The Avengers (Joss Whedon, 2012)
I’d much rather write about John Steed and Mrs Peel. (Incidentally, Honor Blackman was the guest villain in an ep of New Tricks (4,2) recently.) But this Avengers is the one that cost about 100,000 times as much to make as the BBC TV show.
Should I be embarrassed that I knew almost nothing about Marvel Comics characters before I saw The Avengers (Joss Whedon, 2012)? Well, it hasn’t enriched my life that I now know something. I’m afraid I’m thinking instead about the millions of lives that could have been improved a bit if they’d got a share of the $220 million that it cost to make it. Or better still, some of the obscene 1.5 billion dollars that it had taken by the end of 2012.
The only thing that struck me about the story—something that wouldn’t have given pause to the millions who knew about the characters in advance—was the moral ambiguity of some key characters. I would have expected everyone to be either totally good, as Captain America is (tho he also seems to be a bit of a drongo), or totally bad, as Loki is. But I wasn’t sure at the outset whose side Thor was on (but it turns out he’s only Loki’s adoptive brother, so that’s all right). And Hawkeye starts off having gone over to the dark side (as coded by the sparkly contacts he wears—but I didn’t know the code). And there’s another character, whose name I didn’t catch, with sparkly eyes, but he turns out OK just in time.
Here’s one good thing: it employed literally hundreds of people sitting at computers doing all the stuff that they do these days—instead of actors doing stuff. Robert Downey was good, but.
reviews | Garry Gillard | New: 1 March, 2017 | Now: 17 March, 2022