Joss Whedon's THE AVENGERS

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Movie review by Dennis D. McDonald

THE AVENGERS is an OK piece of entertainment, I guess. Several times during the first hour I started to doze off. I usually enjoy well made comic book movies, and this one strives to be at the top of the heap when it comes to that genre. But the cardboard nature of the characters doesn’t generate that much emotional connection, especially with Samuel Jackson’s lackluster rendering of Nick Fury.

Also, listening to heroes’ banter and quarreling is entertaining the first time but after several movies like this it starts to fall flat. (I thought THE INCREDIBLES were much more engaging super heroes.)

Parts of the movie and its imagery are reminiscent of SKY CAPTAIN AND THE WORLD OF TOMORROW. For example, the flying aircraft carrier reminded me a lot of Angelina Jolie’s aerial HQ in that movie.

The last half of the movie is exciting but for me at least super-battle-in-middle-of-big-city movies are starting to get old.

I found MISSION IMPOSSIBLE GHOST PROTOCOL and JOHN CARTER to be much more interesting. Both had more engaging characters and much more interesting and unique images. JOHN CARTER especially had more interesting flying machines and aliens; the alien design in THE AVENGERS seems derivative and uninspiring.

I’ll give this a solid C+. It’s fun but there’s a lot better entertainment out there both new and old.

Review copyright (c) 2012 by Dennis D. McDonald

Comments

[Dennis D. McDonald]

Does everyone in "Stuttgart" speak English?

[Craig Henry]

I don't agree,I found the characters to be very engaging.No other movie has ever had such a big cast of superhero superstars, to try and build each ones character development in one movie would have been rediculous.What do you want to watch? a drama? or a faithful rendition, of classic comic book superheroes. I think this movie produced exaclty what it intended, nothing more or pretentious.Where would u prefer they had their big fight scene? the middle of a cornfield somewhere? marvel comics are about the superheroes and their abilities, not the flying machines. They remained faithful to the settings of the comic.Mission Impossible? Talk about totally unrealistic,and it's not even based on a comic.Better entertainment out there? That may be, but I doubt it.This was the most anticipated movie amongst my peers and in social media,and it delivered.Judging by the loud cheers and spontaneous applause during the movie in the cinema I went to,and peoples comments in the last week, people loved it.

[Dennis D. McDonald]

Craig - there's no question people loved it. The numbers show that. I just didn't find any involvement. A lot of the emotional engagement with the characters in many cases, I think, was based not just on the movie itself but on the engagement of fans who brought with them a familiarity with the characters and back stories. Since I've never been a Marvel fan I just don't have that going into the movie and the movie itself didn't really show me anything new about superheros on the bigscreen, as explained in my review. I much much preferred Thor which was totally new to me and much better directed and produced, in my opinion. But my tastes are frequently esoteric and I make no pretense of reflecting a majority view, as evidenced by my being much more entertained by John Carter.