April 26, 2013mikeyb @ screenkicker

Hear me out: The Avengers isn’t that great

In anticipation of Iron Man 3 I thought I should watch The Avengers (or Avengers Assemble in the UK) to get me in the mood.  The last time I saw it was when it was in the cinema and I have memories of loving it.  So imagine my surprise when I discovered that it isn’t as great as I thought.  I’m not trying to be controversial or piss anyone off, I just thought I would put it out there and see what other film fans think.  This isn’t a review as I’m pretty sure everyone in the world has seen the movie so I’d really like to know what you guys think – is it overrated or am I just a joyless, nit-picking, fun vacuum?

There’s lots and lots of elements of Avengers that are great, off the top of my head – the acting, the action scenes, quite a lot of the script, and of course The Hulk.  But you already knew all that.  No, I’m going to focus on the things that stop a good film from becoming a great film.  OK let’s do this!

image

The Pacing

This is something I didn’t notice the first time I saw the film but on a second viewing it really becomes apparent that there’s a hell of a lot of long sections that are all exposition.  Its actually quite dull at the start and the process of bringing together the superheroes is not very exciting.

image

The Story

I know I shouldn’t really be looking too closely at the plot of a movie about guy in a robot suit who teams up with a green monster, a recently thawed super-soldier, and the Norse god of thunder.  But I’m a dick so I’m going to!  It books down to ‘bad guy wants to open portal so aliens can invade’.  That’s it!  Also there a some plot holes so big you couldn’t fit a Tony Stark’s head through them.  Loki let’s himself be captured for no apparent reason but it’s what the Joker did in The Dark Knight so it must be cool. (Sky fall is guilty of this too)

Characters

I’ll admit Thor and the Hulk are super cool and Nick Fury is a bad-ass but some characters are just plain annoying.  Black Widow and Hawkeye have the personality of a wet loaf of bread, Fury’s sidekick lady is totally forgettable, and most criminal of all – Tony Stark has been turned into a smug, smarmy asshole.  Iron Man was great because Stark was cocky and arrogant but always likeable.  Tony Stark in the Avengers is just a smart-ass with none of the redeeming features from the previous movies.

image

Like I said before, I really enjoyed The Avengers so this is just me thinking out loud. What do you think? Am I missing something? I’d really like to hear your opinions

11 comments

  1. I think you’re spot on. You are a joyless, nit picking fun vaccum. I loved this film. Hope you enjoy the new Iron Man better, I do agree he was a better character in the Iron Man films, although still quite smarmy…

    Like

    Reply

  5. I kind of agree with ya about Stark’s newfound dickishness in The Avengers. he was far more one-dimensional but i guess the movie was already big enough they didn’t have time to really let his character be as developed as it is when in a film all to himself. Funny read, dude 🙂

    Like

    Reply

    • Thanks Tom, I was probably a bit picky with my criticism, I really liked the movie when I first saw it but I still think the middle third is pretty dull

      Like

      Reply

  6. […] I blame The Avengers. It basically gave Marvel the excuse to churn out loads of movies based on it’s books which you need to watch to understand what the hell is going on in the main film. Captain America, Thor, The Hulk, Iron Man, these films are now filling movie theatres and the problem is that they’re basically the same thing. We have an origin story which can be good (Iron Man, Thor) or bad (Captain America) followed by an unoriginal tale of our hero fighting an incredibly dull bad guy. […]

    Like

    Reply

Leave a Reply, go on, don't make me come over there