MCU Photo-Recap Countdown; The Avengers

It’s The Avengers photo recap!! We’re here! We made it! The Avengers was the 6th movie in the MCU, and the last movie of Phase 1. ‘Member how Iron Man brought the cool while Thor brought the humour and Captain America brought the feels? Well The Avengers brought it all! It took all the best parts of those movies and threw them in a comically oversized aircraft.

This was a highly anticipated movie, which must have put a lot of pressure on the producers, the actors, the studio, the writer and director (Whedon), the key grips and craft services, just everybody! But all their hard work paid off, because this movie is darn tootin’ awesome.

It opened with a heartwarming voice-over about an alien army that will retrieve the Tesseract from Earth (where it had ‘awakened’), for their ‘ally’, and how humans are the stinky pits or whatever. How very cryptic!

Meanwhile on Earth, a very large SHIELD facility was being evacuated.

The Tesseract had begun doing magic Tesseract things, emitting rays of science and whatnot, which made everyone’s brows furrow. Turns out it was opening a cosmic door for a visitor.

We knew from the post-credits scene of Thor that our boy Loki wasn’t dead and was going to be disturbing some shit very soon. He used his magic staff (containing the mind stone) to pod-person-ify Dr. Selvig, Hawkeye and some Red Shirts, then snatched up the Tesseract and got the heck outta there.

Whoopsie doodles! SHIELD sure had stepped in it now! In order to contain the situation, Fury sent out invitations to certain individuals he believed would be able to help.

This was a very fun meet-cute!! Natasha was sent to recruit Bruce Banner, bonafide genius and behemoth green smash monster who just wants to be left alone. Buuuuuut Natasha promised that SHIELD only wants him for his brain, so he agreed to come along.

Meanwhile, Fury was trying to convince The Board (you guys, another dickish board!!) not to use the weapons they were building with the Tesseract (“phase 2”), but instead use the Avengers Initiative. He won (for now), so off he went to recruit a thawed WWII super-soldier.

Steve is very sad most of the time and it hurts me. Anyway, he was in, so at least now he has purpose. Yay?

In New York, Tony had put the finishing touches on his clean-energy building and was celebrating this accomplishment with Pepper when the love of my life Agent Coulson showed up to get him involved in the plot.

And Tony was (reluctantly) in!

After Coulson adorably fan-boyed all over Cap, they arrived on some kind of huge government boat and met Bruce. Then the “boat” turned into a helicarrier, and it was awesome. “Ah no, this is much worse.” Hahaha Mark Ruffalo is a gift.

Loki did a telepathic-video-chat with the Chitauri, who were suuuuuuper pleasant and understanding about his timetable. They were all, “mess up and we will murder you horribly,” and then another one was like, “no, no, no, not murder, say disembowel, tell him we’ll disembowel him!” and the leader was like, “he can hear you,” and the rando Chitauri was like, “how embarrassing, but seriously, we’ll tear your ass apart,” and Loki was like, “cool, got it,” and the Chitauri were all, “I don’t think you do, but that’s fine,” and before he hung up Loki heard the leader say, “I almost want him to fail so we can torture him to death over a few centuries,” and Loki was like, “Guys, I can still hear you,” and the Chitauri were like, “whoops, just kidding! Have fun!”

I’m paraphrasing a bit, but we definitely got the sense that there was no turning back for our boy Loki. He needed a specific element found at the opera, so he and his mind-controlled crew got fancy!

It worked and Puppet-Clint was able to get the magic science element, and everything really seemed to be comin’ up God of Mischief.

This boy loves to grandstand even more than he loves usurping thrones. He made everyone bow to him, but then Captain America and Iron Man showed up to give him the what-for.

It was soooooo easy. Movie over! It just went so well. Did you guys have fun? I thought it would be longer, to be honest.

Kidding! Loki 100% wanted to be captured, but before he could get to his desired destination, his brother showed up to embarrass him in front of all his new friends.

This was all very Three Musketeers, and I loved every second. Loki, being the wily scamp he is, just sat there watching until they were done, then re-captured himself.

Loki was put in a very snazzy cage (meant for the Hulk, presumably), and everything was fine, movie over again. EXCEPT, Loki didn’t have the Tesseract on his person, which meant they needed to get its whereabouts from him. FAT CHANCE, TEAM!

I don’t know why this recap has more than the average amount of butt/fart jokes, but I do not apologize.

Anyway, Tony and Bruce spilled the tea to Steve that perhaps things weren’t all they seemed with SHIELD, and it was discovered that Fury was secretly building weapons with the Tesseract in order to face any heretofore unknown foes from the heavens. Oh, and Bruce and Tony started bantering, and my heart whispered, “it’s happening,” and my brain was like, “relax,” but then my heart was like, “but they’re becoming best friends,” and my brain was like, “omg you’re right, this is magic.”

Meanwhile, Natasha was winning oscars in the basement with Loki.

She made herself look vulnerable in order to make him feel cocky, and in doing so made him reveal that he was there to set the Hulk loose on the team in order to tear them apart. We also got to learn more about Natasha’s past as an assassin for hire, which seemed like a bummer of a childhood.

Loki’s scepter (with a little help from the mind stone) upped everyone’s aggression and turned them into a bunch of a-holes to each other. Cap was all, “You’re not brave!” and Tony was all, “You’re not cool!” and Thor was like, “I’m having a good time,” because it honestly seemed like he was enjoying himself. Then Bruce picked up the scepter and was about to bust out his party trick when Hawkeye and the rest of #PuppetTeamLoki barged in.

What followed was a pretty amazing sequence where Thor took on Hulk, Black Widow fought Hawkeye, Hulk fought a jet, and Captain America and Iron Man worked together to save the ship from crashing.

And that’s all that happened. Nothing else. Thank goodness no one was hurt, ammiright? PHEW! Imagine what would have happened if Loki tricked Thor into getting trapped in the super-cage, leaving the love of my life Agent Phil Coulson to take on Loki all by himself. Haha, boy oh boy THAT would have been rough.

I’m upset.

Okay look, I KNOW Coulson comes back, I KNOW he has a wonderful time in Tahiti (it’s a magical place), and I KNOW he has (to date) 5 seasons of hilarious adventures in Agents of SHIELD, but this was still very hard to watch. VERY HARD.

So now Thor was lost in a field somewhere with mue-mue needing a recharge, and Bruce was waking up naked in a warehouse with a very sympathetic security guard. “Are you an alien?” “No.” “Well then, son, you’ve got a condition.” hahahahhahahha forever.

One good thing to come out of all this was the return of Clint to his factory settings, due to the  “cognitive recalibration” his best friend forever had given him. He was nursing one hell of a post-possession hangover, but there was no time for naps because Loki was out there somewhere being a little shit. So Fury used Coulson’s death to rally the remaining heroes, and they got to Avengin’.

Tony figured out that the Tesseract-gizmo would be on top of Stark tower because it takes a narcissist to know a narcissist. He couldn’t destroy the gizmo with his man-made weapons, so instead he charmed at Loki, stalling for time until the rest of the team could get there.

Then aliens attacked. As they tend to do.

Thor tried to get Loki to cut it out, but Loki couldn’t even if he wanted to (which maybe he DID want to?).

The fight raged on in the city, with Captain America and the humans on the ground kicking ass, Thor bouncing about swinging his mighty hammer, and Iron Man flying around herding the aliens straight to the Hulk, who was all, “you want to know my secret? I turn into the Hulk… when the plot needs it. Aaaaarrrrgggg!” Which was really very awesome. And yes, his line, “I’m always angry” was cool, and I’ll admit it DOES make sense if you look at it in a certain light.

Don’t act like you weren’t waiting for that moment the entire movie.

As the team was fighting, The Board was continuing to be dicks, ordering an airstrike to destroy Manhattan and contain the aliens… because I guess they missed the giant hole in the sky leaking aliens who can fly, regardless of whether or not they can land in the immediate space below their portal?

Anyway, Fury wasn’t having it, but the plane got away, leaving Tony to take action.

Jarvis asking if he should “try Ms. Potts” GOT ME, you guys. Ugh, this movie.

So the Chitauri mothership was blown up, making all the alien minions flop like rag-dolls, Black Widow shut down the portal with the magic stick, and Tony floated down to Earth. And by floated, I mean he fell. And then Hulk caught him (awwwwwww).

It appeared he might be dead, but then he woke up, and no joke I could put over that moment would be funnier than Tony suggesting they all go for shawarma, which was apparently improvised by RDJ (who can do no wrong).

Thor took Loki back to Asgard to face punishment, and all was well. EXCEPT…

How many of you ran home to google just who in the sweet hell this guy was? I know I did!

And that’s it! The after-credits scene was the team out for shawarma, which was pure, over-the-top delight.

See guys? See how The Avengers brought all the best elements of the previous movies and shoved them into 2 and half (ish) hours? It had quips. It had RDJ being cool as shit. It had humour. “He’s adopted.” (LOL) It had cool fights, aliens, and giant aircrafts. And it had several emotional punches (RIP for a bit my dear sweet charming Coulson).

This movie was near perfection, and a solid team-building exercise. Two thumbs up from this girl!

SOME STUFF

• Okay, so Fury was correct in that there are bigger things out there that the Earth needs to be protected from, BUT, those bigger things wouldn’t have come a’callin’ if the Tesseract hadn’t been “activated” by SHIELD, sooooooo… maybe don’t mess with alien tech, is the takeaway here. I don’t know.

• There was a lot of flirtation between Natalie and Bruce that I missed the first (couple) times around. Perhaps their future romance wasn’t as out of the blue as we all thought.

• So with the bifrost gone *frown*, Thor had to use dark matter to get himself to Earth on a one-way trip. What a fun plot device!

• Enver Gjokaj played a cop in this movie who was bossed around by Captain America. I like to think he was Daniel Sousa’s grandson, and I really wanted him to be all, “my grandma is your ex girlfriend!” … I know Agent Carter ended *sob* and we don’t know for sure, but just give me this.

• Sooooo many funny lines in this movie, but somehow my favourites all come from Bruce.
  • “This is the Tesseract. It has the potential energy to wipe out the planet.”
  • “What does Fury want me to do? Swallow it?”

• Fury was all, “shit is gonna get weird,” and Cap was all, “nothing will ever surprise me again,” and Fury was all, “ten bucks says you’re wrong,” then the first time Cap saw the helicarrier, he handed Fury ten bucks. This was a cute, funny detail that I appreciated, but at the same time, how does Cap have money? He certainly didn’t have any pockets in that tight little suit when he went into the ice.

• Does anyone else want Captain America and Iron Man to kiss? Or is that just… I mean… I can’t be alone on that.

• Everyone is talking about the reunions they want to see in Endgame, and I’m over here like, “WHAT IF THE AVENGERS FIND OUT THAT COULSON IS STILL ALIVE MAYBE?”

• Bechdale Test: Fail.

• Do you guys want shawarma now? Me too.