Monday Morning Movie Reviewer: The Avengers

So I semi-reviewed this movie when I talked about the experience of seeing it in China, but this is more the standard review…By now, literally everybody that goes to the movies has seen this but I might as well discuss it anyway.

What Works: This movie is thoroughly mediocre, and exactly what you’d expect…so in that way, it’s exactly what I expected when I put it on the “Five Movies I’m Not So Excited About List” in between the ten I wanted to see and the five I didn’t want to see. That being said, there are plenty of small pleasures to be had in watching the heroes fight each other—-which is a lot more compelling than the generic alien villain—-and you begin to wonder “Thor’s hammer or Captain America’s Shield? Iron Man’s self-serving swagger or Captain America’s gee-whiz 50’s sensibility? Who’s stronger, Thor or Captain America? Who’s smarter, Tony Stark or Bruce Banner? Who’s more useless, Hawkeye or Black Widow?” Questions like this roused me from the slumber the movie imposed.

What Doesn’t Work: The generic alien villain is played to the hilt by Tom Hiddleson (who’s like David Bowie crossed with Michael Fassbender) but even he can’t save what is essentially a thoroughly boring antagonist. And the big battle scene at the end may be rousing and exciting, but it’s essentially Transformers-with-people. The movie hits all the familiar things a movie like this should hit (safe alien villain so we don’t hurt international box office: check, part where the heroes don’t see eye to eye: check, rousing action sequence at the end and fake-out “death” of a major hero: check, obligatory wise-cracks that aren’t really funny: check), and it just really made me look even more forward to The Dark Knight Rises, the anti-Marvel superhero movie that you don’t have to be a forever arrested 40-year-old-teenager to truly enjoy.

What I Would Have Done Differently: What does the studio care? This movie is broad, crowd-pleasing, and a monster hit. Any changes I would make would only make it darker, more exciting, more cerebral, and more original…you know, things studios actively avoid.