Avengers: Age of Ultron aka Idol Making 101

I rarely post about movies.  I usually watch then after the DVD release...when I'm binge watching because I'm sick.  However, I do like the Marvel Universe movies and willingly plunk down hard earned cash to watch them. Being at the tail end of the baby boomer generation, comic books were a household staple when we were sick. Great entertainment at a cheap price, the 60's and 70's DVD's. Watching the comics come to life has been fun, but even these movies I don't usually give time to reflect upon and much less write about.  But my cynical self was pleasantly, quietly blindsided. Avengers: Age of Ultron kept me up thinking long into the night, it is fast paced, witty, darker and thoughtfully conceived and delivered.

I purposefully did not read reviews of this movie. Knowing the franchise and its purpose and quirks, I was satisfied to let the film serve what I had come to expect, plenty of action and a side of morality. However, Joss Whedon served me more. Much more, and I should have expected it (Firefly, Serenity, anyone?). For more on the film here is a great review at Christianity Today*.

Spoiler Alert You've been warned

At this point, I'll only add two thoughts to the review.  Whedon, scriptwriter and director, deftly portrays the role that fear plays in paralyzing and enslaving us . He subtly crafts how the power of individual and collective fears grows by feeding on the denial of and the effort to outrun and outgun those fears. Each character has abilities and skills that set them apart for unique service; family, intelligence, wealth, power, time, speed, patriotism, morality, physical strength, agility, birthright. However each has their own fears for themselves and society that will drive them foolishly and recklessly, unless, like their abilities, which can be used for good or evil, they choose to address and direct wisely. Whedon incarnates the result of allowing fears free reign in both the creating and creation of Ultron.  In the biblical parlance, the characters use their skills and abilities to create idols  in order to control chaos, to control their fear and what they fear.  We see in this movie how such a response does not alleviate the fears but instead causes those fears to take over their lives and take on bodies of sort. Fear becomes incarnate.  And the life that is created in and from fear that seeks to control will eventually dominate life. However, because this is Whedon's universe he doesn't leave us without alternatives.

Just like the taste of what is to come embedded in the credits of each movie, Whedon embeds within this movie better motives to direct the abilities, fears, and lives of our super-heroes. We see this most clearly not in Vision but Hawkeye. A quiet character who is often on the periphery of these movies, whose ability to see clearly and accurately saves the lives of his fellow Avengers. We know little about him except what has been revealed in previous movies. In The Avengers, Hawkeye is under the mind control of Loki and says to Black Widow about the experience,  "Have you ever had someone pick your brain and play? Pull you out, stuff something else in. Do you know what it's like to be unmade."  Well, yes, in fact, she has we find out in this second Avengers movie, but I digress.  Keep this scene in mind, because blink and you'll miss what I consider to be the crucial statement and turning point of the movie. During a fight scene in Avengers: Age of Ultron, we see Scarlet Witch using her ability to control the minds of the Avengers with each hero's fears. As she tries to do so with Hawkeye, he uses a paralyzing arrow, on her forehand no less, to stop her and says, "I've done the whole mind control thing, not a fan."  What might be seen as just another witticism of Whedon, I think is more. 

That more is Hawkeye's reason for fighting. Having his mind controlled once before he knows to guard against mind control, aka  fears,  and uses his past experiences, abilities, and tools to thwart the attack on his mind. He directs his efforts not to controlling fear, or to attempt to eliminate fear, but  to fight wisely for something.  And that something is family, place, and a way of life. He harnesses his fears and redirects them to fight for the good of others. To choose not to be driven by his fears or anger, but to use them to see what is truly good, beautiful and true. What is that good, true ,and beautiful? Sometimes it's envisioning in the midst of battle the conversion of your  dining room into a work space for your pregnant wife. And to understand that you will need to see the movie. Maybe more than once.

*this magazine has stepped up it's review game in the last year

UPDATE: Feeling validated about the key theme of marriage and family by this from Alan Jacobs

Becoming Jane

We saw it last night with another mother-daughter couple with whom we have shared a seminary class studying and summers reading and discussing Jane Austen. It is a fictionalized depiction of the life of Jane Austen and included scenes of her reading aloud her works, dances, fairs, boxing matches. It had some scenes that were light-hearted and fun such as when Jane joins a cricket game. But the most engaging scenes depicted affection; either the presence of, or absence and desire of. The sisters' affection for one another, the Rev. Austen's affection for his wife and children were all well done and brought smiles repeatedly to my face. Jane's struggle with choosing to marry for stability or for affection and her heroic act to stop the elopement after reading an affectionate letter of thanks sent to Tom by his mother were all quite poignant.

One important note though, this movie was created out of the very little information we have on Jane Austen. If you have read the books you will immediately recognize many phrases, characters, and scenes from Austen's novels which does add to the enjoyment of the film. As in most cases it is assumed that a writer is unable to portray something that is outside of his personal experience especially in regards to relationships. While this is not a case where an author's life is read into his work, it is a case of the screenwriters reading her novels back into Jane's life. I won't say much about the plot as the movie is just opening in theaters this weekend and I don't want to spoil it for those of you who will see it. I'll revise my post later to included more details.

Essentially the movie is a fictionalized view of a small period in Jane Austen's life and just another in a long line of Romantic movies that insists in that order to be a great artist or even a great person you must throw off social/moral conventions. It was as if the film makers/writers had never read Mansfield Park. Another typical theme was the usual radical feminist view that women are strong and men are weak. This is a theme that is becoming tired and trite. It shows little understanding of true human nature as possessing both marred and glorious aspects and a lack of imagination to be able to portray both aspects in one human. Understanding and imagination that Jane Austen possessed and used to produce Mr. Darcy, Mr. Knightley, and a whole host of others both men and women. Producers and writers would do well to recognize that a film with both women and men being strong even though flawed is not only possible and but just as true to reality as the one-sided approach they maintain.

But, what bothers me the most was who was given credit for all of the clever Janeisms. This movie presented the idea that Jane's ideas for characters, dialogues, catch phrases, etc. came from others within her sphere, not from her imagination and understanding of both language arts and human nature. It portrayed her fictional characters as being based on real individuals and in certain ways she was simply a stenographer. From this outlook I guess I should be expected to believe that Tolkien hung out with dwarves and elves, Lewis engaged in space travel and Rowling showed up at her interviews with broom in hand wearing a Holyhead Harpies jersey. So much for fertile imaginations.


Warning: Be aware there is one very short scene, viewed from the back, with 2 men stripped down to nothing jumping into a river.