Movie Discommendation: THE AVENGERS (2012)

CAUTION: I tried to keep the spoilers to a bare minimum and kept some details kind of vague whenever possible.

THE AVENGERS movie is one of those odd cases for me.  I cannot disagree that THE AVENGERS is a good movie, but I just didn’t care for it.

To determine how much I liked a movie, I first ask myself whether or not I would see it again.  As for THE AVENGERS, I have little interest in seeing it again. (The epilogue did peak my interest though.)  The second question is would I recommend the movie to a friend.  THE AVENGERS is indeed worth seeing considering you get a whole lot of movie in this movie.  I sure got my money’s worth, but I was not expecting to feel so indifferent, so blasé, about it.

I do have to give credit to writer/director Joss Whedon for wrangling with all the Avengers lore and cramming the action into one movie.   Not an easy task for sure.   However, action alone doesn’t guarantee a likeable movie.

I know I am (and will be) one of the few who didn’t care for this movie.  Why?  Because I didn’t care about the heroes.  I really wasn’t rooting for anyone in particular or cared if the Avengers saved New York city.  For me the story was lacking a central emotional element. Without Captain America, this movie would have felt stale and void of heart.  The story needed a human connection which would have helped it to have a sense of danger, urgency and purpose.  Considering the super heroes were invincible and/or immortal, there’s really nothing at stake or nothing to lose when they fought, especially amongst themselves.  All the human casualties — except for one — were meaningless and inconsequential.  Not once did I feel a sense of peril or suspense or have one of those on-the-edge-of-my-seat moments.

Furthermore, even though Tony Stark’s glorious skyscraper was in New York, the story needed to have a more personal vested interest in saving New York.   What if Nick Fury’s family lived in NY or Captain America discovered he had relatives in NY or Captain America fell in love with Fury’s first officer (Agent Maria Hill) and she was from NY?  Heck, even Pepper Potts, Stark’s girlfriend, could have been in danger.  The point being, any idea like these would have helped to raise the stakes.

The brilliance of IRON MAN was that it felt like a small, heartfelt story wrapped in big action sequences.  We rooted for Tony Stark because he had something to personally lose or gain during his quest to protect humanity.   In SPIDER-MAN, the story was personalized by having Peter Parker protect his girlfriend, while protecting the citizens of NY from common and the not so common criminals.   Last but not least, THE DARK KNIGHT exemplified how to make a comic book movie into a human story while dealing with larger-than-life situations.

I also would like to note, I saw this movie in 3D which was a real treat, but it was gimmicky.   I don’t need every action sequence to have tons of things flying or exploding toward me.  I get it… it’s 3D, but camera shots and CGI specifically designed for 3D effects ultimately do a disservice to this film.  The approach should have been to use cinematography and shots that best tells the story without taking into account the 3D scenario.  As big as this movie was, THE AVENGERS did not feel like an epic.  The action was too fast, too in-your-face, too distracting.   It was tough me to be drawn into the story wholeheartedly and forget that I was watching a 3D movie.

Now we come to ACT III and the ending… please stop reading to avoid any spoilers.   My suspension of disbelief only goes so far and I didn’t buy into the notion the government leaders opted to defeat the alien invaders by destroying NY in the manner they chose.   This was a weak and uncreative plot point.  To me, this was lazy storytelling.  In addition, this plot point seemed too rushed considering the fight between the Avengers and the aliens just got started.  In short this last ditch, let’s-destroy-NY situation was a bit ridiculous.  Or maybe if we cared about NY at this point in the story, this plot device might have worked.

Surely another plausible and more creative way could have been chosen.  Perhaps S.H.I.E.L.D. (Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division) could have been secretly working on a ultra powerful weapon (using the energy source obtained from another world) behind Nick Fury’s back and decided to launch that weapon to save NY.   Double-crossing Nick Fury would have been a nice twist and would have given him more of a vested interest.

As THE AVENGERS movie approached climax, one heck of a cliffhanger* was being set-up involving Tony Stark aka Iron Man.  I kept thinking to myself, “Boy, are they really going to do this?”  As a storyteller myself, I was hoping Joss Whedon would take a risk at the end, but I’m sure that was out of the realm of possibilities for him.  If the cliffhanger happened, this could have a changed my entire perspective of this film.  I know it’s probably unfair to judge this film on an alternate, theoretically ending, but to me, this was a sign that much of the story needed to be written better.

While I was watching the movie, I was figuring out what I would do differently.  Naturally, my ending was based on all the events up until that point.  I would like to have seen a gutsier ending.  In part since most of ACT III’s NY battle sequences were dispassionate, I wanted the ending to have some substance.  This was slightly achieved, but still the ending did not have enough pay off for me.   “So what,” I thought to myself after Loki and the aliens were defeated.  The Avengers saved the day like we knew they would.

THE AVENGERS certainly offered some fun moments and delivered the action, especially with the smashing Hulk, but the movie fell short in too many other areas.  Trust me… I really wanted to like this movie.  I really wanted this movie to be better than it was.  Maybe my expectations were too high.

In my review I tried to stay focus on major criticisms and refrain from commenting on the smaller stuff like the undeveloped roles of Black Widow and Hawkeye.  And please don’t get me started commenting on that huge, ridiculous, flying — nevermind, no more spoilers.

* Cliffhanger: I’ll provide more details on my alternate ending in a later post.

© Rob Dragan