The Avengers: Movie Review

To be honest, as a group, I never liked the Avengers much. They were a mid ranged super hero group. They weren't nearly as cool as the X-Men (but certainly didn't suck as bad as the Fantastic Four, who always sucked hard). They were a franchise with some huge independent names like Thor, Hulk and Iron Man. I lost interest when they split into East Coast and West Coast Avengers and when Mr Wonderful joined them (he was like a Marvel version of Superman, which sucks the hardest).

The X-Men were bound together in solidarity by their outsider status, which appealed to a generation of depressed teenagers pre Ritalin. However with the Avengers, one could never seem to escape the feeling that they were just high priced mercenaries who represented the free market privatization of the corporate military industrial complex.

If the Avengers were real, they would be owned jointly by Blackwater and a Halliburton subsidiary.

Comic hero geekery aside, the movie bringing together several successful movie franchises into a mega franchise is the ultimate corporate movie orgy. The Hulk's previous movies have all been terrible, thankfully he is a show stopper in Avengers. Captain America's movie was surprisingly good as was Thor's movie. Iron Man one was really good, the second one dragged. The legacy this movie culminates in promises much and delivers.

My only issue was I couldn't work out what was more unbelievable, an invisible flying aircraft carrier or the fact it got blown up by an arrow.

If I was on the budgetary committee justifying the expenditure of an invisible flying aircraft carrier, I sure as fuck wouldn't want to hear our multi-billion dollar flying ship of invisible death was blown up by a bloody bow and arrow.

Who'd want to sign off on that?

One of the low points is the choice of Loki as the enemy. Bit of a yawn. Heath Ledger's out standing performance as the Joker leaves the super hero audience craving villains with that level of complexity. Loki throwing his usual wobbly and opening inter-dimensional wars leaves a pretty dull villain to fight.

The ultimate super hero movie trilogy would be making the Secret Wars series into films. In the Secret Wars, a whole bunch of Marvel Super heroes and villains are beamed to a world, split up differently and set against each other. X-Men, Spiderman, Fantastic Four, Avengers and a bunch of others were all mixed up and set against the Marvel universe worst villains, Absorbing Man, Doctor Doom, Doctor Octopus, the Enchantress, Kang the Conqueror, Klaw, the Lizard, Molecule Man, Titania, Ultron, Volcana, and the Wrecking Crew.

Marvel trade marketed Secret Wars in 2010 primarily for video game rights, but it allows for movies so a Secret War project could well be in the pipeline to bring the Spiderman, Avengers, X-Men and Fantastic Four franchises together.

5 stars.

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