Monday Morning Quarterback Part II
By BOP Staff
May 8, 2012
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Kim Hollis: What aspect of The Avengers impresses you the most? The multi-film build-up of four characters into one super-team? The quality of the film? The global box office? The North American opening weekend take? Something else?
Felix Quinonez: I can't think of any aspect of this movie that doesn't impress me. But If I had to pick one I would say I am most impressed by the quality of the movie. Yes, the multi-film buildup was great and definitely got people excited but it kind of bothered me a couple of times. I remember when I was watching Iron Man 2, I felt like the plot was put on hold at one point to promote The Avengers. I mean I get why they did it and it's cool and all but I wish it didn't kill the momentum. And the box office, both overseas and domestic is CRAZY, but the fact that it's so good and so well received, (A+ score) just makes me way happier than any box office number could. But also, with so much going on and so many characters vying for screen time, it's very commendable that Joss Whedon was able to find such a good balance. In the hands of a lesser director this could have been a big mess.
Bruce Hall: I'll tell you what impresses me the most; the pre-release marketing campaign. I couldn't have cared less about this movie three months ago (I am not a Whedonite, and while I enjoy comic book films as much as the next geek, I'm weary...so very...weary...). But three weeks ago, I really started to care. The Avengers was an unavoidable, self replicating hype machine and as the campaign ramped up, it started to get a little redundant and deafening. For a while they were dropping clips so often I was worried they'd accidentally release the whole movie early, three minutes at a time. But the crescendo was perfectly timed - with the steady trickle of good news coming from the international release, it made a lot of people here feel like they were missing out on something. They couldn't have done a better job of building anticipation for this.
I will say this about the multi-film buildup: It seemed obvious to me from their often pedestrian quality (IMO), that the individual Avengers films were at worst, little more than two hour advertisements for the movie they REALLY wanted to make all along. I'm not saying I didn't enjoy any of it. In their best moments, they all did a serviceable job of setting up the much larger story arc in an almost unprecedented way. And if enduring Iron Man 2, the second half of Captain America, the "talky parts" of Thor and two Ho-Hum Hulks was the price I had to pay for The Avengers, consider me a satisfied customer.
In the end, of course, the finished product had to be worth the wait and it really was. Maybe the real achievement of The Avengers was how successful the overall strategy turned out to be. The movies, the marketing, the casting, the storytelling - it was more often than not less than top notch, but it was more than enough to execute the long term game plan effectively. And for the end game to be as good as it was - well that was the whole POINT and even the most cynical among us can't tell me they didn't they nail it. I am thoroughly impressed and more than that - RELIEVED. After all that's happened, I really didn't want to have to hate The Avengers and to my immense pleasure I came away liking it even more than I'd ever have guessed. Someone put Brett Ratner in front of this film all Clockwork orange style until he gets the message - THIS is how it's done, buddy.
Edwin Davies: In all honesty, every part of The Avengers impresses me. Considering how many aspects of The Avengers project could have gone wrong and derailed the whole thing, right up until the release of the film itself. Had any one piece of this elaborate, many multi-million dollar endeavour fallen through, it could have been a fiasco. Instead, Marvel abd Disney have managed to pretty much flawlessly pull of a project on an unprecedented scale, and now they are reaping rewards that are suitably large enough to justify the effort.
Shalimar Sahota: That Joss Whedon directed a film which only just broke the record for the highest opening weekend ever. Since Iron Man, these Marvel Studios productions have resulted in inspired directorial decisions when it comes to who should call the shots on their films. Their choices have been pretty much spot on, and with The Avengers they obviously struck gold. I'm just happy for Joss Whedon.
Daron Aldridge: Yes, the marketing was stellar and the entire planet knew this was opening this month and yes, the film is pure, unfettered fun but something else stands out for me. In my opinion, the most impressive part of The Avengers is that it’s proof that Marvel and all the studios involved successfully created a cohesive universe in which all these characters could exist. To think that you had five different films (excluding Ang Lee's Hulk, which doesn’t fit this world so much) with four different directors and various screenwriters, yet they meshed the stories so well that when it came time for the Avengers to assemble, it worked and it worked unbelievably well. As a moviegoer, I just want to keep coming back to this world in all the sequels whether for the solo adventures and group outings.
David Mumpower: I'm always quite proud of the reviews written for BOP, ordinarily handled by Matthew Huntley and Tom Houseman. For The Avengers, Edwin wrote one of the best we have ever posted on the site. In it, he chronicled exactly what Marvel had accomplished in building to The Avengers. While I do not believe there is a wrong answer here, I am firmly of the opinion that the path to The Avengers is its greatest accomplishment. Making another baseball metaphor, this is the equivalent of Babe Ruth calling his shot by pointing to the fence before homering to that spot.
When Iron Man was released in 2008, I was among the skeptical who believed that the character offered little of interest. Fast forward three movies later and I am blown away by the manner in which Tony Stark's innovations have become highpoints of each movie. Just getting in the suit has become an event. Then, I was dubious about the international prospects of Captain America, the potentially cheesy nature of that story and the overall nuttiness of Thor. All of those titles were better than they had any right to be (Bruce, I'm going to have to ask you to step outside over your Iron Man 2 comments). The Avengers is the victory lap from those results. Ergo, this is not just a glorious moment for BOP's beloved Joss Whedon but also the directors who came before him, Jon Favreau, Joe Johnston and Kenneth Branagh. All four of them have done the impossible and that's what has made The Avengers mighty.
This never should have been possible. We're barely 15 years beyond Marvel's bankruptcy issues yet Disney's $4 billion purchase price looks like a steal now. If Hulk Hands justified the production of The Hulk in 2003, imagine what the toy sales are going to be like for the rest of 2012. The Avengers are so hot and in demand now that the movie's box office borders on being ancillary revenue just as was the case with Pixar and Cars. The Avengers is a perfect movie project. That's three of them since 2008 with the others being The Dark Knight and Avatar. We could probably include Paranormal Activity as well but it is of a much smaller scale. As Edwin enumerated, the fact that Marvel manufactured this project makes it all the more historic.
Kim Hollis: I think that the accomplishments attained by Marvel are all incredibly impressive, but I think the thing I keep coming back to is how each one of the Avengers in the film was a well-developed, sympathetic character. We're all always going to love Iron Man, but now we have a Hulk who smashes (and a Bruce Banner who is impossibly winning), a Thor who is more than just abs, a Captain America who has some gravitas and matches up nicely with Tony Stark, a Black Widow who is revealed to us in layers and finally Hawkeye, who is established as a serious badass with a hint of mystery. I enjoy every single one of these characters and I'm onboard for any future project where they might appear. Also, while I wasn't necessarily super fond of Loki as the villain in Thor, he was deftly handled for The Avengers. Joss Whedon knows how to write bad guys.