogue, it also tells you huge amounts with just the visuals about how these two see each other.  And the movie is loaded with that type of scene.  Beautiful.

            For the sake of criticism here is my biggest complaint: Captain America's mask was not quite as cool as it was in his own movie "Captain America: The First Avenger".  That is it, and that is me at my most nit-picky.

Then again, he doesn't really wear it that much, and he doesn't need to.

            If you have not seen "The Avengers", go watch it.  The previous films are not required viewing to enjoy it, but it will add to your appreciation.  And if you have already seen it and liked it, I hope my analysis of that one particular scene between Tony and Bruce helped you to appreciate the movie on another level.

            I think I will end up seeing it again at a matinee.