Blackmoor Vituperative

We watched “Incredible Hulk” (2008) and “Avengers” (2012) last night, as part of our attempt to watch all of the recent(ish) Marvel movies in the chronological order of the events in the movies. The Hulk movie was slightly out of order, because it took me a while to track it down — it’s not on Disney+, for some reason.

I enjoyed both movies. Hulk is an incredibly straightforward plot: Army general psychopath finds Hulk, attacks, people get hurt. Army general psychopath finds Hulk again, attacks, people get hurt. Army general psychopath finds Hulk a third time, attacks, people get hurt. I think professional wrestling has more complicated plots than that.

Avengers went the complete opposite direction. I think they based the plot on a quote from the philosopher Didactylos: “Things just happen. What the hell.” It did have a couple of scenes I love, where Black Widow uses people’s vanity and arrogance against them (and let’s face it — people that vain and arrogant are men almost all of the time), and gets them to start monologuing. “Thank you for your cooperation.”

It also has one of my favourite scenes of ordinary people defying power. (You have seen it, even if you’ve never seen the movie — it’s a meme. “There are always men like you.”)

And it has perhaps the most painful description of humanity I’ve ever heard. “They are unruly, and therefore cannot be ruled.” Because “unruly” is a two-edged sword.

“Unruly” means standing up to fascists, sure. But it also means storming the capitol building because you believe the lies of fascists. It means refusing to wear a mask or get vaccinated because of ridiculous conspiracy theories. It means ignoring the effects that human activity has on the planet, while the world slowly burns.

I think we could afford to be a bit less unruly.

Oh, and “Captain Marvel” (2019) is better than I remember. I still think Brie Larson was hilariously mis-cast. Her acting style is incredibly subtle — and they cast her in a superhero movie. But it’s a pretty decent movie, and the supporting cast is great, even the kid. I think my expectations were just too high the first time I saw it.