February 11, 2011 / Mediation, Uncategorized
In 1991, the Academy Award for Best Picture went to the disturbing psycho thriller, The …
Caution: The following review was written by a moviegoer who has been suffering from superhero-movie fatigue since X-Men 3 back in 2006. You have been warned.
Don’t worry — I get it. My review of The Avengers won’t make a dollar’s difference in the box office results. The best stunt you’ll see now that the film has opened is its rocket-blast rush toward breaking all records and busting all blocks. It’s faster than Iron Man in a hurry.
So I’m not going to try and persuade you to see it or not to see it. You’ve probably already seen it.
And I’m not going to bother with a detailed plot summary. About a thousand plot summaries are being posted today, and you are welcome to read as many as you like. Besides, the cards in the superhero deck are so easy to shuffle, you could have told pretty much the same story with a completely different cast of characters. (No doubt, we will see the same movie with different characters soon.) So why bother with particulars? Suffice it to say: There’s a magic cube, and it’s a portal, and there’s a bunch of nasty aliens on the other side. What can save the world. God? Love? No… a bunch of guys who, once they’re done fighting each other, will join forces and demonstrate that they’re better at violence than the villains. In the name of goodness and America and old-fashioned something-or-other.
I’m also not inclined to spend more than a few lines considering the themes of the movie. Why bother? It would be like writing an essay on the nutrition you will glean from a box of Oreo cookies, or telling the crowd at a monster-truck-and-tractor pull that the guys behind the wheels are patriots who really love their families, and that 10% of the profits will go to charity. How inspiring!
And besides, if you’re really interested in what The Avengers selects from the five or six basic flavors of comic book superhero movie themes, what honorable notions it pins like accessories to its flamboyant costumes, I can point you to plenty of reviews like that. Those reviews will applaud the movie’s simplistic stories of undisciplined egomaniacs who humble themselves to become a team; who get over themselves and put aside their differences for the greater good; who risk their lives to save others; who overcome fear and set aside grudges, etc. It’s like a cage-fighting tournament for peace. It will serve up sermon-illustrations for man-centric pastors across the country for the next several months.
But it would feel like a waste of time to rationalize my enjoyment of what is, essentially, a two-and-a-half-hour demolition derby. Let’s face it: While The Avengers gives good lip service to such American virtues as democracy, teamwork, courage, and sacrifice, ultimately it exists to fulfill the fantasies of adolescents — adolescents of all ages. For every admirable alliance established between temperamental champions, several city blocks will be destroyed. Don’t worry, the movie won’t stop to shed any tears over human casualties (unless we happen to lose a member of the team — this is a Joss Whedon film, after all) or consider the consequences of urban devastation. Everything has been carefully calculated to restore the fun we used to have watching terrorists destroy skyscrapers before we were taught what such a thing really costs.
Bored of movies in which a superhero, seemingly outmatched by a supervillain, manages to come through like Rocky and The Karate Kid in the end, saving the world with violence that the movie has carefully prepared us to embrace as justified and reasonable? Well… boy do I have the movie for you. The Avengers brings not one, not two, but a crowd of superheroes together. And, before they’re drawn into war with their Supervillain of the Month, they have to fight each other so we can see their powers going off like fireworks on the Fourth of July.
Once we’re convinced that they’re all pretty much equally invincible, and we’re feeling exhausted from the time and energy spent in such collisions, then we can watch them coordinate their efforts against a madman who is clearly in over his head. And we’re right back in the thick of the melee we came to see: an exquisitely complicated and violent ballet that will save the world from a familiar mayhem made of aliens and guns and sharp pointy things and lasers and fast flying vehicles and big nasty teeth.
But, believe it or not, it is not my intention to condemn the affair. I enjoy a good superhero movie the way I enjoy a bowl of ice cream, and this is a six-scoop sundae covered in toppings. I’m just here to point out that it’s not a particularly healthy form of entertainment, it is calculated to give us what we want rather than what we need; and it’s full of artificial ingredients. To put it another way: It’s basically history’s most expensive Itchy and Scratchy cartoon. And it so focused on fulfilling adolescent fanboy fantasies that it makes X-Men: First Class seem like Shakespeare in the Park.
Still, while I may be 41, I’m also 14. I’ve always enjoyed ice cream sundaes just as I’ve always been thrilled by blockbuster Fourth of July fireworks shows.
And as fireworks displays go, The Avengers delivers the awesome.
So, let’s abandon the essay. It seems more appropriate to respond to explosions with explosions. That’s what I’ll do.
Since the movie isn’t so much a work of storytelling as it’s a marathon of wish-fulfillment moments for comic book enthusiasts — punches peppered with punchlines — here it comes: A movie review made of comic-book style exclamations from my inner 14-year-old, which should easily fit into dialogue balloons. I’ve even put quotation marks around a bunch of outbursts for your convenience. And I’ve included exclamation points, since no movie has ever made them so necessary.
What can we say about writer and director Joss Whedon?
So… how’s Iron Man? And Thor? And Captain America? And Black Widow?
Wait, Black Widow? She’s not the weakest link here? She actually belongs on this team?
What about Jeremy Renner as Hawkeye?
Okay, how about the Incredible Hulk? After two attempts to make him a big-screen star, is the third time the charm?
Okay, what about the supervillains?
Complaints?
Conclusion:
Okay… I’m exhausted. But before we wrap up, here are a few grains of salt for the post-screening discussion.
Like I said, you can find a few nuggets of meaning in the melee. But I’m more concerned about what moviegoers will learn from entertainment like this, as opposed to what we might hope they learn.
Read the comments section for any Avengers review that dares to point out the movie’s weaknesses, and you’ll see that hordes of devoted Marvel fans will Hulk-out at the slightest provocation. (Even Samuel Jackson is throwing fuel on the outrage: “#Avengers fans, NY Times critic AO Scott needs a new job! Let’s help him find one! One he can ACTUALLY do!”) The target audience for this movie is wired to react with thoughtless rage, spectacular violence, and barely any evidence of the restraint that Bruce Banner would do anything to regain. And why not? They’ve just been cheering for a movie that treats the Hulk’s temper tantrums as if they’re a religious experience. Hulk thrills audiences by unleashing relentless destruction, and makes us look forward to moments when his curse is at its worst. And his superfriends are a bunch of overly aggressive egomaniacs who, like five-year-olds, act like it’s some kind of Herculean feat to quiet down and cooperate on a task.
Isn’t it fair to say that what these heroes might yearn to be, what they might learn to be, gets drowned out in the thrills of the supremely impressive violent spectacles that they’re assigned to provide for our pleasure?
So, with all of that in mind: Yes, I enjoyed these fireworks. I enjoyed this super sundae. But now I have an ice cream headache, and I think I’ll stick to salads for a while. For better or worse, The Avengers is the biggest, funniest, most relentlessly entertaining superhero movie so far. Only God can save us now.
Jeffrey Overstreet
Jeffrey Overstreet watches far too many movies, writes film reviews and two weekly columns for ChristianityTodayMovies.com, maintains the Web site LookingCloser.org, contributes to Paste Magazine, and is at work on a series of novels. He works at Seattle Pacific University.