I saw Avengers: Age of Ultron
May. 23rd, 2015 06:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pebblerockerThere's a bit about Black Widow in the new Avengers movie that seemed to come out of nowhere, and a lot of people had misgivings about it. I LOVED it.
Or I thought I loved it, while I was still guessing what was happening. I loved it for under a minute before it became very, very weird.
This is what I loved:
At Tony Stark's superhero office party, Natasha is pouring a drink for Bruce. And straight away I thought, why is she behind a bar pouring a drink for someone else? Tony would definitely hire attractive women to pour drinks at his parties, and Natasha absolutely would go undercover behind the bar at a rich man's party, but she can't go undercover at this party because she's already fooled Tony that way once, and practically everyone on the guest list already knows her anyway (even if, as this movie seems to, we ignore the end of Winter Soldier which says everyone in the world should know her). So, I dunno, maybe Natasha is getting a drink for herself and Maria asked her to bring her a refill while she's up. Or something clever is going on which I haven't quite figured out yet but it'll become clear soon. Anyway.
Bruce and Natasha start playing out a hilariously scripted cliché "Man Talks to Sexy Lady at Bar" scene. He actually says "What's a pretty girl like you doing in a place like this?" or similar wording. Watching this scene I was giggling and hugging my knees and loving every second, because suddenly here is new information on the dynamic between two characters we hardly saw interacting in the previous film, suggesting that they've grown closer during some events we didn't get to see. They're now such good friends that they jokingly pretend to flirt with each other, each knowing that there's no chance that the other will mistake atrocious fake flirting for anything else. And I want to see more of this friendship! I want to find out what they have in common that led to this playful camaraderie and I want more of their silly in-jokes!
... But of course, it turns out that I was wrong: we're expected to believe that these stilted clichéd lines are actually the words of two people who are romantically interested in each other. It's not a clever way of using a few light strokes to suggest a playful friendship, it's a ham-handed effort to convince us we should ship them without giving any time to showing reasons why. The question of what they have in common remains unanswered (if you ignore the "infertility=monstrous" conversation* later on), so we go from a movie where all their interactions were antagonistic and mostly about him trying to kill her to OMG TRUE LOVE in a single bound.**
And, so far as I can tell, Natasha was pouring drinks at the party because serving is what women are there for.
*no no, she said she was infertile and then a second later she said she was a monster, WHY ON EARTH would anyone get the idea one had anything to do with the other? - every comment thread ever
**wrong superhero, I know
Or I thought I loved it, while I was still guessing what was happening. I loved it for under a minute before it became very, very weird.
This is what I loved:
At Tony Stark's superhero office party, Natasha is pouring a drink for Bruce. And straight away I thought, why is she behind a bar pouring a drink for someone else? Tony would definitely hire attractive women to pour drinks at his parties, and Natasha absolutely would go undercover behind the bar at a rich man's party, but she can't go undercover at this party because she's already fooled Tony that way once, and practically everyone on the guest list already knows her anyway (even if, as this movie seems to, we ignore the end of Winter Soldier which says everyone in the world should know her). So, I dunno, maybe Natasha is getting a drink for herself and Maria asked her to bring her a refill while she's up. Or something clever is going on which I haven't quite figured out yet but it'll become clear soon. Anyway.
Bruce and Natasha start playing out a hilariously scripted cliché "Man Talks to Sexy Lady at Bar" scene. He actually says "What's a pretty girl like you doing in a place like this?" or similar wording. Watching this scene I was giggling and hugging my knees and loving every second, because suddenly here is new information on the dynamic between two characters we hardly saw interacting in the previous film, suggesting that they've grown closer during some events we didn't get to see. They're now such good friends that they jokingly pretend to flirt with each other, each knowing that there's no chance that the other will mistake atrocious fake flirting for anything else. And I want to see more of this friendship! I want to find out what they have in common that led to this playful camaraderie and I want more of their silly in-jokes!
... But of course, it turns out that I was wrong: we're expected to believe that these stilted clichéd lines are actually the words of two people who are romantically interested in each other. It's not a clever way of using a few light strokes to suggest a playful friendship, it's a ham-handed effort to convince us we should ship them without giving any time to showing reasons why. The question of what they have in common remains unanswered (if you ignore the "infertility=monstrous" conversation* later on), so we go from a movie where all their interactions were antagonistic and mostly about him trying to kill her to OMG TRUE LOVE in a single bound.**
And, so far as I can tell, Natasha was pouring drinks at the party because serving is what women are there for.
*no no, she said she was infertile and then a second later she said she was a monster, WHY ON EARTH would anyone get the idea one had anything to do with the other? - every comment thread ever
**wrong superhero, I know
no subject
Date: 2015-05-23 03:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-05-24 08:17 am (UTC)Yeah, that works for me! I didn't go in strongly opposed to the ship, but they could have tried a little harder to sell it. There are a few things about the whole movie that could stand to make a little more sense.