By Barry Dutter
I don't see the point in reviewing a movie like the AVENGERS. It's not really a movie, it's more of a media event/ rollercoaster ride/ vessel for selling toys.
A movie like THE AVENGERS doesn't need a plot or character arcs or any of that fancy stuff. It just needs some cool fight scenes, a few token nods to the fanboys, and some quotable lines. In that respect, the film delivers on all counts.
Of course, as a longtime comic book fan (and a guy who read THE AVENGERS comics for over 30 years), I do have some opinions...
1) When Marvel publishes a 22-page comic that is just a plotless fight scene, it costs the company a few thousand dollars to produce. It costs you three or four dollars to purchase and you can read it in ten minutes. When a movie studio produces a big budget super-hero movie that is just a plotless fight scene, it costs the company $250 million to produce, takes two and a half hours to watch, and costs you up to $20 if you see it in 3-D. I guess this is my way of saying I’m a lot more forgiving of a plotless comic than a plotless movie.
2) In the original AVENGERS #1, Loki tricked the other heroes into fighting the Hulk. Imagine how much better the Avengers movie would have been if Loki had pitted a mind-controlled Hulk against all the other heroes.
3) At one point in the movie, Loki allows himself to be captured so that he can have access to the Hulk. But then he never follows up on this.
4) Hawkeye needs a mask. And Cap's new headgear looks stupid. They should have kept the mask from his first movie. 5) The invading aliens face the power of a Norse God, the awesome armor of Iron Man, the limitless strength of the Hulk -- and a red-headed girl with two handguns! Look out!
6) The aliens in the movie were completely ineffectual. Might have been nice to see the aliens actually do something, anything successfully, like maybe capture one of the heroes or defeat one of them in battle. They were basically video game fodder.
7) Joss Whedon’s BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER lived in a town where there existed the Hellmouth -- a portal through which evil creatures could escape to Earth. The AVENGERS MOVIE has something similar. So basically, this is a big-budget episode of BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER.
8) The Hulk in the THE AVENGERS MOVIE looks too much like Mark Ruffalo. I liked the way ol’ Greenskin looked in his 2008 movie better.
9) Tony Stark is much more likable in the comics than he is in the movies. Basically Robert Downey is playing an exaggerated version of Hollywood movie star Robert Downey Jr.
11) Yay, Cap gets to lead the Avengers! Even Iron Man bows to Cap’s superior leadership ability.
12) Hulk sucker-punches Thor -- best moment in the movie? Yeah, I think so.
13) Hulk throttles Loki -- second best moment. (But Loki getting the crap kicked out of him by the Hulk makes Loki out to be pretty weak for a God. Asgardians are supposed to be much stronger than humans and Loki‘s magic should have enabled him to put up a much better fight against the Hulk. The least original thing a writer can do is to have your villain get beaten by a hero who punches him really hard. It’s the #1 comic book cop-out ending.)14) Hulk tries -- and fails to lift Thor’s hammer. Perfect!
15) At one point, Thor tries to summon his hammer to his hand and fails. Huh? What gives? What was the point of this scene? It is never referred to again and his hammer is working just fine later.
16) I never had much use for Agent Coulson, but he is used better here than he was in previous movies.
17) I didn’t like any of the scenes where Nick Fury answers to the council. They were willing to nuke New York? Really? They never even thought to fire the nuke at the portal? Why is it that the government never trusts the good guys to do the job they were asked to do? This reminded me of the 2 Ghostbusters movies where the govt. doesn’t believe in the heroes and tries to shut them down -- despite the fact that the Ghostbusters are clearly the only ones equipped to deal with the ghost problem plaguing the city.
18) Least favorite line in the movie: Fury says to Loki, “You have made me very desperate.” What he should have said: “I just put together a team of the most powerful heroes on Earth. Loki, you don’t stand a chance.”19) I stayed through the end credits and saw the first extra scene, then I left. Who knew there was another extra scene at the end? Not me!
20) Bruce Banner is “angry all the time.” Sorry, not buying it. The whole point of the Banner character is that he can‘t allow himself to ever get angry because he has no control over his transformations. In this movie, he seems to change to Hulk at will. That contradicts the comics.
21) Favorite line in the movie: When Cap says, “Hulk… smash!”
22) Coolest scene: when Thor’s hammer strikes Cap’s shield.
24) Fury’s explanation to the council at the end that the point of forming the Avengers was to send a message to the galaxy that Earth now has powerful protectors. I thought the purpose was to save the Earth from an alien invasion. There had to be a deeper meaning than that?
25) I guess we won’t be seeing Spider-Man or Wolverine joining the Avengers any time soon! (They are licensed to different movie studios.)
26) New members I would like to see in AVENGERS 2: Giant-Man, Wonder Man, the Wasp, Vision, Scarlet Witch, Ms. Marvel
27) The ending of the first THOR movie makes it pretty clear that it will be almost impossible for Thor to ever return to Earth. But he shows up in Avengers with a weak explanation as to how he got back, and it is kind of glossed over. Since Marvel knew all along that all their movies were going to be connected, they could have dealt with this better.
28) The Tessaract? Couldn’t they have referred to it as the Cosmic Cube just once?
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