Well, I finally got around to seeing Marvel’s The Avengers. I am, unfortunately, sadly disappointed by it. If you love violence, destruction, special effects, and little character development and story, then this is a film for you. If you prefer something with a little more substance to it, then wait for it to come on cable.
This is not to say there aren’t things to like about the film, there are, but they are few and far between. At least in my opinion.
Good stuff first. Special effects are state of the art, and the costumes are mostly good (Iron Man, Cap, and Thor especially), and a few characters are very cool. For the characters we’ve seen before in recent months, we see the same actors returning in those roles, which is a good thing. Chris Hemsworth makes for a darn good Thor (I still need to see that movie) and Samuel L. Jackson makes a good Nick Fury.
There is plenty of action and special effects eye candy to bombard your eyes and mind.
Not so good stuff. Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury? Okay, try not to take this wrong, but I grew up reading Nick Fury in the comics, both as Sgt. Fury and as S.H.I.E.L.D. so I was caught a bit off-guard when Fury went through a race change back in Captain America, one of the lead-ins to this. So I did a little digging and found that yep, Marvel re-imaged Fury as part of the new Ultimate Universe re-branding of many of their titles, and, in fact, modeled the new comic book version of Fury AFTER Samuel L. Jackson with the actor’s permission.
On the up-side (back to good stuff), the re-imaging works for Fury as SLJ, and works well. I liked Jackson’s Fury much better than David Hasselhoff’s Fury from the ‘90s, even though Hasselhoff looked a lot like the original comic book Nick Fury. Jackson is also a better actor than Hasselhoff. I may end up missing the Nick Fury I grew up with, but the new Fury is darn good and Jackson is a darn good choice for the role.
More not so good stuff. I hated Iron Man, or, more specifically, Tony Stark. This guy is so full of himself that he is not likeable. Back “in the day” I liked Iron Man and Tony Stark. Why the heck did they screw Tony Stark up?
There are a lot of other things I disliked, but I don’t want to bore folks with it. I do want to make one more point, though, and that is the film is made for people who are very familiar with the Marvel Universe and the various characters. I had to spend a lot of time explaining things to my bonnie bride about the various characters, like why the hulk in one scene was trying to kill Black Widow, and then later on the Hulk is saving her behind. This was a bit jarring for my bonnie bride, but then, hey, this IS based on a comic book.
From the historical perspective, I found that it is worth noting that the villain in Avengers #1 was Loki seeking revenge against his brother Thor, and that the Hulk was involved in the Avengers at that time.
Too sum up, I think there were too many characters in the film to build up a good consistent plot around with good character development. It’s an okay film, but not great. Like Captain America was great. If you are really big into Marvel Comics, or comics in general, you will most likely enjoy it. For me, it was a mixed bag. ‘Nuff said.
