only the distant echo of a powerful shout

Rating: 2/10 (24 April 2012)

I just saw the movie. I have been a comic reader and a movie goer for more than twenty years now, and a film like this should have been my wet dream. Instead what I saw was a hollow, empty attempt to recreate the magic of the original comic book: an attempt that poorly fails in a miserable way despite (or I should say: thanks to) all the special effects and the star power the producers have tried to throw in. The fantasy, the wit, the ideas that were present in the comic and that made it the dreams and the joy of so many kids, were completely absent in this studio behemoth.
I will admit that the recreation of such magic was a difficult task, probably doomed from the beginning: but this thing is completely lacking brain, or direction, or any meaning at all. The script is a total and utter disaster, full of bore and incredibly shallow, and it goes just ridiculous every time it tries to go funny with sketches and jokes all very similar between themselves. I will rate the movie 2 stars just to give it credit for having been able to give us the first decent Banner/Hulk: it took only three attempts to the Hollywood writers - and god knows how many millions of dollars wasted.
Movies like "Avengers" are unlucky children that inherit only all the defects from both the parents, which in this case would be Mr. Mainstream Comics and Mrs. Movie Industry. This leaves them with basically no audience: they are too much gruesome and boring for kids, too much childish for youngsters, while for the adults - at least for those the grown-up ones - there are just too many capes. The same stories, printed on comic pages, still resonate in popular culture after decades: but this movie will be hopefully forgotten as soon as the media battage slow down.