Now, this coming summer, we are getting three hopefully great CBMs. These are The Avengers, The Amazing Spider-Man, and The Dark Knight Rises. Now, with any anticipated CBM, fans have some criticisms here and there from things such as trailers, production art, and images. For this article, I decided to focus on the ones for The Avengers. Why? Because...
1) It's my most anticipated out of the three
2) A lot of the criticisms I particulary don't agree with
All right, let's begin:
1) Explosions
This seems to be the biggest one. People are saying things like, "this film will be nothing but meaningless explosions". Now, it may seem that way at first, and I was worried about this, but I re-analyzed the trailers, and now I'm more relaxed about it. I discovered 99% of the explosions are only from the New York invasion sequence. In other words, the explosions are from ONE PART of the whole film, the final climax. This will be what, 20-25 minutes out of a 2 hour and 15 minute film? That's not even a whole quarter of the film! The only other explosion I noticed was the scene where the SHIELD lab explodes. So, in essence, it's stupid to say that the film will be filled with explosions, when the truth is, it's clearly not. As for them being "meaningless"? Hello, remember what Joss has said in past interviews? He says all the action in this film has a point and is there to serve the story. There's not gonna be action just for the sake of it. This does make sense. I mean, come on. There's a destruction of a high-tech lab and an alien invasion. How can you not expect explosions in those situations? Do you just want the aliens to shoot or the lab to be detroyed and nothing to happen? That seems unrealistic and stupid. Anyway, this part's gone on for too long. Next point...
2) CGI
Ah yes, computer based effects. This is something recent films have quite a bit of, and is something most film fans seem to hate. But, let's think about it. For a film like The Avengers, you need CGI! Yes, it would seem cool at first to have mostly practical effects, but honestly, if you think about it, most of those would look stupid by today's standards, especially for a film like this. I mean, could you imagine using wires to make Thor's hammer or Iron Man's suit fly, or Cap's shield ricochet? It would look stupid and as bad as the shield throwing in that Cap tv movie made in the 70'! Also, you need CGI to make a faithful representation of the Hulk. I mean, he's an 8-9 ft. tall green monster. Good luck finding an actor that is that tall! Also, this film is not trying for ultra-realism like Nolan's Batman films. The reason Nolan uses mostly practical effects is because his Batman is grounded in ultra-realism, and using mostly practical effects makes sense to achieve this. With Whedon and The Avengers, he definately is not going for realism. He wants this film to feel like a comic book, so using CGI makes sense in this situation.
3) No Story or Plot
All right, I find this critique to be really dumb, because it shows that the people saying this know nothing about the writer/director and how he makes his work. You know what Joss always concentrates on whenever he makes something? Story and character development! Everything else is second fiddle to him. On top of that, he knows how to write a damn good story and dialogue! Like I said before, Joss has said that the story of this film was most important to him in the process of its development, and the action is there to serve the story. The man knows what he is doing and knows what he is talking about! Now you're gonna ask, "but if that's true, how come we haven't seen that in the trailers?". Well, first of all, they probably don't want to give the whole story away in the previews. Secondly, the type of action shown in the trailer is something that general audiences enjoy, and will most likely fill seats because of this. It's actual smart marketing if you think about it. I like this because it tells me that Marvel has learned from their past marketing mistakes. Seriously, I felt like I already knew everything that was going to happen when I saw Thor.
4) Iron Man Focus
Some people are saying this film will be "Iron Man and Friends" or "Iron Man 2.5". Well, if you read past articles, you'll see this is not true. Both Joss and RDJ have said that they originally were going to have Iron Man at the focus, but in the end, this was dropped. You know why? Because it didn't work for this film! So, Joss switched it to Cap's POV, which they thought worked better. Recently, Joss has said that this is PROBABLY not true anymore because of the edits he made. Some didn't like this, but I think it is better. Why? Because this is supposed to be an ensemble film and was written as so! Therefore, everyone should be the main focus, not just one character. Knowing Joss, his script should reflect this because he is know for writing excellent ensemble pieces. Just look at Serenity! One other point is that some are saying that Joss cut things to make Iron Man the focus. This is just silly because, like I said before, this was written as an ensemble piece. You can't just change the script to one character's focus in the editing room. You would need to shoot all new footage for that.
5) Cap's helmet
Alright, this one, I agreed with most people on at first. In the set photos and the like, I wasn't so sure about the look of Cap's helmet and wished they went with the cowl. But, we have gotten stills from the film and clips from it. In those, I think the helmet looks great! Especially in motion! I feel my fears were put to rest with this!
In conclusion, these are my reactions to and thoughts on the film's criticisms. I feel like most of these will not be thought of once the film is out and everyone has seen it. Thank you for reading and good luck to The Avengers and all other CBMs coming out this year!
By the way, I am considering doing criticism articles for TASM and TDKR too! If you think I should, I will!