Wanted to love it, but couldn't

Rating: 4/10 (30 April 2012)

I've seen the inflated review aggregate, and at the risk of being dismissed a contrarian, I seriously disagree with the accolades. The Avengers movie I saw contained no character development whatsoever; no character starts off ignorant, growing to enlightenment, or overcomes cowardice to become a hero, or any other example of behavioral character arcs. By the end, they are as they begun, unchanged, and definitively two-dimensional. The lack of character development is compounded by uninteresting, witless, filler dialogue (despite a few one-liners which managed to draw a giggle), with Dr. Stark and Dr. Banner, i.e. the alter egos of Iron-man and the Hulk, occasionally foraying into esoteric scientific jibber-jabber, that only served to bore me even more. In saying that, Downey Jr's, Tony Stark was the only mildly interesting and amusing character in the entire piece; the rest of the characters I couldn't give a shite about, despite liking them in their stand-alone movies. It seems Director Joss Whedon and pen pal, Zak Penn, are unaware of the law of diminishing returns, whereby the repetition of anything – in this case, fist-fights, and gun and super-power battles – eventually numbs to the point of indifference. Speaking of indifference, the limp-wristed, laughable, horn-wearing villain, Loki, was about as menacing as having a series of ping pong balls pitched at you. And the death of (no spoiler here) was about as emotionally moving as having your pet weevil larvae die. Effects-wise it seems despite the advances in CGI made by Avatar, and Rise of the Planet of the Apes, The Avengers decided to go retrograde, the Hulk looking nothing more than a three-dimensional cartoon, and likewise with Iron-Man and the endless stream of generic alien henchmen. The green-screen for the most part looked phony due to the artificial interior lighting illuminating the actor, mismatching the natural exterior light of the background – an Age-old problem that some directors don't seem to care about, however seriously it affects the suspension of disbelief. Anyway, enough of my moaning; if you like mindless-action with practically no story other than goodies versus baddies, and if you're a fan of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, you'll love this.