Much Ado About Nothing?

Rating: 6/10 (16 May 2012)

In late 1930's, when people were huddling in queues to see Scarlet O'Hara being declined by charming Rhett Butler, a rather unknown pulp magazine publisher, Martin Goodman, founded the company named Timely Publications. It started to publish Marvel Comics which was an instant success and over the years a small company evolved into a huge corporation worth billions of dollars. Now the work of more than 70 years is crowned with the latest product – movie of colossal proportions, designated to be a box-office hit.
More than 200 million dollars gross on the opening weekend, already over 1 billion dollars gross worldwide, 8.7 rating on IMDb.com and 242 (out of 260) fresh reviews at rottentomatoes.com – those are only some of the astonishing numbers that surround Marvel's The Avengers. It's a dream-come-true movie for the comic book lovers which finally unites most of the greatest super-heroes created by Marvel. It is no surprise that this picture is breaking box-office records, on the other hand, its high IMDb.com rating and universal critical acclaim are unexpected and force to treat The Avengers as a serious film and not as another Michael Bay movie. Those were the standards that I used in order to assess the feature.
First of all, I must point out that the story is very conventional and lacks boldness. It is a bit ironic because the movie shows us a bunch of courageous heroes and one of the main values that The Avengers highlights is bravery however its creators rely on a simple and time-tested plot formula. The movie begins with the presentation of the threat when we meet a dramatized villain. Our superheroes struggle to defeat the villain because of the lack of team work. During the movie their personality disorders are probed and eventually overcome, they learn to work together and finally win the battle thanks to a heroic act of the main superhero. It is funny because there are tons of other movies that would fit to this generalized plot summary and most of them are better examples of making money rather than good movies.
As if that would be not enough, the feature is stuffed with unoriginal ideas and tasteless jokes designed for the American audience. The villain Loki (Tom Hiddleston) - god from the Norse mythology, shares the basic ideas (and he does not have much of them) with all of the greatest threats of the USA enemies (real or fictive) starting from the commies and finishing with the latest ones including S. Hussein, M. Gaddafi and the whole North Korea. Those ideas are the enslavement of human beings, cruelty towards them and basic misanthropy. I can only imagine how fellow Americans rage when dreadful Loki declares that humanity craves for subjugation. And his method of achieving the success is even more banal, yes, ladies and gentlemen, I am speaking about the divide et impera principle. Hey, if it worked for Caesar and Napoleon why shouldn't it work for Loki?! That bastard (actually in one scene Loki's brother Thor (Chris Hemsworth) reveals in another tasteless joke that our mighty villain is adopted so this is not just a disproportionate cursing) has stolen everything! Speaking about jokes, as I already mentioned, most of them are not very new. They range from the standard laughing at someone enduring the pain to laughs triggered by villain's failure. For the sake of truth, I should say that there are some amusing characters like Captain America (Chris Evans and his "Ma'am, there's only one God, and I'm pretty sure he doesn't dress like that") or agent Phil Coulson (and his laughable passion for the Captain America and his cheesy dying scene) but I am not sure if they were supposed to be amusing in a way that they were.
On the other hand, the movie is not a total failure and has its moments. Firstly, Robert Downey (as Tony Stark/Iron Man) and Mark Ruffalo (as Bruce Banner/The Hulk) do a great job, giving their characters depth. Tony Stark's wit and charm ("JARVIS, you a fan of Jonah?") helps to make a likable character that seems to be really created and not borrowed from some stereotype. Bruce Banner, on the contrary, is a shy guy who is ashamed of his alter ego and there can be seen a certain sadness in his eyes every time we see him (though, I still think, that making him a doctor in an Indian slum was a standard Marvel's overreach). Another plus of the movie is its visualization. CGI really looks great and I can clearly see where the movie budget went. Fighting scenes, although I find them painfully long, are nicely done. It is a pleasant experience – seeing it at the theater. However, the same can be said about The Transformers
To sum up, The Avengers is clearly not a movie which I would rate highly for its content and lasting legacy. I do not believe that there is much originality in this flick and it certainly does not raise the bar for comic book movies because there simply are better movies in this category (we all know what I am talking about). However, it still is a decent form of entertainment and its visual aspect should not be forgotten. So if you have not seen it I should suggest to approach it with caution and if you did see it, well, I suggest waiting for another Avengers movie and we will try again to look through the debris of gigantism in search of dramatic life.
2012-05-17