Avengers, Assembled (UPDATED!)

Here's the long version of "The Avengers" Super Bowl spot, featuring - among other delights - our first look at the team (Hulk included!) together in broad daylight.

HOLY. SHIT. This is a real thing.

(UPDATED AFTER THE JUMP!)



UPDATE! Here's a screencap - enlarged, cropped and color-enhanced - of the brief shot of what may be the first glimpse of the (thus far) top-secret creatures who're supposedly serving as Loki's soldiers. Still can't tell what they are, but a look is a look.

Most people have been calling them "Skrulls" generically, but apparently they can't be because Fox owns screen-rights to them via the "Fantastic Four" license. Others are guessing it's just the Frost Giants again, but from the image it doesn't look much like them - they're wearing some sort of shiny gray/green armor (the lower guy also seems to have a blue lens-flare light coming from his) for one thing, and even if that's skin the Giants were blue.

The main distinguishing features I can make out are that they're feet, hands and forearms are bigger in proportion to their body, three-toed feet and are wearing some sort of helmets with an extended "crown" peice. So... Thanos-related, maybe? Eternals? Celestials? Deviants? The Phalanx? Kree?


I will say that I remain vaugely concerned about the "scale" of the thing - nearly all the action beats we've seen seem to be the same NYC location and there's a paucity (so far) of mass-extras or broad scope. Maybe that means they're holding back, maybe it means it's a "one giant extended battle sequence" thing, but it's an issue given that the sole knock against Whedon is that he's a TV guy without much big-scale moviemaking experience (no, the theatrically-released TV movie that was "Serentity" - which I liked - doesn't count.)

On the other hand, scale isn't everything (see: Bay, Michael.) If the screenplay is as densely-packed with well-utilized Marvel mythos as the lead-up films and the dialogue crackles like that final exchange between Loki and Stark; a less-than "Transformers" scale mini-epic is more than a fair trade.