I would like to start this review by being up-front about
something. In the pathetic, niche, world of comic book dorkdom, I am what is
known as a “DC Elitist”. It means I favor the world that DC Comics has created
over other comic companies such as Marvel, Image, and Dark Horse. Not only
that, but I generally cast disparaging remarks upon those companies and their
fans, waving a dismissive hand and making “pfft” noises when they try to argue
me over to their side. It means that I have a huge bias against Marvel and
their movies.
Okay, that’s not entirely fair. Marvel has had pretty great
success with their movies while DC (excluding the Batman franchise) has fallen
flat. Not to mention, DC has really pissed me off recently with their whole
“let’s reboot the DC Universe and start over from scratch, then make something
new and modern and innovative and really go the extra mile and . . . oh, wait,
it’s still the same garbage we’ve always put out” stupid venture. And then they
come along a few months later and announce that they’re making a PREQUEL to
Watchmen. This is the worst idea of all worst ideas! In fact, upon hearing
this, I stood up and vocally renounced my status of “DC Elitist” and disavowed
any association with them (post reboot). But I digress.
I actually went in to The Avengers with high hopes, which
nowadays is a dangerous thing to do. My hopes lay squarely on Joss Whedon,
writer, director, and comic book fan. He handles ensemble casts well, as seen
in previous ventures such as Firefly and Hanging with Mr. Cooper (Okay, I made
that last one up. Not the show itself, unfortunately, just the fact that Joss
Whedon created it). And he really is a fan of the source, not like some
directors named Michael
Bay
So, I was surprised to find out that I thought the film was
good after it was over. I have this inner contrarian which assumes that
anything popular must be garbage, so it makes me nervous when something I’m
interested in becomes super popular. But I couldn’t find anything particularly
wrong with the film.
You may have noticed that this review has really explained
nothing about the movie and that’s because there is really nothing to explain.
We’ve seen (most) of the lead-in movies to this. There’s no origin story. A
bunch of superheroes are brought together, they fight with each other and then
work as a team to bring down the bad guy at the end. It’s all very predictable,
and yet also very gratifying.
There are a couple of elements that make this movie as good
as it is. Firstly, the threat that they counter is worthy of the team-up. In so
many Marvel movies, the villain is usually just an evil derivative of the hero.
In the first Iron Man, the villain was just a bigger Iron Man. America ,
the villain was Nazi Elrond. The point is that those villains were weak, and
Avengers gets it right by having Loki as the main antagonist, and then follows
him up with an invading alien army. Loki is a good villain because he’s not
completely evil, he has weaknesses and doubts and major insecurity. In the end
I felt kind of bad for him. The invading alien race is basically just fodder
for the Avengers to slap around, and that’s fine, because it lets the heroes
have lots of screen time doing what they do best and doing what we want to
watch them do.
The second reason why this movie works well is in the way
they handle the Hulk. His past two movies have been lame, boredom factories.
Hulk works exponentially better in a team environment. Bruce Banner makes the
other team members nervous, especially when he starts to get irritated. He’s a
bomb ready to blow at any moment, and when he does he’ll take out everything
and everyone around him, friend or foe, it doesn’t matter. Everyone knows this,
including Banner, and it is used to great effect in creating tension. He’s kind
of scary in this movie, and he should be.
I want to see this movie again, which is pretty rare. As I’m
sitting here writing this “review”, I keep thinking on certain moments that I’d
like to see again. It’s got excellent dialog and interactions. It’s written
like a comic book. Every line is important. There is only so much space
available to get the story across. There’s little room for filler or fluff.
It’s lean and focused and entertaining. That’s more than I can say for most
recent movies I’ve watched.
