Kinda boring, no, yaaaawwwwn, very boring! Zzzzzzzzzzzz

Rating: 1/10 (16 May 2012)

How I would love to have championed Joss Whedon for this. But alas, no.
The Avengers is not a great movie. Avengers is a boring movie.
OK, I saw it in 3D. The only other film I've seen in 3D was Avatar and - this may also indicate to you I'm not a movie snoot - I rather thought Avatar was OK, unlike many who say it's awful. You would be right therefore, to infer that the novelty of 3D hasn't exactly had a chance to wear thin on me yet.
Let's just get the 3D out of the way: for me, it was like watching a holographic projection, very unreal. Often there were only 2, maybe just 3 planes of focus and sometimes this made the focus too oddly focused!, e.g. a wobbling briefcase in the foreground that looked like something out of Toy Story. Also, some of the action with Johanssen is frantic CGI cartoony acrobatics, and in 3D this just looks even more of a mess, anything but exciting! I was cautioned not to see in 3D - that person was right. The print isn't compensated for by the darkening effect of the glasses. I think it affected me too. Eye-fatigue, plus the combination of how those glasses make the film so dark, plus a major major flaw in the film, caused me to give up on consciousness and spare my eyeballs more than once.
Yes, in 3D at least, this film is too dark to see what's going on. Detail becomes elusive and the 3D focus only allows you to see one or two parts of the screen - everything else is often deliberately way out-of-focus. This makes the film visually uninteresting (especially for us 'autistic' background viewers ;-).
And the major major flaw.. Oh, I might have already let that slip: this movie is boring! Surely I can't be so bored that easily by a film I've never seen before! It's impossible! Avengers: yes, there's some showy effects that may impress those that can get off on over 2 hours of blam blam blam but me: yaaaawwn! Honestly, I was expecting to enjoy The Avengers, especially since I kinda liked the Thor movie (nothing to do with Portman, who does very little for me). And also, my total non-appreciation for The Avengers goes against what I'd hoped... that I could say something great about this film, and be able to champion Joss Whedon for a new era of Sci-Fi movies. Serenity was good, very good - albeit with forgivably TV-movie quality. Unfortunately, it seems, budget wasn't the limiting factor and I've now lost interest.
Duncan Jones, do you hear?