Unpopular Opinion: BOTH of Joss Whedon's Avengers movies are overrated

[Summoner]

sigh maybe this is why Giant Bomb banned me.

Yes, yes, yes. Okay, I know my opinion is unpopular. You don't need to beat me over the head with it. I even included it in the title so you wouldn't treat me like I don't know how unorthodox this opinion is.

Allow me to preface by saying that I'm an MCU fan. Which doesn't mean I love every single MCU film. In fact, there are a lot of MCU films I don't really like. But the difference between the MCU and another film franchise is that if I love an MCU film, I will want to make sweet love to it all night long (you don't need to imagine that disturbing imagery). If I hate an MCU film, I will want to ruin that movie by desecrating every single copy.

And for those of you wondering what my Top 5 is, it's probably (only the top 4 are concrete) Civil War > Guardians of The Galaxy > The Winter Soldier and The First Avenger > some other film in the franchise.

I'm probably 1 in 10 people that left the cinema in 2012 and felt disappointed after watching Marvel's The Avengers the first time. And I'm probably 1 in an immeasurable amount of people that left Age of Ultron thinking it was better then it's predecessor (not by much, but I still prefer it).

A lot of people dislike, or are disappointed in Age of Ultron, but a lot of people still hail the first Avengers movie as the tour de force of superhero movies. I personally find both of them to be fine. I don't hate them. There are parts of them I really like. I still find them to be fairly enjoyable superhero movies in the right places, but honestly? I feel that Whedon missed the mark...

... on both times.

My first of all complaints against the Avengers films applies solely to the first Avengers film. Although I can't say the MCU has a track record for great cinematography, The Avengers is chief among the casualties.

I can at least say that, although flatly shot, Age of Ultron still looks like a movie. The first Avengers looks like a TV episode - tight framing, lack of cinematic element, and nearly every in door scene is hard to bear. As far as action sequences go, the New York battle in the final 30 minutes of the film remains an enjoyable piece of blockbuster action, and the Thor vs. Hulk fight is still exhilarating, but the rest of the fights? The attack on SHIELD HQ, the car chase, Thor vs. Iron Man, the Heli fights (with the exception of Hulk vs. Thor) are honestly bland.

By biggest issue with these films, however, is the writing. I'd be able to forgive the bland cinematography if the movies were well written, but the scripts in both films disappoint me as a movie fan, and a comic book fan. Firstly, Joss doesn't know what to do with Thor in both movies. Chris Hemsworth is good as Thor (maybe it has something to do with the fact that I'm Aussie), but in the first film, he is sidelined, spending a majority of the film separate from the team, and in the second film, he is a plot device, with, IIRC, the least amount of screen time of all the major Avengers.

Secondly, Hawkeye. Jeremy Renner was disappointed in his role in the first film and rightfully so. He spent a majority of the film as Loki's lackey. He improved in Age of Ultron, but he was still a trope. An enjoyable character, but a trope regardless.

The first Avengers film is praised for achievement in long-form storytelling, but there was little benefit, from a storytelling standpoint, to make those 5 films before The Avengers. Yes, it made it an event, but Marvel's The Avengers didn't make much out of what they established in the rest of the phase 1 films. Take Civil War for example - which builds off of the ideologies and personalities of all what has been established in the prior films. In the two Avenger's films? Joss writes them like caricatures.

Ok... I'm going to ask you a favour. I want you to imagine Steve Rogers, the character from TFA, TWS, and CW, busting a fellow Avenger for swearing, by saying "Language!" Please imagine that for a few seconds...

... another second...

You seeing it?

How about Tony Stark? Movies like Iron Man (2008) and Civil War have shown us how great of a dramatic actor Tony is, AND how complex of a character he can be. None of that in Marvel's The Avengers? We see him poking around & electrifying Banner. I get that he wants to "liven the mood", but it equates to a much less compelling character.

Every character in both the films are written similarly. Wit can be organically integrated, but in Age of Ultron's climax, it is practically a quip riot:

Thor distracting Ultron.

"Whoa ho, you kiss your mother with that mouth?"

"The last I saw him, Ultron was sitting on him. Uh... yeah, he'll be missed. That quick little bastard. I miss him already..."

"You had to ask..."

Oh, and don't forget their mistreatment of Loki. Joke fodder, as Hulk slaps him around for the sake of a good laugh.

_______________________________

As I prefaced earlier, I enjoy both films - although I prefer Age of Ultron for it's storytelling depth - but I don't regard Marvel's The Avengers for coming off-of the back of 5-pre established films. It needs to do more then that. If anything, those five films should be praised more for building up to that movie. Not the movie which wasted the build up.

Hope I don't sound hostile.

Thanks for reading.

 

[dude stannis]

I enjoy The Avengers. It starts off pretty shakey, but I enjoy the hell out of the second half. I absolutely detest Age of Ultron on the other hand, hate it with a passion of a thousand burning suns. Civil War absolutely tops both by quite a margin though.

 

[Summoner]

I enjoy The Avengers. It starts off pretty shakey, but I enjoy the hell out of the second half. I absolutely detest Age of Ultron on the other hand, hate it with a passion of a thousand burning suns. Civil War absolutely tops both by quite a margin though.

At least we can agree on that

 

[Brian Braddock]

Loved Avengers when it came out but with hindsight I've come to realize that I loved it more for the 'event' that it was, not actually for the movie that it was. Kinda the same with AoU, although there are certain scenes and set pieces in that movie that I'll watch over and over.

For me, I guess it's all about tone - I much prefer the tone used by the Russo's in TWS and CW.

 

[Summoner]

Loved Avengers when it came out but with hindsight I've come to realize that I loved it more for the 'event' that it was, not actually for the movie that it was. Kinda the same with AoU, although there are certain scenes and set pieces in that movie that I'll watch over and over.

For me, I guess it's all about tone - I much prefer the tone used by the Russo's in TWS and CW.

You hit it right in the head in regards to the tone. The Russo Brothers somehow manage to combine the popcorn fun of the first Avengers movies with a slightly gritty tone. That's why the CA trilogy is the best superhero trilogy, imo.

 

[Doctor Octopus]

First one is great. Deserve all praise. Second one not as good but I like it.

 

[djsunyc]

i fear this is a result of superhero movie oversaturation.

 

[Victarion]

I enjoy The Avengers. It starts off pretty shakey, but I enjoy the hell out of the second half. I absolutely detest Age of Ultron on the other hand, hate it with a passion of a thousand burning suns. Civil War absolutely tops both by quite a margin though.

I'm almost the exact opposite of you on the Avengers movies, Stannis.

 

[pr0xyt0xin]

I think OP is wrong. For sure. But not because the Avengers films are masterpieces, but because they aren't really "overrated" in most cases. IMDB scores for Avengers (the quote/unquote better one) are 8.1, metacritic score 69%. Age of Ultron even lower.

I mean, I love the films, but theres no way I'd consider the half a million people on IMDB ranking them 7.5 - 8.0 "OVERRATED" thats just silly.

Avengers
8.1/10 IMDb
92% Rotten Tomatoes
69% Metacritic

Age of Ultron
7.5/10 IMDb
75% Rotten Tomatoes
66% Metacritic

 

[Tony Stark]

Sorry but the Loki ragdoll scene is probably one of the best in all comic book movie history. The only thing that comes close is Deadpool capping that dude in the middle of Colossus' speech about what it means to be a hero.

 

[AndrewGilkison]

Avengers is one of the best superhero movies of all time. Well written, well paced, well structured and just tremendous fun.

Age of Ultron, not as much.

Edit: I will add some more thoughts to this.

I think Loki was brilliant in Avengers. His arc was a natural progression from where he ended up at the end of Thor (his supervillain origin story). He is the angry vengeful demigod lashing out at his adopted brother, and has a massive ego and inferiority complex about his true heritage. So I think all the moments in Avengers where he is poked fun at and gets ragged dolled by The Hulk are well earned, because he does it to himself when he gets overly cocky or loses his composure when things aren't going perfectly according to plan.

And for the first two acts he is one step ahead of the Avengers and Shield. They are the ones chasing him. He only gets captured by them when he allows himself to as its part of his plans. And he nearly brings down the Hellicarrier and has the Avengers at each others throats. And he would've conquered the earth if the Avengers hadn't put their differences aside and united.

So I think Avengers treats Loki well as a villain, and gives him a great showing.

Ultron in Age of Ultron I think was less successful.

 

[StormC]

TA's plot is a little too simple for my tastes, the cinematography is indeed too reminiscent of network television and its third act could have really used a final battle against Loki instead of just fighting waves of drones, but it holds up on rewatches for me thanks to the natural chemistry from the actors and the unapologetic superhero tone. There's still few movies that can match the feeling of seeing it in theaters for the first time - it's very much an event film, but that's exactly what it needed to be.

AOU isn't particularly great but I still enjoy it for the actors/characters and find the set pieces to be much better than TA. And yes, it finally looks like a movie. Love the farm scenes too. Most everything else is a significant downgrade from TA.

CW is better than both of them. I don't think you're blowing too many minds with this post. Most of this has been said already.

 

[TheVileOne]

Age of Ultron can't really be overrated since it didn't get as good reviews as the first and it didn't meet Disney's BO expectations.

 

[TeeKay]

Both Avengers films are great imo, the second one especially. I don't care if The Avengers looked like a TV movie. One of the biggest applauses moments in that film is the" I'm always angry" scene. Right at that punch the audience is there with the film, and Hulk 100% more then they ever had been. One of the most epic moments I've seen in a theatre. People wanna rag on these movies because they have simple plots and story beats (which is true) but the character work alone elevates them from being typical popcorn blockbuster films. What Joss achieved in both films in terms of balancing characters and keeping the story as tight as he could possibly do is nothing short of astounding given that he wrote the films by himself. ALL the characters are progressed naturally from film to film. There's no character who was did or said anything out of character. Cap saying 'language' was not out of character. He's the man out of time after all. It's amazing how far we've come in this universe. All plotlines and character work in Phase twois result of the first Avengers film.

I get people may see them as cheesy and campy but you gotta give credit where credits Due. They pulled it off.Whedon knows what comic book fans what. He's the sought of guy who say "Wouldn't it be cool if".. He's a fanboy and that makes him the perfect director for The Avengers or any other CBM for that matter.One of my favorite parts is the virtuoso sequence during the final act where the camera continuously follows the action from one Avenger to the next, starting with Black Widow, then following Iron Man who joins up Captain America, then Iron Man passing through Hawkeye whose arrow then the camera follows to where Thor and Hulk are fighting. It truly shows how all of them are working together, fulfilling their respective roles as The Avengers. Then this carried over into AoU from the opening sequence right down to the climax where they're all protecting the core.

I think Avengers has addressed the balance of superhero movies because post TDK, most cbms wanted to emulate that tone, ugh the dark and gritty stuff. Th Avengers showed you embrace the wacky comic booky stuff and still make a great movie with good characters and good action.People complain that The Avengers doesn't "transcend the genre". This IS the genre, it's the purest example of superhero comics on film that I have ever seen. Don't try to reinvent the wheel until you get it spinning in the first place. The story in The Avengers is pretty straight forward, A massive threat descends upon the earth and a team is assemble to stop the war. The plot is simple. The story isn't. They are two different things. It's all about the details, the character interactions, the character development.The complexity is actual the driving theme of the film which is to get the group to come together as one unit by removing the obstacle of their egos, their princples, their fears etc. To me, the reason why Whedon had Loki get smashed was because he was making a humorous statement about a bad movie troupe: the overly-dramatic cornball villain monolouge. We’ve all seen villains go on and on and on about themselves that it’s gotten to the point where it’s like “Just shut up already.” So Whedon did just that. Instead of forcing the audience to hear yet another ego-stroking monolouge for Loki, he let Hulk be a stand-in for the crowd. So, Hulk did what he does best: smash, and that way Loki was shut up. He did this similalry with Ultron when Stark asks what the vibranium is for, "I'm glad you asked that, because I wanted to take this time to explain my evil plan." Another villain trope where the villain reveals his entire plan to the heroes.

The final dialogue between Ultron and the Vision was both so short and so pregnant that the movie would've benefitted greatly from there being five or six more lines to that scene. The surprising inversion is that The Vision is actually not interested in the future: he admits humanity is doomed and argues that that doom is what makes us worthwhile. ("Nothing is beautiful because it lasts forever.") So we have on the one hand an aggressive, horrific vision of a future that needs to be forestalled, and on the other a compassionate, angelic vision of not the future but the present. The movie ultimately makes no argument for a better future or really for any future at all; the best possibility is just more of the same, until it's over.

After all, there's so much to be said about the clash of these two kinds of artificial life / intelligence that depend so much on one another. I love how Yin-Yang the movie gets with this: Ultron is right, extinction level events are a part of the grand scheme of things and we wouldn't be here if it wasn't for the exact course of things leading to here and now, including all (natural) cataclysms. It's almost like he's Shiva incarnate, reaching out to close another cycle of life and death.

So, Ultron represents the demanding, destructive Yang. And the Vision represents the receiving, bending Yin ('bending' because the Vision is immediately able to adapt to the conditions that he finds himself in: bound to a humanoid vantage point and thus instilled with a sense of wonder and forbearance about life itself). The point is that both are sides to the same coin. They arise mutually - Ultron needs the Vision to fulfill himself while the Vision needs Ultron to be conceived in the first place. It's such a beautiful constellation of characters. I loved it.

These movies are deeper and got some good character work especially AoU. I'll forever stand by these movies. The awesomeness of both films can be summed up by these two shots;

In my life I never thought I'd see the day where I'll see an Avengers film, with Thor, Captain America, Hulk, Vision, etc and make great movies out of them. They may not be perfect but right now? I feel they'll stand the test of time especially the first movie. I'll miss Whedon and I'd never turn on him for what he did for us with the films. Can't wait for the IW films though.

 

[Flint Marko]

Well said, Teekay. Both Avengers films, and the MCU as a whole, are undeniably impressive achievements from top to bottom. If someone doesn't like these films and this universe I completely understand and respect that opinion, but I feel they are deeply missing out on the greatest superhero movie experience to date. Marvel has turned themselves into one of, if not the, most important forces in 21st century pop culture and as someone who grew up loving superhero comic books, it's a dream come true.

 

[Batsfan1]

I personally agree. The 1st is very simplistic, characters are underused or not allowed to have strong character arcs, other character's are made to look like fools when their characters were solid in previous films and Joss Whedon's overuse of comedy is a little annoying. The 2nd is muddled and a little messy. It has the opposite problem of BvS, where that was a crazy movie with dumb stuff in it, AOU is a dumb movie with crazy stuff in it, where characters are again underused and misused and even the villain is like a stand up comedian. TA is a tighter, better made movie than AOU certainly, but I can't say that either are the best the MCU or even CBM's in general have given. Have a very great day you and everyone!

God bless you! God bless everyone!

 

[StormC]

AOU is a weird movie for it because I have a great time watching it but I'm always very critical of it in discussion. I think it only really works well if you have a strong investment in the MCU and its characters/storyline; objectively I find it to have too many problems to call it genuinely great. It's entertaining and fun and for the most part well-directed, but Joss's attempts to deepen it thematically feel surface-level (the brief conversation between Ultron and Vision, the graffiti in Sokovia of the Avengers, etc.), especially amidst the sea of humor overkill, shameless derivation from the previous movie, and too many plot threads that are underdeveloped. The current model for the story really needed to be three hours to be satisfying, and that's a problem. After watching Civil War the movie feels downright juvenile.

The Avengers is a simple movie, but it has clear goals and it sets out to achieve them very well. AOU tries to do too much and you feel like you've watched three movies after it (despite it very narrowly actually being shorter than the first movie). What AOU has in its favor is replay value thanks to the variety; TA is basically four scenes long (attack on SHIELD - recruit Avengers - Helicarrier - Battle Of New York).

 

[Leo Zelinsky]

As an X-Men fan I'd kill for quality movies that people cared about like The Avenger's

 

[DACrowe]

First Avengers is a classic for proving that a shared universe franchise can work and delivering that concept to fruition in a cathartic and satisfying way.

Is it great cinema? Not really, but that is not the aim for any of the MCU films. It is just plain old fun.

The second one is a mess, and your mileage will vary.

 

[DACrowe]

As an X-Men fan I'd kill for quality movies that people cared about like The Avenger's

I would not go that far. In terms of box office, sure. But many of the X-Men movies I would take any day over AoU. Do not sell yourself short just because Apocalypse was a disappointment.

Kidding aside, Whedon left his mark. He can hold his head high on the genre.

 

[Doctor Octopus]

I would not go that far. In terms of box office, sure. But many of the X-Men movies I would take any day over AoU. Do not sell yourself short just because Apocalypse was a disappointment.

Kidding aside, Whedon left his mark. He can hold his head high on the genre.

Agreed. Whedon did Avengers which show how shared universe work great. That is big mark to leave.

 

[Raiden]

It's easy to criticize The Avengers now, but back in 2008 there was a lot of doubt whether the shared universe would work, and what happened if TA didn't perform as expected. Bringing the team together seems like a cake walk now, but Whedon managed to did it well and gave us many memorable moments, like the circle pan around the team and Cap telling Hulk to "destroy". The worst part of the movie was Cap's costume, which thanks to the Russo Bros. was revised and improved in TWS. It's still a milestone in the superhero genre.

As for AOU, you can tell Whedon only did it for the paycheck and his enthusiasm (or lack thereof) was rather evident. I don't fault Feige for giving him the job, as a reward for the success of TA, but I wish Whedon had turned it down.

 

[dude stannis]

Yeah a lot of this is 20/20 hindsight. But The Avengers really met some lofty expectations.

 

[StormC]

I was pretty worried about TA until the early buzz (reviews/international WOM) kicked in and I was full on hyped. It's an easy thing to dismiss four years after the fact.

 

[dude stannis]

I'm in Australia so I didn't have the benefit of early buzz, we got it early. I remember sitting in the the and after that not great opening, worried they'd bungled it, but once the third act rolled around, I was grinning ear to ear.