So Im very late to this party....

My review of the Avengers Film:

I am also a big comic fan. Not as big as some but I do have a small collection of comics. A few from 80s and 90s, and most post 2000. Overall from a comic fans perspective I would rate the movie very good. I'm not a purist in the sense that every single detail has to go along with the source material. If that were the case so many aspects about comic movies wouldn't attract many people outside of comic lore to sit through 2 hours of total geekery.

When movie makers destroy too much of the source material/poorly depict characters I.E. Batman & Robin movie destroying the Bane character as well as Mr. Freeze and countless others, FF:RSS attempting to include Galactus when the best they could come up with was turning him into a huge space dust cloud, FF having poor quality depictions of Mr. Fantastic and Invisible woman, Green Lantern movie being thinly written over the top and poor character building, Spider-Man 3s big budget sloppy mess with too many sub plots weak depiction of villains (Venoms character was destroyed and appeared thrown in the movie without getting his character right in order to sell more tickets. I was ashamed of they way they depicted Venom.), and stale rehashed scenes....Thats when people like me tend to bash the particular movie. Small changes don't bother me as long as they get the characters and the core of the plots correct and depict them in a way that works in a movie.

Joss Whedon and the crew were able to bring all of the actors/actresses together in a beautiful, fun, cohesive, fresh, and explosive way. It is a hard thing to do when having so many talents all in one film and giving each one equal time to shine. No one character really outshined the others (although i had some favorites). Each had their moment. Is it the best super hero movie I have seen? Yes and no. the plot and story not so much. its been done before and familiar territory. But the way the characters developed as a team, the intelligent interactions, the out of no where comedic surprises is what made this movie shine and give a good feel to a complete package. The plot line may have been a common one, but it was put together beautifully with style.

It was refreshing to finally see a movie where the Hulk was depicted with near perfection. Ruffalo's mannerisms as banner and fidgety smart style was spot on. And I have yet to see a Hulk movie that really caused you to see the true fearful and menacing side of the Hulk. So far in movies he has mainly come across as only a big green dumb angry monster. Which all of those he is, but you never really could sense the fear until the moment that Hulk was playing hide and seek with Black Widow on the Hellicarrier. And I loved the interaction between the heroes when it came to their differences. It included everything that an Avengers fan would expect. Arguments between Stark and Cap due to their clashing leadership personalities with differing viewpoints. the grudge pommeling match between Thor and Hulk. The distrust between Avengers members and SHIELD. The sneakiness of Black Widow getting exactly the information she wanted out of Loki by playing him. The trickery and conniving by Loki. the bond between Thor and his brother Loki during the scene on the mountain top, The "Hulk Smash" line given to Hulk by Cap. The planner mentality, tactician, focused, heart for good and leader that Cap is. The let loose, selfish, fun loving, intelligent, ADHD side of Tony Stark. The awkwardness, intelligent, caring, laid back side of Banner. The secretive pursuits for power within SHIELD. The commanding, big ego, tough guy pressence of Thor. The genuine special admiration of the classical Captain America by Agent Coulson with his vintage card collection. The calm, collected, tactical, mission guided side of Hawkeye. The raw power that the Hulk truly yields and not even showing what that potential is. he isn't afraid of any being whether its a god or not. It dosn't matter what the entity might be if it angers him. I could go on. it was all there. The movie exuded appreciation for the source material. Thats what spoke volumes and it was put together in a way that even non comic fans found as fun, enjoyable, and interesting. people with different backgrounds, different abilities coming together. Putting aside arguments to overcome opposition. Its what many people like to see.

Also on another subject I see a lot of people trying to compare it to movies like the Dark Knight. this is a completely different animal honestly. The Dark Knight I would not really define as a super hero movie even though it has Batman in it. The Nolan depiction of batman works because that character can be put into a film much more serious with realistic plot lines. It has its own demented, twisted, dark, serial killer mind persona. Dark Knight clouds the line between Super hero and realistic sadistic killer mentality movie. Nolans work is fantastic, but if DC eventually makes a Justice League movie everyone knows that version of Batman absolutely does not fit into that type of movie with aliens, supernatural, and sci fi plot lines. In essence you really can't compare Avengers to Dark Knight in terms of strictly super hero films. The two just don't mesh. They are different styles of movies. Im not sure how many of you know who the Black Panther is in Marvel comics but honestly he would be a character that Nolan's Dark Knight depiction would work with. more realistic and serious plot lines. Thats why Im excited to see a Black Panther movie. there are many angles they could take it. Dosn't have to be Nolan style, but my point is that type of character would work for Nolan's style. For a Justice League movie they will need to reboot Batman and have it be more of a super hero type movie and not so serious (Why so serious?:0) Either that or have a movie where Superman and Batman team up. Have a Wonder Woman movie and then just throw a Justice League movie together with those actors/acress and include Flash, Aquaman, Martian Man Hunter, and Green Lantern. I highly doubt they could make a successful Aquaman movie on its own. Just imagining someone controlling all the Fishies of the sea dosn't sound very appealing in film.

So in light of that for strictly Super Hero movies Avengers might be at the top of my list and ones up there as well would include X-Men first class, Spidey 2, Iron Man 1. I just think very few directors could have pulled this one off as well as Whedon did. This is how true popcorn fun superhero movies should be.

Sorry for the lengthy post, but if you got this far congratulations on reading a book in one day.

Yes you were, but that was a great review and a great post. I agree with a lot of what you said. Comparing Avengers with Dark Knight is like comparing apples to oranges. Dark Knight works as a serious film whereas Avengers works because it never takes itself too seriously and concentrates on the chemistry between the characters combined with some great comedy moments.

^^
Thanks... I just let the inner comic geekiness flow.

And exactly. They can't really b in comparison in the same relationship because they are two different movie formulas. Each one executes its style near perfectly.

Added a poll.

I plan on hitting the theaters one more time. I never did that on any other super hero movie. In fact only a couple other movies have I ever done that.

This is the reason for Avengers skyrocketing financial success as well.

I call BS on this. You are a pretty regular VGC user, and the movie had plenty of threads before Maybe you just gave it a passing glance, but simply didnt care

In terms of hype, The Avengers I'd say is probably one of the most hyped but also probably not the most hyped - I think it would be hard to pin down the most hyped film of all time due to shifting demographics and media vehicles although I'll note a few other possibilities.

The Avengers did have a crazy built up of expectation over a number of years/films which probably is fairly unique - although given the relatively average (in blockbuster terms) performance of the other movies such as Thor and Captain America the true impact of this I think is being over exaggerated. For sure it is among the more hyped films particularly in terms of target audience awareness prior to launch - although where it falls a bit short is awareness outside that demographic - i.e. a whole ton of people clearly have little idea about it other than another summer movie with some comic book characters.

From memory, in terms of hype, if I had to try and pick a film it would actually be The Empire Strikes Back. Star Wars had been huge of course - much bigger than The Avengers or The Dark Knight today and just behind Gone With The Wind in domestic performance - and had much, much more cultural impact than either of those films.

As you can imagine the build up and interest in Empire was immense at the time, just enormous and beyond target audience demographics - in terms of prior to release interest and then desire to attend the launch I really can't remember anything bigger right up to the release of The Avengers and yes considering the imminent release of The Dark Knight Rises.

I't's also worth considering that, at least in US, the largest films from say 1970 forward are easily Star Wars, Jaws, Exorcist, Titanic and ET. All of those saw more interest (if you adjust for inflation which you have to if you want to compare them) and all of them had far broader media coverage (post release for sure) and cultural impact.

But the Avengers is a lot of fun and wildly successful - and given I think Joss has had a really unlucky run over many years as a very talented guy it's really nice to see him knock it out of the park like this. The film is like the best candy floss you can buy - and I mean that as a compliment.

To this day - despite my dislike for the prequels nor how Lucas handled the franchise IP - I can understand why the pressure of delivering Empire was apparently almost too much for Lucus to manage.

That's fair. Like I said, I don't remember Empire's hype. My brother does and he often told me just how much he wanted to see that film and how his head nearly exploded from its awesomeness when it did release. He would have been somewhere around 14 when it hit theatres.

Part of what I factor into hype is, like you said, cultural impact. Star Wars had that in spades (I bet most here don't even realize that the movie was re-released to theatres on its first anniversary, find another movie that can claim that), as did ET (I don't remember Jaws, obviously). The movies were inescapable when they released. Everybody was talking about them. Not just kids or geeks, everybody. Shit, my grandmother saw those films in the theatre. That's the type of sway they had over the public.

In more recent terms, I think Avatar had close to the that kind of hype. It fell a little short but the movie was a massive event. The same goes for The Dark Knight. Titanic definitely had "cultural impact" type of hype. Episode I was obviously hyped to the moon, more than any movie I can remember.

My only point is that movies hyped on Avengers' level are not that uncommon. They pop up every year or two but the movies that change public perception on a grand scale, those are a rarity.

I see episode 1 being mentioned

Let me remind you all in America Episode 1 ended up selling 85 MILLION Tickets...a lot of that thanks to the TREMENDOUS HYPE.

No film SINCE has sold more tickets than it...not even avatar (that ended with around 78 Million tickets...3D & inflation ftw?).

Avengers won't get anywhere near those ticket sales.

Were there? I probably didn't realise what they were about and ignored them, lol.

In NA,yes... On a worldwide scale,they'll end up pretty much the same.