"The Avengers" is a product of The Walt Disney Company, distributed and produced by Marvel Studios. It was designed for one purpose: to gross an obscene amount of money by capitalizing on the momentum of the preceding superhero films in the Marvel “shared universe” series. It accomplished its task handily. Other than that, there is really not much one can say about this product, any more than there can be much to say about a can of soup -- it was created for a purpose, to fulfill a function, and it did. Whether the product was of any artistic merit is beside the point. It is, like most of its brethren, competent without evidence of craft; diverting without being interesting; action packed in content without anything remotely approaching style.
I guess I should at least even this out with some things I did appreciate. Mark Ruffalo is fantastic as Bruce Banner and his alter-ego, The Hulk, for one. He invests the role with a nuance the material frankly does not deserve or earn and is the only member of the cast Robert Downey, Jr.’s Tony Stark really comes alive with. Ruffalo is one of Hollywood’s most underrated character actors, so it’s good to know he’s cashing a decent paycheck, I suppose. Tom Hiddleston’s Loki is a hoot, at least. He’s the only one in any of these movies to ever seem like he’s having any actual fun -- RDJ’s Tony having atrophied, Captain Jack Sparrow-like, into schtick by this point -- and thus we feel free to have fun with him.
Other than that, what is there to say? The film’s plot, what little of it there is, is a non-sequitur out of context with the preceding movies, drawing material most prominently from Mark Millar’s Iraq War apologia-cum-parody Avengers storyline "The Ultimates." The first act consists entirely of picking up the threads left dangling by the other movies; the second of nothing, punctuated by the aforementioned Ruffalo/Downey, Jr. scene and a quite embarrassing extended sequence involving two of our heroes attempting to turn on a giant fan; and the third of nonstop action. The film was directed and co-written (alongside his "Cabin In The Woods" collaborator Zak Penn) by nerd idol Joss Whedon, and as a director, he’s a pretty good writer. Whedon hews closely to the Marvel cinematic house style, with bland TNT cable drama lighting, unadventurous editing, and meat and potatoes shot composition at best. It isn’t exactly surprising that a Whedon feature film should look so much like one of his television shows, but you’d think one would attempt more with a supposed blockbuster extravaganza. The script is full of Whedon’s characteristic quirks, with none of the thematic substance of his best work. It suits Downey, Jr.’s Tony down to the ground and is elevated by Ruffalo, but falls flat elsewhere. The action throughout is similarly written, climaxed with a half hour plus of uninspired pyrotechnics executed without an ounce of the technical skill or panache Michael Bay routinely brings similar material.
Look, there’s really not much value in even attempting to critique these superhero movies on an artistic or aesthetic level, mostly because they do not contain anything remotely approaching artistic or aesthetically interesting impulses. "The Avengers" is dull and unadventurous and damnably safe in all things. It does everything, for the most part, in an acceptable way, and absolutely nothing of interest. Even on the level of other summer blockbusters, it fails to move the needle -- Michael Bay has been doing movies more entertaining and skillfully executed his entire career, to the tune of thousands of internet nerds derisively panning his movies while attempting to get "The Dark Knight" an Oscar or two. The fact of the matter is, it is "The Avengers," not Bay, that is the death of cinema: pandering, a mediocre spectacle met with success so absurdly out of proportion to any quality that it has resulted in the superhero movie paradigm enacting a complete stranglehold on Hollywood production. Our summers are now flooded with YA novel adaptations, superhero movies, reboots of franchises better left alone, more superhero movies, movies that are nothing but shallow rehashes of material in supposedly new combinations inspired by those aforementioned franchises, and yet more superhero movies. All following the same white people through the same story templates, with the same utter lack of imagination or craft in the execution. It has birthed a system that sands down any edges, crushes any possibility of unique voices or approaches being applied to genre material, doggedly pursues the middle way of safety at all times. There is this, and there is the indie sector, and there is Oscar bait (with its own attendant codes and strictures), and nothing much in between. Sure, we have Bay pursuing his own brand of spectacle with the "Transformers" series, the latest of which was one of the best movies of the past summer; the occasional "Looper" or "Edge of Tomorrow" for inventive ideas and execution; the rare bird like "Jupiter Ascending" for camp operatic fun. But at the end of the day, it’s an "Avengers" world, and we’re all just living in it.
I don’t hate this movie, really -- it’s not nearly interesting enough to be worthy of hate. I do resent it, to an extent, for all of the above reasons. But ultimately, this product is not enough to provoke, nor is it worth, any strong feeling one way or the other. It deserves no more emotion than any factory line product. I will, however, end with this: Marvel’s "The Avengers" grossed over $1.5 billion worldwide. This is more money than Jack Kirby ever saw in his life, the man who created or co-created most of the characters in it, as well as a good majority of the original Marvel characters; the man who was legendarily screwed out of the profits generated by his work to the tune of millions of dollars by Marvel; the man who is indisputably one of the most important creators and artists in the history of contemporary Western pop culture. And yet, the movie is Marvel’s "The Avengers," and he is a footnote in the latter half of its credits. But then, it wouldn’t be the first time a major corporation screwed over its factory workers, would it?
