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To simply say, “Joss Whedon is my master, now,” fails to encapsulate The Avengers, and omits the other people who made this one of those rare films which actually lives up to expectations.

My problems with the film are few, and trivial.  Absent from the Avengers are original members Dr. Henry Pym, “Giant Man / Ant Man.” and his girlfriend, Janet van Dyne, “Wasp.”  Instead, we have Black Widow and Hawkeye.  But, when it comes to saving the world, Ant Man is ridiculous in a way that Jeremy Renner’s portrayal of the guy who brings a bow to a gun fight was believable.  Unlike her part in Iron Man 2, here, Scarlett Johansson demonstrates that she can actually act.  The 3 word version of this review relates to her throwing a leg-lock on the neck of the “luckiest stuntman, ever.”

I always forget how much I adore Captain America.  Chris Evans portrays him flawlessly.  I had my doubts about Robert Downey, Jr. as Tony Stark… four years ago.  I would have preferred Ed Norton’s Bruce Banner to Mark Ruffalo’s, but then I’d probably go to see Ed Norton read from a phone book.  Thor is better in this film than in his own.  Hemsworth is a good choice in both.

I really like Samuel L. Jackson, in almost anything, but I don’t quite “feel” him as SHIELD’s director, Nick Fury.  For me, Nick Fury was still once Sergeant Fury, leader of the Howling Commandos, and the “other” Captain America.  Jackson just doesn’t convey grizzled WW2 veteran turned cold war spy whose life has been so agonizingly prolonged by the super serum that he must now be a politician.  Colbie Smulders (Robin “Sparkles” Scherbatsky in How I Met Your Mother) is not well demonstrated as an action heroine.  But she isn’t really supposed to be.  Maria Hill is a SHIELD agent, so she has a sort of professional directness that comes off a little stiff, but appropriate.

The prolonged action sequence which comprises the third act provides hope that Hollywood has finally remembered why the “steady cam” was invented.  The Avengers manages to buck Hollywood action trends on most of my pet peeves.  In the first scene, Loki shows up to steal the MacGuffin from gun-tottin’ soldiers ready to shoot.  When they do, almost every bullet… HITS!  Amidst the wildly chaotic battles, the cameraman is NOT getting thrashed by an off screen menace flailing the camera about like an epileptic in a strobe lit meth lab.  Everything is on screen, in focus, and well lit.  The actions, not the hyperactivity, thrills the audience.

Is summer over because The Avengers came out?  Give me a break.  The sun’s rays are perpendicular north of the equator, The Dark Knight Rises, and The Amazing Spiderman still have release dates.  Should you let summer go by without seeing The Avengers?  Only, if you’re just waiting two and a half hours to see “Hurt Locker” use a boxing glove arrow.

(Because that’s Green Arrow from DC Comics.)

Torn between Snow White and the Huntsman and Prometheus, we elected to remember that Kristen Stewart usually demonstrates the same acting ability as a popsicle stick with a picture of her face glued to it, and went to see Ridley Scott’s latest.

Nearly 30 years ago I learned that “in space no one can hear you scream,” and was pinned to a living room couch in terror.  Strangely I was excited to see this despite promises of the same.

The previews for this film make it fairly obvious that it was intended to be a prequel to Alien.  There are a lot of suggestions that some the origins of the xenomorphs encountered by the Nostromo are after affects of this film.

However, such suggestions are wrong, Prometheus is intended to be another story in Ridley Scott’s Alien Universe.  It just happens to have a lot of the pieces which appear later in Alien, such as H. R. Giger’s “The Pilot” (a.k.a. Space Jockey).

Apparently it was going to be a prequel but then Ridley Scott decided, mid-production, it wasn’t.

Unfortunately, the film suffers from this disparity.  It is so obviously constructed and littered with prequel material that it feels like it just doesn’t pay off.  It’s a duality which, instead, leaves confusion of rationale and motivations.  The Prometheus has a crew of 17, according to a caption.  Of them, there are probably 4 half way explored characters, and 4 others with enough depth to justify speaking roles.  Leaving nine “warm bodies in suits.”  Why are any of these people on board?  Mostly, we have no idea.  But that’s okay because we don’t really find out why anyone does anything in this film.  And that’s its real flaw.

In writing reviews, I do a little research about the film to make sure I spell actor and director names correctly, get shooting locations right, etc.  Prometheus had a library of supporting web content and mini promos on YouTube which might be necessary to fully understand film, and the motivations of some of the characters.  Requiring such material is the mark of a bad film.

Despite all this, Prometheus is not a bad film.  “I was entertained the whole time, but I don’t know if I liked it.”  There’s lots of little cool things, once we get past, “oh the air on this alien planet was toxic, but now it’s breathable?  Cool let’s ALL take off our helmets,” and “there’s some kind of snake living in that liquid, I want to touch it.”

Prometheus doesn’t have the terrifying chill of Alien, or the hopelessness of Aliens.  But it is abundantly clear that if you work for Wayland Industries: you will be put into a situation where you will have to be positively horrible to another human being, and someone will suggest that the “best” thing to do is to freeze you so you can bring the unkillable monster you’re reluctantly incubating back to Earth.

Yeah, that sounds like a good idea.