-
Recent Posts
- Better Call Saul: There Are No Happy Endings between a “Rock and Hard Place”
- Black Widow Keeps It in the Family for Natasha’s Last Ride
- Loki Finds New Purpose in the Man behind the Mischief
- In its Debut, Star Wars: The Bad Batch Decides Whether to Obey or Rebel
- Nomadland: A Film Out of Time, For Our Times
Archives
Recent Comments
Meta
Tag Archives: The Avengers
Avengers: Infinity War and the Choice between Love and Victory
Caution: This review contains MAJOR SPOILERS for Avengers: Infinity War.
Before Joss Whedon made 2012’s The Avengers and changed the caped crossover game forever, he created an arguably even more influential T.V. show called Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Despite its gothic overtones, Buffy had the rhythms of a superhero story, with special powers, recurring villains, and big deaths and resurrections. And in one particularly significant season finale [spoilers for a 15-year-old episode of television], Whedon gave his protagonist a choice: save the universe or save someone you love.
Buffy’s conflict had the same sort of stakes as Avengers: Infinity War, even if the contours were a bit different. A mad god was on the loose and threatening to destroy all of creation. To bring that apocalypse to fruition, she needed to use Buffy’s sister who was, through some magical mishegoss, the key to this grand undoing. When that threat reached a crisis point, friend and foe alike advised Buffy to make a hard choice and sacrifice her sister for the good of all mankind. But Buffy, undeterred, decided to find another way, to rally her allies and fight this evil, rather than capitulate to it.
Posted in Movies, Superhero Movies
Tagged Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thanos, The Avengers, Trolley Problem
1 Comment
Thor: Ragnarok Wins with Comedy and Character, Even When its Story Sags
Some of the best aspects of the original Star Wars movie were its characters, its humor, and its surfeit of enjoyable, individual moments. The film’s special effects were innovative, and its famed myth arc was substantial, but the hero’s journey and all that technical splendor might have fallen apart if we hadn’t felt the warm, jostling connection between Luke, Leia, and Han, or laughed at their antics, or been able to so enjoy their interactions even apart from the larger story. Thor: Ragnarok, while not nearly as good as A New Hope, can rely on the same saving grace.
Posted in Movies, Superhero Movies
Tagged Comic Book Movies, Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Movie Reviews, The Avengers, The Hulk, Thor
Leave a comment
Ranking: Every Marvel Cinematic Universe Hero and Villain
Ahead of the release of Captain America: Civil War, Andrew Bloom and Allison Shoemaker rank every Marvel Cinematic Universe hero and villain–both in film and on T.V.–and decide who would win in a hypothetical fight between each good guy and bad guy.
Marvel’s Unshared Universe: Age of Ultron and Continuity in Broad Strokes
I had the faintest glimmer of hope at the climax of Avengers: Age of Ultron. In the midst of our intrepid heroes’ battle with the titular AI run amok, when the chances for a civilian evacuation seemed bleak, Nick Fury came blazing to the rescue with a helicarrier, and reassured Earth’s Mightiest Heroes that he had “pulled her out of mothballs with a couple of old friends”.
Here it was, the moment when Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. would have the slightest impact on the larger Marvel Cinematic Universe. Sure, the TV show’s characters would be relegated to a quick cameo or even the background, but the devoted fans who had slogged through the show’s rougher patches would be rewarded with a brief glimpse of Fitz or Simmons or Mack or somebody from the ragtag remnants of S.H.I.E.L.D., there to help save the day. It only made sense. After all, if recent episodes of the show were any indication, Fury and Maria Hill had been working with Coulson’s team off-screen for some time, and there were more than a few capable agents suited to the task.
But no. Instead, the brief-if-pleasant bit of continuity came in the form of an appearance by the S.H.I.E.L.D. agent from Captain America: The Winter Soldier who had refused to launch Hydra’s helicarriers despite being held at gunpoint. It was a nice callback, but one that still left me feeling cold to a film that seemed to only make the broadest of gestures toward the rest of the MCU.
Posted in Movies, Superhero Movies
Tagged Angel, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Comic Book Movies, Continuity, Joss Whedon, Marvel, Shared Universe, The Avengers
Leave a comment
