The Avengers finally released and, after a being awake from 6:30am on Friday until 10:00am on Saturday, I made my way to the theater Saturday afternoon. I absolutely loved the movie. It is incredibly fun and I had a smile on my face throughout the entire movie. I cannot suggest it highly enough. I liked it so much that saw it again on Sunday, which helped contribute to its record breaking, $200 million opening weekend.
Below are some thoughts I had while watching The Avengers. I’ll do my best to keep things spoiler-free but I can’t help it if I spill the beans about Nick Fury’s eye miraculously healing.
Hope
When Agent Coulson tells Steve Rogers about his new uniform, Rogers has a hard time believing that his old fashioned Stars and Stripes uniform will be taken seriously. Colson tells Rogers that, with what’s coming up, people might need a little old fashioned. The Avengers are a symbol of hope for a world turned upside down. Nick Fury so desperately wants them to assemble, not just for their strength, but also for the hope that they can bring. We’re all looking for some hope, for something to believe in. Believing in the Avengers or believing in Harvey Dent is great, but those hopes will never be fulfilled. Placing our hope in Jesus Christ, though, will lead to complete fulfillment, which can only be found in him.
Loki
I’m really glad that Loki ended up as the villain for The Avengers. Of all the enemies in the previous five Avengers movies, Loki was the most multi-faceted. He’s not just evil and he doesn’t just want to take over the world, but he wants to prove himself as worthy as Thor and earn his father’s love. Loki is a great villain because we can see some of ourselves in him. He’s not just evil and crazy like the Red Skull; he’s wounded and broken. Loki takes his brokenness and turns it outward against the world. Instead of addressing his brokenness and allowing it to get healed, Loki just falls deeper into it. Hopefully we deal with our brokenness in healthier ways. We’re all broken to some extent and unless we allow Christ to heal our brokenness we could end up in a bad place just like Loki. We may not have an alien army to destroy New York City, but we could have hurtful words that destroy our relationships.
Hulk
I don’t have a lot of theological implications for the Hulk. But seriously. The. Freaking. Hulk. After seeing the trailers I knew that the Hulk was going to be totally awesome. In The Incredible Hulk, the Hulk just fights another big dude. The Hulk is far more impressive when given the opportunity to fight a bunch of small dudes. I loved all of the Avengers and, as stated in a previous guest post, how they all worked together. Each team member had their role to play and they played it perfectly. The Hulk’s role was to smash and it led to some of the most satisfying scenes in the entire movie. I’ve already seen the movie twice and I still can’t wait to see those scenes again.
I loved The Avengers and it was completely worth the waiting and digital ink I’ve spilled over the past few months. I’m already excited for The Avengers 2 but, until then, am completely happy to experience Iron Man 3, Captain America 2, Thor 2 and potential Black Widow, Hawkeye and Hulk movies.
What did you think of The Avengers?
Loki’s philosophy is a little bit more interesting than some villains; though he has a very distorted perception of what it means, ‘freedom’ as our culture typically conceives of it, can be ‘enslaving’. If the proper end of our wills is to conform to God’s, then our fleeting, momentary decisions which don’t conform to his are enslavement. So Loki was on to something with wanting to “free people from freedom”, only he wanted to do it so that HE could be their god… that part is where he perverts the idea.
I expanded my thought here into a post: http://nateduffy.blogspot.com/2012/05/avengers-and-freedom.html