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Nerdgasm

Kim Hollis: Statistically, the odds say that a lot of you have already seen The Avengers. What are your thoughts about it?

Felix Quinonez: I absolutely loved it. I saw it twice already and I know I'm going to see it at least one more time. I think Bruce described it perfectly in the first topic. "it's everything a non Nolan comic book film should be." I just thought it worked perfectly. They did a great job of establishing a threat large enough that would require these guys to be working together. The action was incredible. It had just as much eye candy as all of the Transformers movies but I actually cared about what was happening. Not only that but it was all shot so well. It wasn't done in a dizzying, cut-heavy matter that makes it hard to follow the action. The acting was great, they all had great chemistry. It had a lot of funny moments that I never found forced. I remember that I was a bit worried that this movie might be lacking a bit of depth and while I kind of feel that it did. I don't think it mattered. As a comic book geek, I used to dream about an Avengers movie and this is the movie I always wanted to see.

Bruce Hall: I recently mentioned (in another context) that if you want me to believe the crazy stuff that often happens in these kinds of films that you have to temper things with a bit of humor and/or romance (meaning a willingness to dream big, not a willingness to take your pants off).

Pathos (unless you really ARE Chris Nolan) usually comes off as corny in a film like this. The first Iron Man nailed the humor, and the first half of Captain America hit the romance button right on the head. Ang Lee went all in on pathos, and you see what happened there. This is also what bothered me so much about Superman Returns. How hard is it to write a Superman film? Or ANY superhero film? There is a threat. Our hero(es) is (are) overwhelmed by it. He/She/They have to regroup and overcome personal demons, yadda yadda, and find a bigger reason to fight. Act three is guys in tights throwing skyscrapers at each other.

I simplify, of course, but successful stories follow a sound structure and The Avengers did this, the usual comic book shaped gaps in logic notwithstanding. But the bonus is that a well structured screenplay without interesting characters is a cake without frosting. In The Avengers, each major character was sufficiently fleshed out enough over the first two acts to add compelling dimension and shadow - by comic book standards, anyway. The dialogue was sharp enough to give them color and clarity. The cast and director were prepared to do their diligence. The Avengers wasn't perfect, but it hit all the right notes and pushed all the right buttons. It did all the things a genre film has to do in order to succeed, and scored bonus points by accomplishing most of the things any good movie needs to do from a purely cinematic standpoint. The same bar previously set by films such as 1978's Superman, X-Men 2 and Spider-Man 2 has been set a notch higher. A while back, I think we discussed whether the superhero genre was running out of steam and I think we might have agreed that the fate of The Avengers would have a lot to say about that.

Now, we have our answer.

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