THE AVENGERS: The IRON MAN Reaction

The Avengers (2012) – The 6th Marvel Cinematic Universe Film – Directed by Joss Whedon – Starring Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner, Tom Hiddleston, Samuel L. Jackson, Clark Gregg, Cobie Smulders, Stellan Skarsgård, Gwyneth Paltrow, Paul Bettany, Alexis Denisof, Stan Lee, Powers Boothe, Lou Ferrigno, and Harry Dean Stanton.

Welcome to the eleventh (and final) character-specific reaction to Joss Whedon’s THE AVENGERS. I’ve already written a 4,200+ word review of the film, but that wasn’t nearly enough to cover everything I wanted to talk about, so I’m going to write character-specific reactions to delve a bit deeper into the film. You can find all of the relevant AVENGERS links at the bottom of this post.

Also, please note that these reactions are evolving as we go. If you see some line I got wrong or a detail I overlooked, by all means let me know. I’ve seen the movie twice, but it’s a long movie and the audience reacts wildly in parts, so some things get lost or forgotten or misinterpreted. And I’m sure some of the quotes are wrong, but I will correct the mistakes as I become aware of them. Don’t be surprised if these reactions grow a bit in the coming days.

Let me be clear about what’s coming: SPOILERS. Lots and lots of SPOILERS. Read ahead only if you’re cool with that. If you haven’t seen the movie and don’t want things ruined, come on back when you do.

Join the conversation on Twitter.

“That’s the guy my dad wouldn’t shut up about?”

I’ll be honest, I thought I’d spend the bulk of May writing about movies like Adventures in Babysitting, Eight Legged Freaks, and Snakes on a Plane. I thought I’d spend more time talking about the animated Avengers than the live action ones.

But then I watched MARVEL’S THE AVENGERS and … yeah. Wow. Best Superhero Movie Ever. (And, people, if you’ve been complaining about the name of the movie because you think Marvel put their name there so as not to confuse anyone looking for the new Patrick Macnee/Honor Blackman/Diana Rigg/Ralph Fiennes/Uma Thurman, well, I’m guessing it has more to do with building brand recognition for Marvel.) And sometime during the process of writing my review of the movie, I decided one post wasn’t enough and I’d tackle the individual characters to flesh the movie out a bit more.

We’ve now reached the end of that road. I hope you’ve enjoyed these reactions – if you’re reading this close to its publication date, you’ll note the overwhelming popularity of these posts, so thanks for stopping by, reading, and in some cases, commenting. It’s been great to hear from old friends and new ones and if I had the cash, I’d fly all of you to Reno and rent out a theater so we could watch AVENGERS one more time on the big screen.

I had planned to save the IRON MAN reaction to the end because I thought it would be the largest of reactions. While Joss Whedon did an excellent job balancing his cast, we are living in Robert Downey Jr.’s world, and his personality and screen presence is going to rise to the top. Indeed, it’s Tony Stark who gets the most traditional character arc in AVENGERS as it’s Stark who needs the most convincing to believe in the Avengers, it’s Stark who has his character most challenged (by Cap), and it’s Stark who gets to defeat the Chitauri and almost sacrifice himself to save the world, thereby meeting the challenge to his character.

Instead of going through a play-by-play for Tony Stark’s entire cinematic experience in AVENGERS (most of his best interactions have been covered in the reactions for the other half of those exchanges), I want to build this reaction around Stark’s acceptance of his fellow Avengers into his world, and his negotiation between the Avengers Initiative/SHIELD and the Avengers themselves.

As the film opens, Tony Stark is in a very comfortable, very adult space. His life is good and he is content, having moved away from being a weapons contractor to being “the only name in green energy,” as he describes himself to Captain America (Chris Evans) deeper into the movie. His journey in AVENGERS begins under water, with him hooking up the arc reactor, making Stark Tower self-sufficient. He blasts out of the water and across the city to the tower, where he lands and has his armor removed by a whirling band of mechanical arms in a slow walk down into his main apartment floor, where the beautiful Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) is waiting for him.

This first Stark Tower walk symbolizes the domestication of the playboy and the maturation of the visionary. Stark is committed and happy, yet not fully content because he’ll never be fully content. He is happy to play the roguish bachelor with Pepper, though, and their back-and-forth, playfully antagonistic relationship is a real joy to watch. What’s impressive here and throughout the film is how well Downey plays off every single actor he shares the screen with in AVENGERS; Paltrow is not an overly dynamic actress, but you can see Downey pulling Paltrow out of her comfortable shell the same way Stark is performing his magic on Pepper.

I covered the conversation between Stark, Pepper, and Agent Coulson (Clark Gregg) in the main AVENGERS review and I won’t recap it here, except to say that it demonstrates how Whedon builds his conception of characters in this film better than any other moment. Joss Whedon’s Tony Stark is completely in line with the character from IRON MAN and its sequel, but Whedon gives him an arc (built around his feelings of inadequacy) and a character trait (referencing other movies) to help keep everything in motion.

Motion is the primary trait of Whedon’s film (not action, which there is plenty of, but motion, which is what builds and circles throughout) and this technique is best exemplified in Tony Stark, who’s seemingly always engaged on three fronts: the actual scene that’s happening with all of its physical and mental conflicts, how this scene effects his own feelings of inadequacy, and then how his quick wit verbalizes and/or releases the tension inside of him. Stark is happy with Pepper, but then Agent Coulson breaks in to spoil the fun and Stark is suddenly fifteen years old, not wanting to do what his uncle wants and jealous because he girlfriend knows his uncle’s name.

“Uh, Phil? His first name is Agent.”

It’s such a wonderful moment because Stark, for all his success bedding gorgeous women, is now bothered by Pepper knowing some other guy’s first name. It’s not simply jealousy, though, Stark is also bothered by the fact that Coulson is a person; he wants to think of him as a suit, as SHIELD middle management who’s nothing but a nuisance, and yet here’s Pepper recognizing that Coulson is a person, at the same time she’s playing mother hen to Stark, getting him to focus on the task that Coulson has for him.

Without overselling the “Phil” angle, Whedon deftly and directly touches on it with Stark later in the film. The first time this happens is almost a throwaway bit. Stark and Coulson are entering a room and Stark tells Coulson he’ll fly him to Portland to meet up with the cellist player he was involved with, the second time comes in the aftermath of Coulson’s death/”death” at the hands of Loki, and then lastly when Stark tells Loki that, “You p*ssed off someone else, too. His name was Phil.”

While we never see it, it certainly feels like Stark was embarrassed by his childish (but playful) jealousy with Pepper and sincerely wanted to make it up to Coulson. And honestly, it’s that moment on the Helicarrier when Stark is giving romantic advice to Coulson that works for me better than the “his name was Phil” finale. It’s those small moments that quintessentially become “Avengers moments,” just like the trip to the schawarma restaurant at the end of the film feels like a quintessential moment.

And really, it’s to everyone’s credit that you don’t hear any Avengers fans politely wondering, “You know what would have made that better? If Stark had said, ‘I hear Clint puts on a mean barbecue. We should totally crash at his place when this is over. I’ll get the steak. Thor, you get the beer, and Cap … get Hulk whatever he wants.’”

“We’ve got to get Loki first.”

“Right. Then barbecue at Hawkeye’s.”

Stark’s insecurity or feelings of inadequacy show up with his relationship with Steve, too, and it’s because of this feeling that Stark delivers his best line of the film. After he and Steve get into it a bit in front of Banner over what their next move should be, Steve leaves and Stark remarks to Banner, “That’s the guy my dad would never shut up about?”

The dispute was caused over Steve and Tony’s differing reactions to the amount of knowledge Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) has concerning the Loki/Tesseract situation. Stark has planted a virus onto the SHIELD’s computers to disrupt Fury’s leadership while Steve thinks the best move is to follow orders; Stark distrusts the guy smarter than him while Steve decides to trust the chain of command. Stark’s snotty line, however, is every bit as much about his own dad as it is about Captain America. Clearly, Stark has daddy issues; his father was a great inventor and built the family fortune through weapons, a fact that Stark has increasingly become uncomfortable with in the Cinematic Universe. He’s gone to great lengths to distance himself from his dad’s legacy and now here’s his dad’s hero walking right into the middle of Stark’s life and potentially taking some of the glitz away from Stark.

I don’t mean this in a “Tony wants all the acclaim” manner, but rather that here he is, the creator of the Iron Man armor, and now an “old fashioned” bit of technology enters his life that his father had a hand in creating. It’s why Tony snaps at Steve how “everything great about you came out of a bottle.” That line of attack is one based on science, and on that matter Stark wants to believe himself superior to his dad. Tony doesn’t snap, “If you’re so great, how come you couldn’t land a plane,” or “Don’t worry, Cap, we’ve got computers to land planes now” because that would have made the confrontation more about him and Steve, and Tony, because of his feelings of inadequacy, must feel like that’s a losing battle.

Critically, though, it’s Tony who turns over leadership in the Avengers to Cap during the battle with the Chitauri, although he does make the final decision to take the nuke through the space portal on his own. Even that act, though, directly finishes the simmering feud between him and Steve, as the play Tony makes is one of personal sacrifice, which is the exact charge Steve had laid at his feet earlier in the film.”

On a lighter note, I love how Whedon has Tony use pop culture references in a “blink and you’ll miss it” fashion. He references Lord of the Rings in conversation with Hawkeye (“Better clench up, Legolas”), refers to the Thor/Loki feud as “Shakespeare in the park,” and in one of his funnier lines, tells Thor after their fight, “No hard feelings, Point Break.” In these small lines, Whedon and Downey seek to humanize Stark a bit by bringing him down to everyone else’s level. Let’s face it, the guy is exactly what he says he is: a genius, billionaire, playboy philanthropist. It’s really only with Steve and Fury, though, that Stark tries to Big Man them, and it’s not hard to figure out that this is because of both their military connection and a sense of distrust or inadequacy towards them.

(Curiously, there’s not much interplay between Stark and Tasha in the film, despite their history together in IRON MAN 2.)

The most interesting relationship that Tony Stark has in the movie, however, is with Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo). Even the casting of Ruffalo indicates that he and Stark are contemporaries, which adds to their bonding. (Interestingly, of course, Cap and Thor are much older than Stark and Banner, yet look considerably younger.) Perhaps it’s because Stark is a genius, allowing he and Banner can connect on that level, that Banner is drawn to Tony, or perhaps it’s because Tony directly addresses the issue of the Hulk. Banner is worried about Fury and Tasha’s motives because when he looks at them, all he sees is “the government.” Steve diffuses any concerns in his initial meeting with Bruce, but Steve is interested in the mission first, and people second. Tony comes right out and says, “I’m a fan of the way you lose control and turn into an enormous green rage monster” upon his initial meeting with Banner which, if nothing else, proves that Tony isn’t afraid to tip-toe around the issue that dominates Banner’s life.

In the lab, Tony and Bruce seamlessly begin working together but where Bruce is primarily about the work they need to do, and secondarily about the work they need to do, Stark takes care of the work as quickly as he can in order to get into Banner’s head, inviting him to come to Stark Tower and then suggesting that Banner “suit up” with the rest of them.

“You might not like that,” Banner warns.

“You might,” Stark counters back.

There are only two non-military/intelligence people on the ship – Banner and Thor – and it’s not surprising that Stark chooses to bond with the one that is a scientist instead of a warrior.

All told, Whedon and Downey doing a spectacular job with Tony Stark, making him seem like a real person while still giving Downey plenty of opportunity to shine. The Marvel Cinematic Universe and AVENGERS owe so much to Downey. Not only is he a charismatic actor that turned a secondary Marvel hero into a first rate movie star, his willingness and generosity to share the spotlight helps make AVENGERS the phenomenal film it is. I mentioned in another reaction that there were reports way back at the start of the production that Downey wanted the film to be more centered around him, and that issues like that are something he doesn’t have to worry about.

Because of who is he, because of his talent, and because of the importance of Tony Stark and Iron Man to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Robert Downey Jr. will always have a prominent role. He’s the only lead actor in the world that steals every scene he’s in – even when the scene is designed to be his, he finds a way to steal it. In AVENGERS and other MCU film, Downey and Tony Stark are still the gold standard. One of the lessons here for both Downey and Stark is that by taking the occasional step back to allow other actors and other heroes to step forward, it makes you better in the process. Stark needs to separate the Avengers from the Avengers initiative; he tells Steve, “I’m not marching to Fury’s fife,” and when Steve say that he isn’t either, it opens the door for Stark to believe the Avengers can be something more than a militarized band of soldiers marching under the flag of SHIELD. Nick Fury might have brought them all together, but it’s Tony’s acceptance of, and willingness to trust Steve that bind them to one another.

And that’s it on the reactions. I’m sure I’ll tweak them here and there, but it’s been a blast writing them and I sincerely hope you’ve had a blast reading them.

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THE AVENGERS REVIEW INDEX

THE AVENGERS: THE MOVIE REVIEW
THE AVENGERS: THE HAWKEYE REACTION
THE AVENGERS: THE AGENT COULSON REACTION
THE AVENGERS: THE BLACK WIDOW REACTION
THE AVENGERS: THE NICK FURY REACTION
THE AVENGERS: THE MARIA HILL REACTION
THE AVENGERS: THE CAPTAIN AMERICA REACTION
THE AVENGERS: THE CHITAURI/THANOS REACTION
THE AVENGERS: THE HULK REACTION
THE AVENGERS: THE THOR REACTION
THE AVENGERS: THE LOKI REACTION
THE AVENGERS: THE IRON MAN REACTION

THE MARVEL CINEMATIC UNIVERSE REVIEW INDEX

1. IRON MAN
2. THE INCREDIBLE HULK
3. IRON MAN 2
4. THOR
5. CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER

THE AVENGERS: The MARIA HILL Reaction

The Avengers (2012) – The 6th Marvel Cinematic Universe Film – Directed by Joss Whedon – Starring Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner, Tom Hiddleston, Samuel L. Jackson, Clark Gregg, Cobie Smulders, Stellan Skarsgård, Gwyneth Paltrow, Paul Bettany, Alexis Denisof, Stan Lee, Powers Boothe, Lou Ferrigno, and Harry Dean Stanton.

Welcome to the fourth character-specific reaction to Joss Whedon’s THE AVENGERS. I’ve already written a 4,200+ word review of the film, but that wasn’t nearly enough to cover everything I wanted to talk about, so I’m going to write character-specific reactions to delve a bit deeper into the film. You can find all of the relevant AVENGERS links at the bottom of this post.

Let me be clear about what’s coming: SPOILERS. Lots and lots of SPOILERS. Read ahead only if you’re cool with that. If you haven’t seen the movie and don’t want things ruined, come on back when you do.

Join the conversation on Twitter.

“Agent Coulson kept those cards in his locker, not in his jacket.”

“They needed a push.”

I mentioned in the main review of MARVEL’S THE AVENGERS that I was most surprised by the appearance of Pepper Potts (at least until You Know Who showed up in the mid-credits sequence) because I didn’t hear anything about Gwyneth Paltrow being in the movie. Prior to seeing the movie, however, I was most surprised by the inclusion of SHIELD Agent Maria Hill, and the casting of Cobie Smulders to play her.

Nothing against either the fine character of Ms. Hill, nor the acting chops of Ms. Smulders, but in a movie that was already stuffed with leading actors, the decision to include an actress from a CBS sitcom to be Fury’s right hand woman on board the Helicarrier just seemed … curious, let’s say.

Now, I haven’t watched more than a handful of episodes of How I Met Your Mother because I don’t have cable and CBS doesn’t play nice with Hulu, but what I have seen left me with a positive impression of Cobie Smulders. Still, the decision just kind of came from out of nowhere for me and while it neither increased nor decreased my excitement for the movie, I was kinda curious to see if Joss Whedon and Co. had included her because they planned on using Maria Hill as a bit of comic relief (or as the straight man for someone else), or if Smulders had the acting chops to play hard and serious on the bridge of the Helicarrier.

I watched AVENGERS the day of release in a 3D theater, and I hate both a crowded theater and Real 3D technology. I don’t like sitting with mouthy high school kids and I don’t understand why anyone thinks depth of field gives you more than watching a darkened print takes away. Smulders didn’t leave a huge impression on me that first time amid all of the other awesomeness so I wondered what the second viewing would bring.

First, Smulders is perfectly fine as Maria Hill. Second, the role of Maria Hill in AVENGERS is to serve as Fury’s right hand woman on the Helicarrier, an equivalent to Agent Coulson’s role out in the real world. Hill basically exists because there’s a few scenes where the film needs someone from SHIELD to do something, so why not have it all be the same person? And if they’re all going to be the same person, why not have it be Maria Hill? And if it’s going to be Hill, why not have it be Cobie Smulders? It all works for me.

Hill doesn’t get to spout a bunch of wonderful Whedon dialogue and she doesn’t get a whole lot of fun things to do, but the stuff Hill is required to do – generally, ask questions of Fury to help clarify the plot for the audience – is handled well by Smulders.

Hill has three basic movements in AVENGERS: her action scene, her administration role, asking Fury questions.

Her action scene comes at the start of the movie. At a SHIELD facility where Er. Erik Selvig (Stellan Skarsgård) is working on the Tesseract, the cosmic cube flips out, Loki shows up, turns Hawkeye and Selvig into mind-controlled puppets, and steals the Tesseract as the SHIELD facility start collapsing. Just prior to Loki showing up, Fury sends Hill off to another part of the facility, so she’s not there for all the fun, but then when Hawkeye is driving the getaway vehicle, Hill shows back up to have a car chase down a tunnel.

None of it requires much hardcore acting, and to Smulders credit, she doesn’t try to oversell anything in a desperate attempt to make a name for herself in a big summer film. When the script requires her to question Fury, she does it. When it requires her to run Fury’s errand, she does it. When the script requires her to jump into a jeep and take off after Hawkeye, she does it. When the scene requires her to dig herself out of a cave-in, she does it. Good, solid, professional work.

I don’t have any real complaints.

Except …

I can’t escape the feeling that Hill doesn’t really have much of a soul. That is, her personality seems a bit painted on instead of intrinsic. I don’t have much of a sense that she exists off-camera. She comes off a bit as a suit instead of a uniform, if you catch my meaning. I feel like she’d be more comfortable in a corner office than on the bridge of the Helicarrier. Maybe that makes her the perfect right hand man for Fury; she’s certainly not afraid to question him, but she’s professional enough to question him at the right time.

Because what Hill does well is keep things running on the bridge. That’s her real role, it seems. She’s the liaison between Fury and the Helicarrier; she keeps everything running while Fury is pondering bigger questions, but she always has an ear on what’s going on with Fury and the Avengers.

Take the scene where the Avengers are assembling for the first time around the big table. She spends the scene standing in the liminal space between the Avengers and bridge operations. It’s Hill who answers Stark’s questions about the Helicarrier, and then when Fury arrives she keeps her place but her presences slides into the background. The camera finds her a couple times, like when she’s standing behind Thor as he discusses Loki with the rest of the group. It’s a great shot; you could say that Hill is just standing there to add some depth to the scene, to remind the audience where this meeting is taking place, but the way Hill is postured, with her head half-turned away, gives the impression of that liminal space. She’s the only person in the Helicarrier, in that moment, whose focus is split between the Avengers and the Helicarrier, and Smulders does a bang-up job at looking interested without giving off a mother hen vibe.

It’s these scenes in the middle where Hill is at her most interesting, as her disapproving glance at Stark says more about her than all that running and driving and shooting in the action sequence because it could be anyone running, driving, and shooting, but here on the Helicarrier, it can only be Maria Hill.

Hill’s other contribution to the film is to serve as Sarah Jane to Fury’s Doctor. She asks the questions that clarifies the action for the audience, and her big question is when she raises the issue of Coulson’s trading cards. Fury makes a big show of slapping the bloodied cards down on the table in front of Cap and Stark and remarking, “I guess he never did get them signed.”

Like the dutiful soldier, Hill lets this scene play out without questioning her superior officer, but like the good right hand woman, Hill does question him when they’re alone. She wants to know how the blood got on those cards since Coulson kept them in his locker and not on him, as Fury claimed. When Fury explains, “They needed a push,” Hill simply absorbs the answer. You can see the gears spinning a bit behind her eyes, but Hill doesn’t say either, “Hey, you know, not cool,” or “Well done.”

The Nick Fury subplot ends with Nick coming out of a meeting with the World Security Council. He gets dressed down a bit and Hill wants to know what happens next, and Fury says the Avengers will be there when the world needs them. Again, Hill absorbs the answer and walks back into the operations center of the Helicarrier bridge. Maybe she didn’t get the answer she wanted, but she got the only answer she needed, so while Fury gets one final pose to look cool, Hill goes back to work.

It’s a solid performance by Smulders of a solid character in Maria Hill. While the character never wowed me, she’s a glue character in the movie, doing her part to keep things moving and making sure the audience knows what it needs to know.

And for those wondering why the heck I’m doing a Maria Hill reaction when I haven’t done a reaction for the Big 5 yet (Cap, Iron Man, Thor, Hulk, and Loki), I wanted to see AVENGERS a second time before digging into them. They’ll be coming up next.

Thanks for reading along, everyone.

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THE AVENGERS REVIEW INDEX

THE AVENGERS: THE MOVIE REVIEW
THE AVENGERS: THE HAWKEYE REACTION
THE AVENGERS: THE AGENT COULSON REACTION
THE AVENGERS: THE BLACK WIDOW REACTION
THE AVENGERS: THE NICK FURY REACTION
THE AVENGERS: THE MARIA HILL REACTION
THE AVENGERS: THE CAPTAIN AMERICA REACTION
THE AVENGERS: THE CHITAURI/THANOS REACTION
THE AVENGERS: THE HULK REACTION
THE AVENGERS: THE THOR REACTION
THE AVENGERS: THE LOKI REACTION
THE AVENGERS: THE IRON MAN REACTION

THE MARVEL CINEMATIC UNIVERSE REVIEW INDEX

1. IRON MAN
2. THE INCREDIBLE HULK
3. IRON MAN 2
4. THOR
5. CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER

THE AVENGERS: The NICK FURY Reaction

The Avengers (2012) – The 6th Marvel Cinematic Universe Film – Directed by Joss Whedon – Starring Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner, Tom Hiddleston, Samuel L. Jackson, Clark Gregg, Cobie Smulders, Stellan Skarsgård, Gwyneth Paltrow, Paul Bettany, Alexis Denisof, Stan Lee, Powers Boothe, Lou Ferrigno, and Harry Dean Stanton.

Welcome to the fourth character-specific reaction to Joss Whedon’s THE AVENGERS. I’ve already written a 4,200+ word review of the film, but that wasn’t nearly enough to cover everything I wanted to talk about, so I’m going to write character-specific reactions to delve a bit deeper into the film. You can find all of the relevant AVENGERS links at the bottom of this post.

Let me be clear about what’s coming: SPOILERS. Lots and lots of SPOILERS. Read ahead only if you’re cool with that. If you haven’t seen the movie and don’t want things ruined, come on back when you do.

Join the conversation on Twitter.

“Director Fury, the council has made a decision.”

“I recognize the council has made a decision, but given that it’s a stupid ass decision, I’ve elected to ignore it.”

Art imitating life imitating art.

When Marvel Comics did their Ultimate Universe version of the Avengers, they re-conceptualized Nick Fury to make him look like Samuel L. Jackson. Then when Marvel Studios decided to introduce Nick Fury into their AVENGERS-related movies, they decided to hire Samuel L. Jackson to play the guy that was drawn to look like Samuel L. Jackson.

Art imitating life imitating art.

Nick Fury has appeared in several Marvel Studios films (all of the links are at the bottom of this post) and his job has largely been to look and sound cool and tease us about the possibility of THE AVENGERS movie. Samuel L. Jackson can look and sound cool as well as anyone on the planet, and it’s amazing that even after all these years he rarely sounds like he’s devolved into a self-parody of himself.

In MARVEL’S THE AVENGERS (a title that almost everyone just thankfully ignores) Nick Fury has to do more than be cool, he’s got to be a contributing cog in this big-budget extravaganza. One of the more interesting results of how the Marvel Cinematic Universe has progressed, however, has been the rise of Agent Phil Coulson as the cool government guy. Coulson gets to be cool for reasons antithetical to Fury; where Fury gets a long leather coat, an eye-patch, and a penchant for showing up in darkened rooms, Coulson gets a boring business suit, a pair of sunglasses, and a penchant for showing up during business hours.

And yet it’s Coulson who’s become the fan favorite character, and Coulson that a good number of fans want to see interacting with the Avengers more than they do Fury.

Critically, Nick Fury had to step up in AVENGERS and be a real character. He can no longer just look cool and say something awesome, he’s got to prove his place in the movie.

At times, AVENGERS feels like it’s trying too hard to prove Fury’s worthiness. Perhaps it’s just the nature of Sam Jackson that the audience is not only waiting for him to go loud, but the producers are looking for ways to set him off, but Jackson’s best moments in AVENGERS are his quieter ones, and not the occasional bombastic reference to the say-something-audacious-and-say-it-loud Sam Jackson Signature Moment.

Check out the opening quote up above: “I recognize the council has made a decision, but given that it’s a stupid ass decision, I’ve elected to ignore it.”

There’s three parts to that quote: the set-up, the bombast, and the matter-of-fact. The set-up is what it is. The bombast is something Fury gets away with, as Eric Woodward noted in the comments section of my review of the entire move, only because it’s Sam Jackson saying it. The third part is the segment that really matters. The Council is a group of shadowy figures on big screens led by Powers Boothe who like to give Fury orders. It’s important that we see that there’s another level of authority here because it helps to complicate Fury’s character, and it gives Fury’s declaration that “I’ve elected to ignore it” real bite.

After the Tesseract is stolen from the SHIELD facility, Fury has to go begging to the Council to get the Avenger Initiative back up and running. He then sends Agent Coulson after Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) and Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) after Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo), while he takes on the recruitment of Captain America (Chris Evans).

It’s a potentially soft move on Fury’s part since, well, it’s not like Cap is gonna say no, right? Stark and Banner are the challenges to bring in, so Fury’s decision to send two of his top agents on the tougher assignments could come off as a bit weak, but it’s actually a smart decision. Fury knows darn well that as far as everyone is concerned, he is SHIELD. Sending Coulson and Tasha puts a layer of protection between him and them. Plus, you know, one of the benefits of having the big office is that you get to send a lackey to bring in the most destructive individual on the planet.

Fury’s recruitment of Cap is just an extended version of the scene that takes place at the end of CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER. It’s a good scene but I thought they missed an opportunity to push a little deeper. We see later that Fury isn’t above manipulating this team, so I thought perhaps we could have seen a bit more here about Fury pressing Cap, or grooming Cap, for the team’s leadership position.

Nick Fury’s most important act in THE AVENGERS is when he manipulates Agent Coulson’s death to give the team something to … avenge. (It’s not an easy word to work into a normal sentence, is it?) I covered this scene from Coulson’s position over in the Reaction devoted to our favorite SHIELD agent, but I want to talk a bit more about Fury’s actions in this sequence. Let’s take a careful look at exactly what happens (you know, from memory nearly a week ago now, so if I screw this up, call me on it so I can fix it):

1. Fury arrives on the scene to find an injured Coulson.
2. Fury calls it in, someone (I believe it was Maria Hill) tells him she’s sending medics, but Fury tells her they’re already on the scene.
3. Fury and Coulson have a moment, Fury tries to say something encouraging, but Coulson tells him it’s okay because the team needs something to — he never finishes the sentence because he dies.
4. Fury tells everyone, through their com system, that the medics have declared dead, but we don’t see them declare him dead.
5. Fury tosses Coulson’ now blood-soaked pack of Captain America playing cards on the table in front of Cap and Stark and tells them, “I guess he never did get them signed.”
6. Cap and Stark steal a SHIELD jet to go stop Loki.
7. Maria Hill (Cobie Smulders) wonders aloud to Fury about how those trading cards got blood on them, since she knows Coulson didn’t keep them on him, but rather kept them in his locker.
8. Fury says the team needed a push.

The entire sequence is wonderfully designed, built, and played, and I do think most of us (myself included, at first) fell for Fury’s subterfuge right alongside the Avengers.

Because I just don’t see any reason to think that Coulson is really dead. I mean, this is comics, right? Just comics blown up on the big screen. Bankable characters never stay dead. We always find out later that what we saw wasn’t what we actually saw. Heck, this time around, we didn’t even see it. We just had Fury tell us, and since Fury, at the very least, lied about the trading cards, it’s entirely possible he lied about Coulson’s death. Either Coulson is really dead and Fury manipulated his death for what he sees as the greater good, or Coulson is just severely injured and Fury manipulated that injury for what he sees as the greater good.

Now, to be fair and present the other side, while in the comics world deaths aren’t permanent, in the Whedon world, deaths are. Usually. Sometimes. (He killed Buffy! And Wash! And only one of them came back!)

What’s striking to me about this is that Fury probably didn’t even have to do it, given that the team was already uniting around the idea of not trusting him. Before the Hawkeye-led attack on the Helicarrier, Stark, Banner, and Steve all give voice to their own doubts about Fury’s honest, with Cap even going so far as to break into a storage room to find weapons designed to work with the Tesseract.

One Fury scene that did not work for me was when the Security Council ordered a nuclear strike instead of allowing the Avengers opportunity to contain and neutralize the threat and Fury runs outside to the deck of the Helicarrier with a bazooka on his shoulder and shoots down a fighter jet that was about to take off. It just seems like they decided they needed another moment for Fury to look cool instead of adding a moment to the film that enhanced the narrative. Because right after Fury shoots down the first jet, a second jet takes off to deliver the nuke. So what was the point other than giving Fury a moment to do something cool?

That’s a small complaint, though, in an otherwise engaging conception of this character. Nick Fury needed to step up and he did. I suppose the question of why he’s doing all of this Avenger Initiative stuff is still out there, but it’s probably enough to know that he wants them on his side if things go wrong. I love the manipulative side of Fury because it comes from a consistent, if not wholly honest, place. Nick Fury is the Avengers’ Daddy in the Cinematic Universe, because he’s the man that brought them together and pointed them towards their purpose.

I need to say, too, that I completely adore how Sam Jackson has embraced his role in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Right from the start, he seemed to absolutely love being a part of it all, and his enthusiasm at cons and in interviews is palpable. Where most of the other actors involved in these projects seemed a bit uncomfortable or unsteady at times (and who can blame them with all the press they’ve had to do over the years), Jackson has enthusiastically embraced the movies and the fans and the entire bag of crazy that goes along with being in a huge franchise like AVENGERS. So thanks, Mr. Jackson, for not only being great at what you do, but loving the fact that you do it, and loving that we’re all part of this larger AVENGERS community.

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THE AVENGERS REVIEW INDEX

THE AVENGERS: THE MOVIE REVIEW
THE AVENGERS: THE HAWKEYE REACTION
THE AVENGERS: THE AGENT COULSON REACTION
THE AVENGERS: THE BLACK WIDOW REACTION
THE AVENGERS: THE NICK FURY REACTION
THE AVENGERS: THE MARIA HILL REACTION
THE AVENGERS: THE CAPTAIN AMERICA REACTION
THE AVENGERS: THE CHITAURI/THANOS REACTION
THE AVENGERS: THE HULK REACTION
THE AVENGERS: THE THOR REACTION
THE AVENGERS: THE LOKI REACTION
THE AVENGERS: THE IRON MAN REACTION

THE MARVEL CINEMATIC UNIVERSE REVIEW INDEX

1. IRON MAN
2. THE INCREDIBLE HULK
3. IRON MAN 2
4. THOR
5. CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER