Review: The Avengers (2012)

[Mark R. Leeper]

THE AVENGERS
(a film review by Mark R. Leeper)

CAPSULE: This epic superhero film is the fulfillment
of plot hints dropped in many previous Marvel films
and brings together Iron Man, Thor, the Hulk, Captain
America, and Black Widow into a spectacular dustup
directed and co-written by Joss Whedon. While the
film lacks the visual imagination of THOR or the
period feel of CAPTAIN AMERICA, it has more of a sense
of structures on a huge scale being blown up by even
bigger explosions. This film can be seen equally well
as a piece of literature or as some mindless screen
action. It seems to be a real audience pleaser. But
it is somewhat less recommended if you have not seen
the films that lead up to it. This film will probably
make up for much of Disney's JOHN CARTER losses.
Rating: +1 (-4 to +4) or 6/10

This is the kind of film that I really have to decide who my reader
is in order to review it. Staid people not used to superhero films
will be lost and confused watching THE AVENGERS. But few of them
would be reading this review anyway. On the other hand I am not
the kind of fan who has read all (or any) of the "Avengers" graphic
novels. In the continuum between the two kinds of viewers I am
somewhere in the middle. Bear that in mind. For the kind of
person who likes this sort of superhero film, this film delivers a
lot of what they like. There is a lot back-story to THE AVENGERS
from the comic book and from previous Marvel Comics films. I have
not read the comics and though I have seen the prerequisite films,
their recollection has melted like the snows of yesteryear. There
may be more strands to the overall story than to WAR AND PEACE.
Watching you feel you are seeing something substantial. Then
suddenly you realize you are looking one guy who looks like he's
dressed in a flag for the Fourth of July, another who is about ten
feet tall and is the color of asparagus, a guy wearing a robot
suit, and another decked in pseudo-Norse dress armor (Who fights in
a flowing cape?), and they are facing down a man in a gold helmet
with goat horns. My recommendation is to just take the film for
what it is--a light piece of entertainment.

The plot is something like this. Thor's brother and enemy Loki is
inviting aliens to conquer the Earth. But Nick Fury (Samuel L.
Jackson) is trying to assemble a team of superheroes including Iron
Man (Robert Downey Jr.), Captain America (Chris Evans), the Hulk
(Mark Ruffalo), Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), Thor (Chris
Hemsworth), and Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner). They seem like the
perfect candidates to fight Loki (Tom Hiddleston, who actually is
more impressive as a villain that veteran actors like Downey,
Johansson, and Ruffalo are as heroes). All these big name
superheroes have to learn to work together in a common cause. And
with so many big name actors in the film, the stars if the film
probably had very similar conflicts. Loki wants to get the
MacGuffin, the Tesseract that is the source of great energy and
will open up the doorway to Asgard. (Apparently someone thought
the name "Tesseract" was keen and nobody knew what a tesseract
really is.) Speaking of people using words without knowing the
meaning, how did the studio censor ever let Loki call Black Widow
"mewling quim?" But the people I saw the film with did say that
the screen characterizations of the heroes and villains was fairly
faithful to the characters on the printed page.

The writing is not really that impressive, even if it is full of
beefy quotes like "we need a plan of attack!" and the response "I
have a plan--attack!" and eloquent pep talks like the immortal
"Hulk, smash." What sells the film is the special effects--which
are impressive on a large scale--and the art direction. The Asgard
scenes of last year's THOR were impressive. But unfortunately Thor
is on Earth in this one and he has left Asgard behind. For that
matter what was impressive about CAPTAIN AMERICA was the re-
creation of the wartime patriotic feel. This film does not take
place in the 1940s. There is nothing as remarkable in this THE
AVENGERS except for the feel of large machinery crashing. Visually
it all works well except that the big green Hulk looks too much
like a Toon playing against humans. He does not feel like he
meshes correctly with the live action. Hulk looks like he came
from another film. So do the alien dragon ships.

You want to know what I do not like about superhero films? At one
point a character is flung around like a ragdoll in an angry dog's
mouth. Okay, I figure that is it for that character. All your
bones broken is effectively a "game over." No, he apparently just
pops back into shape. As a friend explained to me later,
superheroes have incredible recovery powers. In one sequence Tony
Stark falls a great distance and at the end has a stop that would
have left him soup in a metal suit, but apparently the suit has
inertia dampers or some darn physical impossibility thing that
protects him. His suit is made of metal stronger than the metal in
any alien fighting machines. Stark fighting the bad guys comes in
two flavors: the stone hitting the pitcher or the pitcher hitting
the stone. Either way the villainous pitcher loses. The
superheroes may lose some of the fights at the beginning of the
film, but they only win toward the end. In almost any fight the
viewer knows from the beginning who will win that particular clash.

This just means to me that all these superheroes really have the
same super-power: they have the writer(s) on their side. That is a
superpower that will save them no matter what they come up against.
Your hero gets run through a meat grinder and each little piece is
teleported to a different galaxy? No worries. His special
Fubergamamite Powers will call back all the pieces, reassemble
them, cure him, and send him back into battle. Every battle for a
superhero is a "heads I win; tails you lose" proposition. No
villain is strong enough to defeat a hero with the writer
determined he will live. This makes these titanic battles just eye
candy. Even a good writer like Joss Whedon cannot get me to worry
about the fate of characters whose safety is never in question.
The dialog can claim that the heroes are in danger, but only minor
characters will be fatal casualties. I guess you do not go to a
superhero film to be concerned your favorite hero will be killed,
but without that it seems so pointless to watch the fights. They
are all just good-guy superheroes beating up on bad guy villains,
perhaps suffering discomfort along the way. You know that no
superhero who has been in a previous film will be killed. They are
too important to the series.

This is a movie with the same problems as any superhero film. It
is a fun watch for the art direction and the special effects, but
in spite of a huge budget, it is no LAWRENCE OF ARABIA. I rate it
a +1 on the -4 to +4 scale or 6/10. [Hint: sit through *all* the
credits. There are two post-credit sequences. Marvel films punish
viewers who will not sit through all the credits.]

Film Credits: <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0848228/>

What others are saying:
<http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/marvels_the_avengers/>


Mark R. Leeper
mle...@optonline.net
Copyright 2012 Mark R. Leeper