Picoreview: Avengers: This remains a pretty solid film, although wow his costume was awful in this one. Well, the cowl is awful. The body of it is fine. But wow.
I thought at the time that its strength was that for once, Joss Whedon hadn’t made it sound exactly like Joss Whedon, and all else aside, that remains true. In retrospect there are a few really Whedony things that make my teeth clench – although it could have been in Ultron, I think this is the one where somebody falls on top of Black Widow in EXACTLY THE SAME WAY Flash later does to Wonder Woman, and it’s doubly gross because of that – but overall it does the job of bringing the team together very well.
Steve as a man out of time is really well done in it, too. Especially through his costuming, which is genuinely old-fashioned. He dresses like an old man. You almost sort of don’t notice, because it’s Chris Evans, Absurdly Beautiful Human, in those old man clothes, but his outfits really are those of a man from another era. (Honestly, though, my God, that cowl was terrible. It was very comic-booky, yes, and it was very comics-accurate, in fact, but hoo boy not a great look.) He seems to be adapting pretty well emotionally, but literally on a surface level – what he’s wearing – he isn’t.
I want to say he’s still very much the Good Soldier in this one, but really, Steve was never a good solider. He kept going off and doing what he thought was right, rather than what they said he could do. So the cracks begin to show as he discovers Fury’s secret weapons and tesseract plans. I think, in fact, that at this point of the story he really wants to be the Good Soldier, but he can’t do it. It goes against his inherent sense of justice and righteousness.
‘course, then a lot of that gets lost in gods and invading aliens, but that’s what we’re paying for, too. :)
And, of course, as a film, Avengers has the single bravest man in the MCU – “There are always men like you.” – and even if had fucked everything else up, it got that moment so right that it would be a success on that level alone.
Luckily, however, it really didn’t fuck everything else up! :)
My biggest disappointment with the Avengers costume was that his USO costume in First Avenger was practically perfect. The only reason it didn’t work was because they went out of their way to make it look bad. (The felt wings. The cowl that hung out over the shirt.)
I came to accept the WW2 field version, but the Avengers costume reminded me of the 1970s Reb Brown Cap Costume. (The first, not the second.)
However, as a comics Cap fanatic, I’m probably not an impartial judge.
Given that Coulson helped with the Avengers costume, it’s probably not a coincidence that it’s reminiscent of that one. :D I love the WW2 field version, and most of the others. I just think this particular one was a hot mess. :)