Joss Whedon's THE AVENGERS

Movie review by Dennis D. McDonald

THE AVENGERS is an OK piece of entertainment, I guess. Several times during the first hour I started to doze off. I usually enjoy well made comic book movies, and this one strives to be at the top of the heap when it comes to that genre. But the cardboard nature of the characters doesn’t generate that much emotional connection, especially with Samuel Jackson’s lackluster rendering of Nick Fury.

Also, listening to heroes’ banter and quarreling is entertaining the first time but after several movies like this it starts to fall flat. (I thought THE INCREDIBLES were much more engaging super heroes.)

Parts of the movie and its imagery are reminiscent of SKY CAPTAIN AND THE WORLD OF TOMORROW. For example, the flying aircraft carrier reminded me a lot of Angelina Jolie’s aerial HQ in that movie.

The last half of the movie is exciting but for me at least super-battle-in-middle-of-big-city movies are starting to get old.

I found MISSION IMPOSSIBLE GHOST PROTOCOL and JOHN CARTER to be much more interesting. Both had more engaging characters and much more interesting and unique images. JOHN CARTER especially had more interesting flying machines and aliens; the alien design in THE AVENGERS seems derivative and uninspiring.

I’ll give this a solid C+. It’s fun but there’s a lot better entertainment out there both new and old.

Review copyright (c) 2012 by Dennis D. McDonald