Review of The Avengers (2012) by Nick A — 01 May 2015

SPOILERS: Avenger's is constantly fighting its own hype. I enjoyed Joss Whedon's commitment to character building over explosions. However, the movie has many (minor) problems. These accumulate and prevent the movie from ever really becoming what it could be.

The largest complaint I have is a lack of stakes. The characters are all super human and dispose of the enemy with ease. There is no tension. No moment when we think they will actually hurt or kill one of the Avengers.

I've been most worried about The Avengers ability to constantly build a story and a narrative that feels complete. By the time the first end credits scene came up I thought to myself. This will never end.

It will keep building up and they will keep getting more villains to beat up. Marvel isn't concerned about making an arch they're interested in milking their franchise until it's dead. I realized this once Loki survived again.

He's been the villain twice now. Both times he was spared. The lack of death (Coulson doesn't count, he's not a main character) has made The Avengers have a weightless feel to it. Here we see NYC get destroyed (In mayhem that was honestly staged better in Transformers 3, although Avengers has characters) and there never feels like there's a consequence to what's happening.

They spend 10 minutes fighting a giant alien, only to have 3 more show up. Then they're killed off like nothing. The two most interesting characters in the film are Hawk Eye and Black Widow. They're interesting because their powers aren't superhuman.

However, once the battle of NY starts they somehow are capable of superhuman tricks. The Avengers stand out is Hulk, probably the best portrayal of the Hulk ever. Mark Ruffalo plays Bruce Banner in a much more 3 dimensional way.

He's moved beyond just the "how do I control the monster" mentality that's been the focus recently. Overall The Avengers is an entertaining movie. It has good dialogue and doesn't sacrifice character for action.

It fails once the action starts when it becomes watching CGI characters fight with no consequences. The Avengers never lives up to it's full potential.