Saw it yesterday afternoon, packed house, every moment played. SUCH a great, fun flick, an amazing A+ payoff to the run-up of B- to A- stand-alones. I'm one of those odd ducks who for some reason never got into superhero comics (although most of my friends did, and I hit them up for the arcane trivia and/or easter egg explanations), yet I'm a complete sucker for superhero movies. Maybe that's why I have zero superhero movie burnout? Cause if they can keep making them at this level of quality, or even just aspire to, I'll be in line every weekend.
Monster thread that's already dissected the best moments, payoffs, character beats, so I won't repeat them in another wave of earned gushing. One line I didn't see brought up, though, was for me the most haunting. Ruffalo's confession of a suicide attempt was simply breathtaking. "I couldn't see any end. I put a bullet in my mouth, and he spat it out." Pin drop, etc. That moment, and Ruffalo's delivery, said more about Banner's character and frustration than the past two Hulk movies managed (both of which I quite like), and was the true emotional set-up to the "I'm always angry" payoff.
Can't say enough about Johansson, and the favors Whedon did her. I think my favorite moment of hers was her first meeting with Banner, and when he fake-rages at her -- the abject, focused fear in her face as she stares down her gun barrel did as much to sell the threat of The Hulk as anything else before the actual hulk-out on the carrier. (As for the latter, Whedon was SO dead-on shooting Hulk like a horror movie monster, up until Thor tackles him. As great as the script was, Whedon makes so many great directorial decisions, you'd never guess this was his second feature, or that his first was a flop.)
Will definitely be seeing this again, to catch all the smaller things I missed, and I hate that it'll be a week before I can.
