The Avengers: not a review
Apr. 28th, 2012 10:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hawkwing_lbIf I had to use just one word to sum up what irks me most about The Avengers film, it would be this: wasteful.
*
It's a sprawling film. But it's all glitter. No heart. A stellar cast exchanging zinging one-liners and trading snark barbs - although neither Scarlett Johansson nor Jeremy Renner seem to have the presence to hold their own alongside their co-stars - but when you take away Robert Downey Jr. cracking wise with perfect comic timing and Samuel R. Jackson glaring one-eyed at the world, what do you have left?
A lot of explosions.
Not much else.
*
Tom Hiddleston was pitch-perfect as Loki in Thor. He's still mesmerising, coolly amusing, and strangely charming even while going full-on Wicked. But in The Avengers he is a villain for the sake of villainy: his I am a GOD and you will BOW schtick is not a very interesting motivation for any character, even one who canonically has the universe's worst case of sibling envy.
His every scene seethes with energy and chill malevolence, but even Hiddleston's chops can't inflate the hollow shell that's Loki's reason to be bad.
*
Hollowness is a problem all over. Mark Ruffalo and Chris Evans bring both talent and hotness to bear on the roles of Bruce Banner and Captain America, but they have, let's be honest, very little to work with: a film that relies for its impact on its death-or-glory action should put a little more work into getting the audience to care whether its characters live or die.
Success, after all, is a given: one hardly expects The Avengers to destroy the whole earth before it even gets a sequel.
Hotness, while appreciated, on its own just isn't enough.
*
Thor and Tony Stark actually get a smidgeon of solid characterisation. They have pre-existing film franchises of their own, but they also get more face-time with Loki, who wants to best them in ways that are very personal.
*
Let's not mention how white this film is, with the exception of Samuel R. Jackson. Or how American-centric: the end of the world can happen outside the continental states, you know. Or how male: don't tell me Marvel doesn't have another female superhero they could have used in place of Hawkeye.
But that would have made four women with speaking parts, and three women who get fighty with the boys: as it is, I'm not sure Agent Hill (played with understated competence and solid presence by Cobie Smulders) is even in the same room as Johansson's Black Widow at any point, much less allowed to exchange words with her.
*
The Avengers is a film in love with its own conceits and its own hype, wedded to style - big, garish, flashy style - over substance. Take away a few of its toys - like the giant pointless ridiculous flying aircraft-carrier, WTF my suspension of disbelief, you pushed it, over - and given the script more snark and fewer pointless fighty bits, and it could have been so much better.
I am fond of fighty bits. I liked Battleship, for the sweet godless heavens' sakes; I watched Thor and the first Iron Man more than once. But there comes a point when fighty bits stop being entertaining and become ridiculously self-indulgent, and The Avengers hits that point rather early on.
*
The Avengers: it entertained me less than Battleship.
Although it does have better snark, Chris Hemsworth (sadly not shirtless), and Robert Downey Jr (also sadly not shirtless).
*
It's a sprawling film. But it's all glitter. No heart. A stellar cast exchanging zinging one-liners and trading snark barbs - although neither Scarlett Johansson nor Jeremy Renner seem to have the presence to hold their own alongside their co-stars - but when you take away Robert Downey Jr. cracking wise with perfect comic timing and Samuel R. Jackson glaring one-eyed at the world, what do you have left?
A lot of explosions.
Not much else.
*
Tom Hiddleston was pitch-perfect as Loki in Thor. He's still mesmerising, coolly amusing, and strangely charming even while going full-on Wicked. But in The Avengers he is a villain for the sake of villainy: his I am a GOD and you will BOW schtick is not a very interesting motivation for any character, even one who canonically has the universe's worst case of sibling envy.
His every scene seethes with energy and chill malevolence, but even Hiddleston's chops can't inflate the hollow shell that's Loki's reason to be bad.
*
Hollowness is a problem all over. Mark Ruffalo and Chris Evans bring both talent and hotness to bear on the roles of Bruce Banner and Captain America, but they have, let's be honest, very little to work with: a film that relies for its impact on its death-or-glory action should put a little more work into getting the audience to care whether its characters live or die.
Success, after all, is a given: one hardly expects The Avengers to destroy the whole earth before it even gets a sequel.
Hotness, while appreciated, on its own just isn't enough.
*
Thor and Tony Stark actually get a smidgeon of solid characterisation. They have pre-existing film franchises of their own, but they also get more face-time with Loki, who wants to best them in ways that are very personal.
*
Let's not mention how white this film is, with the exception of Samuel R. Jackson. Or how American-centric: the end of the world can happen outside the continental states, you know. Or how male: don't tell me Marvel doesn't have another female superhero they could have used in place of Hawkeye.
But that would have made four women with speaking parts, and three women who get fighty with the boys: as it is, I'm not sure Agent Hill (played with understated competence and solid presence by Cobie Smulders) is even in the same room as Johansson's Black Widow at any point, much less allowed to exchange words with her.
*
The Avengers is a film in love with its own conceits and its own hype, wedded to style - big, garish, flashy style - over substance. Take away a few of its toys - like the giant pointless ridiculous flying aircraft-carrier, WTF my suspension of disbelief, you pushed it, over - and given the script more snark and fewer pointless fighty bits, and it could have been so much better.
I am fond of fighty bits. I liked Battleship, for the sweet godless heavens' sakes; I watched Thor and the first Iron Man more than once. But there comes a point when fighty bits stop being entertaining and become ridiculously self-indulgent, and The Avengers hits that point rather early on.
*
The Avengers: it entertained me less than Battleship.
Although it does have better snark, Chris Hemsworth (sadly not shirtless), and Robert Downey Jr (also sadly not shirtless).
