The Avengers (2012)

I went to the midnight premiere of the Avengers movie in Sydney but for a lot of places the movie doesn't come out until May 4th. I'll be writing an essay for uni until then, so I went ahead and just wrote my recap now. If you don't want to get spoiled, don't fucking click on the "read more" thing, because under there I just straight up tell you what happens.


I mean it! From here on out you are in the spoiler zone! Don't go beyond this jump break if you don't wanna know what happens!




Okay straight up we find out that the villain of the piece is the Chitauri, AKA THE MOTHERFUCKING SKRULLS, I TOTALLY CALLED IT. In exchange for the tesseract they have agreed to send Loki an army to defeat the forces of Earth. As if we were in a Bioware game, the film opens by throwing you straight into the action, in an underground SHIELD facility. The tesseract has been “misbehaving”, according to Dr Selvig, who we last saw being impersonated by Loki. Coulson oversees the evacuation of the base while Nick Fury and Maria Hill have a semi-incomprehensible argument about something called “Phase Two” (this is helpfully explained later on).



While they bicker, Loki pops out of an interdimensional gate created by the tesseract, looking all sweaty and in need of chapstick with DARK CIRCLES UNDER HIS EYES OH MY GOSH BABY WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN WHAT HAVE YOU BEEN DOING. He has what Tony later jokingly calls the "glo-stick of destiny”, and when he touches it to people’s hearts, they go all icy-eyed and start calling Loki ‘sir’, as if I needed any fucking encouragement. He steals the tesseract, spears Barton and Selvig as thralls, jumps a SHIELD truck, and bounces. Coulson asks “what are we going to do?” and THEN THE WHOLE CINEMA I WAS IN SHOUTED “AVENGERS ASSEMBLE” which was fucking awesome.



Coulson calls Natasha, who is in the middle of an interrogation, and says that Barton’s been compromised. So she puts him on hold and then dangles some Russian(?) arms dealers from a chain over a 4 storey drop. Because she's awesome, and she has a debt to Clint that she needs to repay. Can someone please just make Hawkeye and Black Widow their own movie? Pretty please? (AND WINTER SOLDIER AS WELL, AMEN.)



So a little girl in India? I think? Yeah, Calgary [EDIT, I'M A MORON, I MEANT CALCUTTA], I’m pretty sure it was mentioned, comes running into where Dr Banner is hiding out, saying her dad is sick and he needs to come help. She leads him into that banged-up shed-looking place you’ve seen in the trailers and Bruce is all “fuck, should have gotten paid up front, Banner”. Natasha is all “you gotta come in, no one’s gonna put you in a cage, s’all good baby” and he says he’ll go, so there’s no need to shoot him or bring out “the other guy” because he doesn’t want anybody to get hurt.



Tony and Pepper have just finished making Stark Tower the world’s first self-powering green energy source, and Coulson tries to get him on the phone, but Tony pretends to be an LMD. Except oh no! Coulson’s at the door! Pepper is all “hey Phil how’s your girlfriend” and Tony’s all “Phil? His first name is ‘Agent’.” and Coulson is all coy, and then he’s all “here, you need to read this and come help us find the tesseract”.



Cap is punching things, and Fury says “come save the world, also I bet you ten bucks you’re gonna see some shit that is going to blow your mind” and then they go to the hellicarrer (MOTHERFUCKING HELICARRER, YOU GUYS, OH MY GOD IT IS SO COOL AND CAN TURN INVISIBLE AND UGH I NEARLY DIED) and then Steve gives Fury his ten bucks.



Meanwhile, in villainy, Clint says the tesseract revealed to him the location of his next target, and to get it he needs “a distraction, and an eyeball”. Loki suits up in his civilian gear (unf) and then he shoves a mean-looking spiky thing on the eye of a dude, and then Clint uses that eye to get some unobtanium or whatever, in order to help them build a gate to get the Chitauri army to Earth.

Then Loki monologues to a bunch of Germans, who he makes kneel to him. An old dude steps up and is all “I won’t kneel to men like you” and Loki’s all “there are no men like me” and old dude says “there are always men like you”. OH MY GOSH, WHAT A PERFECT TIME FOR CAPTAIN AMERICA TO SHOW UP, AND REFERENCE THE FACT THAT HE PUNCHED HITLER.



SO GUESS WHAT HAPPENS. Cap is all *SHIELD FLING* and Loki is all *LET’S WRESTLE, HANDSOME* and then Tony shows up to help out. Eventually Loki is all I SURRENDER, YOU ARE CLEARLY SUPERIOR BEINGS, THIS IS NOT IN ANY WAY A HUGELY TRANSPARENT PLOY.



So they put him on a plane which Black Widow is fucking flying, which is awesome, and then there’s lightning. And Steve’s all “what’s wrong, you frightened of a little thunder?” and Loki says “I’m not all that fond of what comes after.” And then Thor just literally grabs him and fucks off, and Tony says something like “oh, so. That happened.” And then he and Cap go wrestle Thor in a forest for a little while until they work out that they’re gonna be best frands. So everyone heads back to the helicarrier and they put Loki in a glass case of emotion.



(at some point, Widow sneaks up on him, and he’s all “huh, not many people can sneak up on me” and she’s all “so let’s have a chat” and Loki is all “I assumed you’d come to see me after Fury tried to torture me. Hey so guess what, I’m going to make your boyfriend kill you in super fucked-up ways, and then I’m going to give him back his mind so he can reel in horror at what he’s done, and then I’m going to CRACK HIS SKULL OPEN” and Nat turns away and is all *gasp* YOU ARE A MONSTER! *SOB*” and Loki says “no, you’re the ones with the monster” and she turns back around all pokerface.jpg and says “oh, cool, so that’s your angle, you’re playing the Hulk. Thanks for sharing that info, Widow out, bitches”.)



There’s an awesome scene where Tony wonders out loud whether Bruce smokes dope to stay calm and un-Hulked, and Bruce just smirks, and Tony is all *poke it and see if it explodes* and Tony and Bruce become BEST SCIENCE BROS, and Cap gets a bit jealous. Tony and Bruce say “hey so just so we’re clear, we don’t trust SHIELD, like, at all” and Cap’s all “I just follow orders, y’all”. Tony’s hacked SHIELD systems so he says pretty soon he’ll know what the hell they’re up to, and Cap is all “hm, well, I can sneak off into this cargo bay and have a looksee, I’m sure I won’t find anything incriminati- OH WAIT, WHAT IS THIS HUGE STOCKPILE OF HYDRA WEAPONRY?! THIS IS MY DISAPPOINT FACE”.



Clint and his Loki bros attack the helicarrier and shit starts exploding. Tony immediately begins to throw himself into the line of fire in order to save everyone else, because Steve was SO TOTALLY OFF THE MARK when he accused Tony of never being the one to “jump on the live wire to let a guy crawl over you”. Widow gets trapped under some rubble and Banner starts to Hulk out. He nearly attacks her but Clint shows up to do it for him, and that is why we see Black Widow fighting Hawkeye in the trailer. He’s a Loki-zombie! Oh no! Anyway Widow beats the shit out of Clint and he passes out, and Thor and the Hulk throw down and it’s awesome, but then the Hulk jumps out of the helicarrier and is presumably going to fuck someone’s day up when he lands. 


(sidenote: when Bruce wakes up he is naked atop a pile of rubble and an old janitory-looking dude is like “you fell outta the sky, son!” and Bruce is all “did I hurt anyone?” and janitor guy is all “nope but you sure scared the shit out of some pigeons” and then he gives him some pants and is all “you got a condition, boy”. It’s hilarious. Old janitory guy, you’re the best.) 


Then Thor goes to check on his brother, who is just like “tra la la strolling out of this allegedly Hulk-proof prison, doop de doo” and Thor goes to tackle him but he makes himself all insubstantial and Thor ends up trapped inside the glass case of emotion, and then Loki drops it 30,000 ft to see if the impact will kill his bro (spoiler alert, it does not). Then. Oh god. Then Loki just up and kills Coulson, you guys, and it fucking sucks. His last fucking words are “It's okay boss. This would never have worked unless they had something to...” SOMETHING TO AVENGE, PHIL. THEY WILL AVENGE YOOOOOOOOOOU ALWAAAAAAAAYS WE WILL FIGHT AS OOOOOOOOONE, TIL THE BATTLE’S WONNNNNNN *gross sobbing*.



Cap and Tony confront Fury and he’s all “Yeah, we were going to use the tesseract to make weapons. I don’t know whether you guys were paying attention, but last year a giant alien robot showed up and a whole town died? We kinda need some firepower.” This is what Phase Two was, dudes. 


Thor says “yes well, you drew the galaxy’s attention by digging up the tesseract, so now all y’all are fucked.” Fury says "listen, you guys need to be the Avengers now, because this is a hot load of bullshit and we’re totally, HILARIOUSLY outgunned here". Tony goes off to have a really REALLY emotional breakdown over Coulson, and Cap tries to console him by asking if this is the “first time [Tony’s] lost a soldier” and Tony just loses it, and is all "WE ARE NOT SOLDIERS!" and I literally shook my fist at the screen and muttered “WHEEEEEDOONNNN!!”



So they decide then and there to get this team shit happening in order to live up to the hope Coulson had in them (SOB SOB) and Tony is all “Loki sure is a self-aggrandising little shit, he’s a huge diva, he wants flowers and an encore and his name up in lights, OH JESUS HE’S ME, WE ARE ONE, HE’S TOTES HEADING FOR STARK TOWER, WHICH LITERALLY HAS MY NAME UP IN LIGHTS ON IT” and I promptly go “duh, yes Tony, thank you for figuring out what I had figured out like 45 minutes ago when Fury said “all they need now is a power source”. AREN'T YOU SUPPOSED TO BE A GENIUS?



Meanwhile, Clint wakes up and Nat is all “I gave you a cognitive recalibration..by hitting you really hard in the head”. And Clint asks if she knows what it is like to have someone take you out of yourself and put something else in charge, and she’s all “you know I do.” MY BLACK WIDOW FEELS. ARUUGHHARGHH.



Then the scene where Loki and Tony sass at each other happens. I can’t even tell you how much this was my favourite, you guys. I can’t. It was so good. Tom Hiddleston’s face doesn’t work like normal faces. There are some fight scenes or something, I dunno, I guess I stopped paying a lot of attention because action scenes are boooooooooring why can't you just have them sit around a table and snark at each other?! 


Then the tesseract opens a portal and the Chitauri army start pouring in and Cap, Widow, and Clint are all “we got this *arrow'd!* *black widow'd!* *PATRIOTISM'D!*” and Tony flies off to draw their attention away from the streets. SELF SACRIFICING COMPLEX WHAT? Then the Hulk shows up! Well, it’s Bruce. And he’s riding a motorbike HOLD ME THE FUCK BACK. YOU GUYS SAW HIM NAKED BEFORE, RIGHT? GOOD LORD, THAT MAN.


He apologises to Widow for coming after her on the helicarrier, and she’s all “dude it’s fine, do you think maybe you could Hulk it up again because have you fucking seen these robot dragon alien things?” Then Tony is all “CAP, GET THIS PARTY STARTED” and Cap goes all leadery on their asses and they all work as a team and it’s FUCKING AWESOME AS SHIT.



I’m not going to lie to you guys, there is not enough Clint/Natasha screen time in this movie. But what little there is, makes me want desperately for them to get their own movie. “It’s like Budapest all over again!” “You and I remember Budapest verrrrrrry differently.”



So blah blah action sequence a non-ice-eyed Selvig says he built a failsafe into the tesseract and Loki’s staff will break it. Loki and Thor have a manful wrestle atop Stark Tower and Thor is all BRO THIS IS MADNESS and Loki is all THERE’S NO STOPPING IT NOW and Thor is all WE COULD STOP IT, TOGETHER! and Loki goes “ahh, sentiment” and then the Hulk throws Loki around a bit and the cinema kind of whooped really loudly for that but idk it made me really uncomfortable because I read Ultimates where the Hulk was a rape monster, and it was just a bit too close to that squickiness for my liking.



This shady council of fucktwats order a nuclear strike on Manhattan in order to contain the invasion and Fury is all “MUTHAFUCKAS, ALL OF THEM” and shoots down one of the nuke planes with a rocket launcher (Yes. YES. I KNOW). Then he notices that another plane is taking off, and he PUTS THE ROCKET LAUNCHER DOWN, AND PULLS OUT A TINY GODDAMN PISTOL. QUEUE MY EPIC “WTF” FACE.


Predictably, the nuke plane gets away. Tony goes "OH, I KNOW WHAT I’ll DO, I’LL GRAB THE NUKE, AND FLY IT INTO THE TESSERACT PORTAL, POTENTIALLY STRANDING MYSELF FOREVER IN OUTER SPACE WITH THE ENTIRE CHITAURI ARMADA" and promptly does just that. A few seconds go by and everyone is all WOOO NO NUKE FOR USSSS YAAAAY but when he doesn’t come back, Cap orders Widow to shut the portal down. She shoves the staff in there and the portal closes and Tony falls back through to Earth just in time because um, guys, Iron Man 3 is totally already being made, so of course he does.



So Tony is falling and not slowing down and he’s totally gonna go splat but then the Hulk jumps and catches him and then gently lays him out on the ground like a fainting damsel and he’s not waking up and Cap’s like “he’s not breathing” and they’re all like “oh god which one of us is gonna have to tell Pepper” and then Hulk yells really loud and Tony wakes up going "WHAZZAT? DID WE WIN? LET’S ALL GO GET SHAWARMA, I DON’T KNOW WHAT IT IS AND I WANT TO TRY IT".



Then the whole gang go up to Stark Tower and Loki is all “um, actually, if it’s all the same with you I’d like to peacefully surrender myself to my brother’s custody now” and so Thor takes the tesseract and his CHAINED AND MUZZLED BROTHER (seriously is it just me or have I seen too much porn/read too many bdsm fics, because that fucking scene was RIDONK) back to Asgard. Cap takes the motorbike for a spin, Banner and Tony speed off in some kind of sports car to be science boyfriends forever, Widow and Clint disappear into the shadows because they are assassins and I reeeeeeeally hope they went somewhere remote and had weirdly amazing sex. Then you see Pepper and Tony smooching in the remains of the tower, presumably working on repairs, and it’s adorable.

So Hill’s like, “They’ve all scattered. what are we going to do the next time we need them?” and Fury says “they’ll come back. Because we need them to.”



In short. ALSDKJASLKDJASLKDJWEIUhFHJK. TOM HIDDLESTON YOUR FACE DOES THINGS TO ME. Coulson’s never gonna see his cellist girlfriend again, sob sob. Banner is my new favourite of all time. The end!




Random thoughts:

• This bullshit “humans need to be free from free choice” is bullshit. It was bullshit in Ultimates, it was bullshit in Assassin’s Creed, and it’s bullshit in this.
• Fury returning fire at Loki regarding the ant not harbouring any ill will towards a boot. Hilarious. Also: “let me know if ultimate power wants a magazine or somethin’.” FURY. YOU PERFECT CREATURE.
• Coulson swooning over Cap. “SWOON” WAS THE ACTUAL WORD NATASHA USED. He had vintage trading cards. I just. I can’t. *claws at own face*
• Pepper motherfucking Potts. In asking Coulson about his cellist lady friend, she's all "is that still a thing?" when she finds out the cellist "moved back to Portland", her INCREDIBLY MATURE response is to yell "Booooooooooooo!" Pepper. I. I just love you.
• When Thor first grabs Loki out of the plane, they land on like a rocky outcrop, and have this super intense scene together which is like, 80% Loki!monologue and 20% Thor!FEELS and it just ripped my shit apart, not even gonna lie. Thor’s all YOU NEED TO STOP THIS, YOU NEED TO GIVE ME THE TESSERACT, AND YOU NEED TO COME HOME. Ugh. Guys. Thorki feels. Ouch.
• DURING AFOREMENTIONED SCENE (and I only picked up on this the second time around) Loki is all "I remember you throwing me into an abyss". HOLD UP, MOTHERFUCKER. I DISTINCTLY REMEMBER SEEING YOU HURL YOURSELF INTO THAT ABYSS, YOU DRAMATIC PIECE OF SHIT.
• “He’s an Asgardian, and my brother.” “He killed 80 people in two days.” “Uhh, he’s adopted?”
• Overall I felt the effects were good, there were a couple of points (Thor skidding down a rocky cliff-face, Cap jumping in the wreckage of the external helicarrier explosion) that looked like total ass, both in 2D and in 3D, but oh my god. The effect where Loki switches between his civvies and his armour? Hooooooooooly shit. So cool. One of my favourite character touches. OF COURSE he would glimmer into his outfits with a golden, glittery shine. OF COURSE HE WOULD.
• The final reveal, I found out, is “Thanos”. People lost their shit, it was hilarious. The name/face means nothing to me, but there you go. Thanos! He has a Nintendo power glove? Or something? I guess I'll be reading up on his shit, find out what his deal is. Look forward to that, I guess!
• If you see this movie in Australia, there is no extra easter eggy thing after the credits. Once you see Thanos (who looks like Hellboy, just sayin'), you can bail, because we apparently don't get the adorable extra scene where the team is all bruised and broken and sitting around in the rubble of the shawarma place while the staff clean up around them, just, eating in silence, and being awesome. As Pepper would say: booooo!