“The Avengers”: Epic Saga or Eye-Sore? 

David Begelman

Film Critic 

When the Wizard of Oz from behind his curtain addressed the quivering Tin Man, it took the form of an inhospitable volley: “You clinking, clanking, clattering collection of caliginous junk!” The tirade was an obvious case of overkill, flung as it was at a guileless target.

Sorry to say, the Wizard’s words may be a bit more apt as a description of Joss Whedon’s 2012 blockbuster, “The Avengers.” The flick grossed 200.3 million in its first weekend, and is paradoxically wowing film critics of every stripe. It is the sixth installment in Marvel Studios’ like-minded fare, and was given a financial jump-start through a handsome loan by Merrill Lynch in 2005.

With a favorable rating by critics of 93% on the website “Rotten Tomatoes,” you wonder whether they are abandoning serious criticism, and writing as though they were press agents for production companies. According to them, the film “lives up to its hype,” and “never forgets its heroes’ humanity.” Balderdash.

The heroes in question are a motley group, faintly reminiscent of a gaggle of notables in All Star Comics of the 1940s. Those included Hawkman, Doctor Fate, Hour-Man, Spectre, Sandman, Atom, Flash, and the Green Lantern—with guest appearances by Superman and Batman. And as though it were a reminder that another half of humanity exists, Wonder Woman was made a later addition to the macho crew fighting for the American way of life.

In “The Avengers,” the fearless band of super heroes is Iron Man (Robert Downey, Jr.), Captain America (Chris Evans), the Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner), and Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) as the token female. Other prominent figures include Nick Fury, director of S.H.I.E.L.D. (Samuel L. Jackson), the C.E.O. of the group. He in turn is obliged to follow the directives of nameless bigwigs forever cast in shadows. They have a habit of issuing orders that can be counted on to be wrong.  

Just to show you that mortal heroes can cavort with the otherworldly, Thor (Chris Hemsworth) and Loki (Tom Hiddleston), godlike figures recruited from Scandinavian mythology, join the mix. (Thor is the Norse equivalent of Zeus, the thunderous overlord of Mount Olympus in Greek mythology; Loki is the counterpart of Hephaestus, the orthopedically compromised god of fire and the forge.)

The fearless five, along with hammer-flinging Thor, often seem to be no match for the nefarious Loki, who is out to subjugate the earth. After all, he is in control of Tesseract, a mysterious energy source that has allowed him to escape through a portal to become an all-around nuisance. Scenes of what happens to New York City with his newly found power are literally flung at you, with no end in sight. The rapid-fire visual effects of battle and carnage in the film are perhaps what many critics find irresistible, since they speak to a technical mastery of the medium. But the overall effect of the never-ending barrage is one of dreary repetition and, alas, fatigue.

Audiences are becoming inured to the glitziness of technical effects—as in the “The Matrix Revolutions,” “Batman, the Dark Knight” “Underworld” and “Transformers” epics. Believable narratives about other than one dimensional characters have become minor preoccupations. Seamless and less than silly screenplays are fast becoming obsolete with the arrival of each hugely subsidized blockbuster awash in unending violence.

The virtues of “The Avengers” are slim pickings, indeed. They include the quips and asides of Robert Downey, Jr. and Mark Ruffalo’s acting. But these are minority blessings in a bramble of effects that should tax the patience, if not the retinas, of moviegoers. There ought to be more to a film than being bombarded relentlessly with every new-fangled contrivance production technocrats have in store for us.

 

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