TomFlannery.com

I went to see the Avengers movie this weekend….knowing I’d be sorta confused because I don’t really know anything about the Avengers….having not seen any of the previous movies (I hear there are lots of them….both Avengers and movies about Avengers). But I love going to the movies with my family, so I went.

So what follows is not so much a review as it is a series of confused observations. I cannot state that it will NOT contain spoilers, but I can say that my confusion level is so high that I really can’t say that it WILL either. So, read at your own risk.

To level set, for the first hour or so I thought Robert Downey Jr was Captain America. I then learned that he’s Ironman, which I thought was a Black Sabbath song (bit of a chicken or the egg thing going on in my mind over this one). I have no idea what super-powers either one of these guys have, but since they kept getting their asses kicked by the big meanie guy with the chin that looks like a ball-sack, they both seemed seriously wanting. In one scene an emaciated looking Robert Downey Jr looked like Tom Hanks from the movie “Philadelphia”….so it’s no wonder he was getting tossed around like a rag doll. Dude needs to eat a sandwich. Ozzy Ozbourne could have done just as well against Josh Brolin, who the credits say was the actor who played “Thanos”, the bad guy with the dickface, even though he seemed all computerized. Acting is getting weird yo….

Thanos at one point killed half the universe by turning them into dust, which seemed pretty nasty. Not sure why he didn’t just kill all the Avengers instead and save time, but I’m sure he had his reasons. Once the time machine thing happens, the army he killed come back and they are REALLY mad…with good reason one might suspect, although it’s not clear if they knew they were dead before and are thus getting a re-do. The chronology is a bit fuzzy when you’re dealing with time travel.

(In any case, Mel Gibson should sue these guys for the Braveheart-ish battle scenes.)

I thought Captain America was Captain Marvel. I’ve never read comic books so I had no idea Captain Marvel was female. Every time I saw what I took to be a woman Avenger, I just assumed she was Wonder Woman, a tragic rookie mistake that I took a lot of shit for and am not ashamed to admit here.

(from here I learned of the DC vs Marvel thing, which I did not know was a thing. But it certainly explains why Superman never showed up. If he was around, it would probably be a shorter movie. Just saying…)

There’s that english actor who is in a billion movies who seemed to spend the entire movie holding back the ocean with one hand and drawing circles with the other. I bet he made millions. All I know is that I coulda done the same thing if they cast me….for a lot less cash. He’s the guy with the name that sounds like the part of the tuxedo that hides your beer belly.

I still have no idea who Don Cheadle is supposed to be. I swore I was told by somebody that Jeremy Renner was the Green Lantern, only to learn that he’s really somebody named “Hawkeye”…so I just assumed maybe he had some sort of Korean War past? No idea. Further clarification is needed. Every time he was on-screen I just started thinking about “The Hurt Locker”. And why does this Hawkeye have such awful hair? It looks like an ingrown mullet trying to avoid his ears. He is good with a bow and arrow though, so if you’re going on a big game hunt he’s your man. (He does a lousy job of keeping track of his family, that I can tell you)

The Hulk and Spiderman were easy to ID, for obvious reasons. I had no idea Spiderman was still in High School. I’d LOVE to see him try to explain his absences to his principal. Hulk doesn’t need to be pissed off to turn into the Hulk anymore. He’s just permanently green and seemingly sedated. I’m sure there’s a reason for this but I must have missed it. He also wears glasses, so there must be some sort of magic radiation thing that makes the lenses and frames grow exponentially.

I have a hard time telling Hollywood beefcake apart, so Chris Pratt and Liam Hemsworth and the Captain America guy (not sure of his name) seem like the same person. I was then told that one of them is not really an Avenger, but a “Guardian of the Galaxy” (no clue who they are) who I guess was just hanging around wanting to be in a movie? No idea. One of them was “Thor”….the god of something to do with hammers or Led Zeppelin. Still not sure which was which. There’s also a wise-cracking raccoon, which I thought was a bear cub but whatever. I didn’t know raccoons could talk. He had all the good lines, in any case.

Two Avengers die. One I still don’t know the name of…she died from a fall, which seemed especially cruel since she’s an Avenger and all of them seem to be able to fly and flit around whenever they want to. I think she offed herself to save the world. Or something along those lines. I guess her contract was up with the studio.

There is a green chick in the movie who reminded me the the Star Trek alien Captain Kirk boinked a long time ago. No idea what her deal is or which side she was on. Her loyalties seemed to waver.

Samuel L Jackson showed up at the end, apparently for no other reason than Samuel L Jackson is in every movie ever made. Keep in mind that for, literally, 3 seconds of work he was paid about 100 times more than you will make over your entire lifetime.

You’re welcome.

I didn’t know the Black Panther was an Avenger. I assume he is because he’s in this movie, but then again there’s the Galaxy people so…all bets appear to be off. I never saw the Black Panther film, and after learning that Captain Marvel was female, thought that maybe she was…or he was…or whatever. Then Captain America grows old (time machines….lots going on here) and gives his shield to yet ANOTHER guy…so I thought maybe HE was the Black Panther. To be honest, I have no idea who the Black Panther is even now. But apparently Captain America will now be black, which means Trump won’t be tweeting about him. SAD!

Who the fuck is Antman? Did they run out of ideas? He must have some powers, but other than being really boring I didn’t see any.

At the same theater at the same time was a movie about Shazam, which seemed very bad timing on somebody’s part. I assume he’s not an Avenger?

Oh, and after all the hard work and dying is completed, Gwyneth Paltrow suddenly shows up looking radiant….at which point I stopped asking any questions and just went with the flow.

All in all, I give it a thumb’s up even though I didn’t understand any of it. Because Sunday was a dreary, rainy day and I got to spend it with the fam, who loved it.

That is all.

In a bit..

–tf