Welcome to The Daily Cup a movie blog/writing project by Kyle B. Dekker, presented by Hot Chocolate Media. You can read series concept here. The basic rules, Kyle must watch 365 movies in 2018 and write about all of them. 292 of them have to be movies he's never seen before. Thanks for reading.
There are several movies burned into the pulp culture psyche. They have quotable moments, gifable scenes, and most everyone you know has watched them. The Avengers (2012), the icing on the cake of the MCU Phase One is one of those films. Marvel studios brought in at the time uber geek Joss Whedon on to write and direct. It was up to him to tie up the seeds planted in the previous five MCU films and set up the next wave of films. Regardless of what you think about Whedon in light of recent revelations (I think he should step back and let others take the helm of beloved geek properties) he did a fantastic job of all of this and made an incredibly entertaining and fun movie.
In case you haven’t seen the film Captain America (Chris Evans), Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo), Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), and Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) eventually team up to fight off Loki (Tom Hiddleston) and his army of skitarii in New York City. S.H.I.E.L.D. plays a big part in the story as well as Director Fury (Samuel Jackson), Agent Coulson (Clark Gregg), and Maria Hill (Cobie Smulders) lend their help and the first once screen appearance of the helicarrier to the fight. At its core this is a putting the team together movie as the first two acts are about the various members of the team first fighting with each other, then hitting their low point, and finally learning to fight as a team to win the day. It’s a straightforward story, executed perfectly and totally fun.
The best parts of the film are the witty dialogue, fantastic score, and phenomenal special effects. This movie needed to be big, and the studio and the director played it perfectly. Joss Whedon weaved his signature banter in the script, without going too far with it (we will visit that in a later review), and there are many moments fans can point out to their favorite. Alan Silvestri crafts the now iconic Avengers main theme, that I wager will be remember by film fans alongside such classic as Jaws, Indiana Jones, and Star Wars. The score drives the great action and story throughout without ever being overpowering. The effects are very good and still hold up, the skitarii battle effects and helicarrier are especially spectacular.
Going through my MCU rewatch I know this whole movie fairly well. I saw it twice in theaters (I don’t do that with many films), and this is the third or fourth time I’ve seen it since. Still fun, extremely well paced and executed it has lost some of its luster thanks to the Joss Whedon revelations. A big part of that is unfair to the amazing work put forth by the cast and crew, and I will still always enjoy it, but I can no longer say it is my favorite MCU film. I personally can’t separate the content from the creator 100% of the way.
Tally
Movies new to me watched: 45/292
Other movies: 13/73
Total movies watched: 58/365
Have your own thoughts or opinions on this movie? Comment below or contact Kyle at kyle@hotchocolatemedia.net or on Twitter at @kbdekker.