Never have I seen more marketing precede a movie than I did for the Avengers. In fact, most the recent superhero movies of the last 2-3 years have included a cameo of an Avenger making reference to the upcoming film. For that reason, I expected something very exciting and well thought out. I didn’t get that but the box office shows unprecedented success for the mammoth marketing onslaught. The Avengers was directed by Josh Whedon, known for The Cabin in the Woods and Buffy the Vampire Slayer among other films. The movie has an all star cast of actors known for their Marvel comic movies such as Thor, Captain America, and the Hulk just to name a few. The most screen time is given to Robert Downey Junior as Iron Man. An interesting factoid to consider is that this movie is the Highest-grossing Disney film ever. That’s nothing to sneeze at. One refreshing cameo was seeing Agent Maria Hill, Cobie Smulder, from How I met your Mother. I had to do a double take since I’m not used to seeing her on the big screen. She did a great job I thought.
I certainly enjoyed going on a date with my lovely wife to see the Avengers. Unfortunately, I am not a huge fan of comic book action movies and this one, in my opinion, catered 100% to that audience. Apparently though, according to ticket sales, Disney should have no regrets. The story begins with Nick Fury, Samuel Jackson, calling together the Avengers, a group of superheroes acting as a team to save the world from the evil force named Loki, Tom Hiddleston. The first half of the movie consists of the Avengers fighting with each other. Why they suddenly decide to work together is unclear and they do not work well together. I felt like it was catering to a “Comic-con” type audience so I didn’t judge it based on a normal action fantasy movie. There are many holes in this one and the special effects were not enough to invest my interest. My wife made a great point that the roots of a sequel were being planted throughout. In the end, instead of being a compelling adventure superhero film, it became simply a $220,000,000 ad for the inevitable sequel. There were great effects which I would tout as the only reason to go see this movie. From the hoots and hollers from the trekkies Comic-con types in the audience, I would say that was enough to deliver as planned. I know a lot of people are loving this so don’t flog me all at once. I’m choosing to be a black sheep on this one and go against the popular opinions.
My final analysis is that this film has great effects and therefore will appeal to Transformers and Comic-con Marvel types. Having said that, I suspect it will come up short of “marvelous” to many due to bad acting, and mediocre writing .
