The Avengers and Dark Shadows

I saw two movies recently.  The first of which was The Avengers (of course!), the highly anticipated superhero soup of a Hollywood blockbuster.  I must admit that I enjoyed it thoroughly.  I found it visually exciting (due to the astounding visual effects but mostly because of the impossibly good-looking cast), humorous (the dialogues were amusing and the exchanges between the characters were inspired), and well-paced.  I’m glad I saw it as a sort of culmination to the series of Marvel comic hero movies that they’ve released one after the other lately.  I did enjoy most of the other features where they have just one hero as the focus (Hulk, Iron Man, Captain America, Thor), but I must admit that I liked this one best.  Absolute favourite character: LOKI. His lines were just fabulous and you can’t help but just listen to every word he says or look at him whenever he’s onscreen.  Tom Hiddleston gave an awesome performance, lending the character alternately a devious, evil persona as well as one that is sensitive, vulnerable, and almost diabolically hilarious.  I’d recommend The Avengers to anyone who might have even a fleeting interest in the world of comic book heroes, especially since we’ve had some rather disappointing movies of the same ilk recently (Transformers, Green Lantern, etc.).  If you grew up with these heroes and their cartoon equivalents, then you’d enjoy The Avengers.

 

The next movie was Dark Shadows.  I absolutely adore Tim Burton’s films, so I couldn’t let this one get past me (The Nightmare Before Christmas is one of my most beloved movies of all time).  I love the visual effect of the whole film – it was all so hippie-goth (if I could even say that’s a word). Whatever, it clearly had the Tim Burton stamp all over it.  And it was just so funny!  The humour is sustained (I kept giggling every once in a while throughout the film) and these really big moments just jump out on you out of the blue.  All the characters were marvellously cast (they each fit their roles perfectly) and the actors gave such cool performances.  The story is quite shallow – no higher order thinking skills required here – but all the other elements make up for that, in my opinion.  You just sit back and let it take you.  Favourite character: Angelique.  Eva Green is so believable – she oozed evil with every word and piercing stare, not to mention she’s just absolutely a stunning beauty.  Johnny Depp as Barnabas was… well, Johnny Depp.  I don’t think any other actor could have pulled this character off as well as he did.  He’s just custom-made to play roles this quirky and weird and funny.  No wonder Tim Burton likes him so much (that practically all his movies have Depp in them).  This movie was just all-around fun.  I recommended it to anyone who just wants a good escape with chuckles thrown in.