Avengers Review

I saw The Avengers  on Thursday.  Honestly, I don't think it lived up to the hype.  I know it had the biggest opening weekend ever, but honestly I didn't think it was great.  And I promise, I'm not just saying this to uphold my prediction that this movie was going to blow; I thought it was good, not great. 

Let me begin by telling you everything that I liked.  Nearly all of the characters were awesome(except for Capt. America), and my favorite, the Hulk, was a major badass.  Scarlet Johansson looked hot as always, and Robert Downey was hilarious (I know I've said it before, but has there ever been a stronger comeback in the history of Hollywood?).  The action sequences were well done and somewhat suspenseful.  Loki, who plays the villain, also did a great job portraying the ultimate villain from another world.  I could have done without his horned helmet though; it was too much like Hellboy's horns. 

I'm drifting into my critiques, so here we go.  First of all, Captain America.  The Captain America movie sucked (Upsetting b/c my nickname in student teaching was Capt. America), and Chris Evans didn't do much better in the Avengers.  I don't even think it's his fault.  Compared to all of the other Avengers Captain America just comes up short, but he's an Avenger so they can't leave him out. 

I also wasn't really big on the alien army commanded by Loki.  They flew these giant, metal beasts that looked like a cross between a sea turtle and a moray eel.  Those were kind of weird, and then they never did any close-ups of the foot soldiers.  I for one was curious as to what they looked like beneath their masks.  Sure they put up a good fight and added to a sweet action sequence, but I would have been ok with some more back story on the aliens and some close ups. 

And then there was the attempt at developing Black Widow's character.  I didn't like how they started to reveal some things about her past and then just swooped away from it.  Black Widow and Night Hawk (I think that's Jeremy Renner's character's name) were the only two Avengers who didn't have their own movies, so naturally some more back story would have been nice, but with so many characters it seemed difficult for them to develop some of the minor Avengers.  That's one of the major drawbacks with having so many heroes in one movie, and I hope that Renner and Johansson's characters provide more details about their past in the sequel (Yes people, the sequel has already been green lit). 

Again, I'll admit that I may be somewhat biased because my prediction flopped, but I still affirm that the movie was good, not great.  The two people I know who saw it disagree and absolutely loved it, so I advise you to make your own judgement.  Go see this one in the theater; it's probably worth it if you like comic book movies.  Here's a trailer: