Why Marvel's The Avengers Is NOT The Greatest Comic Book Movie Ever

Like I promised yesterday, I'm gonna outline why The Avengers isn't the greatest comic book movie of all time. That isn't to say that I don't like and enjoy the movie, it just isn't as flawless as the world makes it out to be. I'm sure this discussion will piss some people off, but honestly I don't really care. I concede that as with most things, what is the "best" is a purely subjective thing that can never be proven. That doesn't mean that it can't be categorically proven to NOT be the best.


I need to preface the rest of this by saying I will be comparing it often to another movie that is often brought up as a retort: The Dark Knight. I'm using this movie for a few reasons: 1) it is a fantastic example of the reasons The Avengers fails, 2) I've always liked DC comics more than Marvel (I will admit bias), 3) it is the best comic book movie ever. Ha.

The Major Plot Hole

I'll start with the weakest argument, but probably the one that bothers me the most every time I watch The Avengers. There's one huge, glaring plot hole in the movie that most viewers just accept and move on. Thor already knows about the Chitauri coming when he shows up. Everyone just accepts this fact and moves on with no further explanation. How does he know? What more does he know about them? Where do they come from? Why are they following Loki? If he knew all of this, why has he only come to confront Loki when Loki comes to Earth and not before? Instead we get a casual reference to "he has an army" and quickly they move on and the rest of the team (and subsequently the viewer) are whisked off to something else. This is yet another movie that caters to the ADHD viewer. 

Wait, There Is No Plot

Speaking of ADHD, the "plot" just moves from one thing to another rather quickly to mostly just set up another action sequence. Yes, I get this is an action flick, but there's not much else here. Just think about it, any time they start to develop anything other than the all-these-disparate-entities-need-to-band-together-to-fight-this-sorta-vague-threat it is cut really short and moves on. There's a point in the middle of the movie that the motives of S.H.I.E.L.D. begin to be questioned and it devolves into a bitch-fest that ends up serving that very basic plot and nothing else. It even gets revisited and actually becomes the whole central plot of The Winter Soldier.
Comic books have always had something to say. On the face they have always been just really well drawn (and longer) comic strips, but there has always been something deeper. Nationalism, racism, political unrest, and sociology have all been thoroughly explored in the pages of comics. They are a place for the writers and artists to vent frustrations or safely have conversations about the most controversial subjects of our time without (at least most of the time) doing it overtly. The Dark Knight explored several of these types of issues both overtly and subtly; like overreaching of government surveillance (the echo-locator), socioeconomic disparity (the Joker's many sociological experiments), and political climate change. Winter Soldier tackled some of these same issues and that's why it is more successful than The Avengers in my book.

All that The Avengers did was barely touch on distrust of the government and then swiftly swept it under the rug to focus on rag-tag-group-needs-a-reason-to-band-together-to-save-the-world. Like THAT hasn't been done 100s of times before.

Action, Action, Action

My last point is more of a summation of the previous two. This movie was made by a petulant child playing with blocks. He sets them up, knocks them down, rinse, repeat. The action sequences are beautiful and really well executed, but nothing really happens between them other than the set up for another action sequence. I get that this is an action movie, but I'm left wanting more. I will say that I just don't care for non-stop action movies and this one at least let you breathe a little between, but it just has very little meat for me. The Dark Knight has short bursts of action that use up all the drama prior to them to allow the action to punctuate rather than dictate. The opposite happens in The Avengers. The action dictates the plot and pacing not the other way around. Again, much of this point is just personal preference, but that's the nature of a blog.

In conclusion, I hope I've brought up some points that will make you rethink your position on The Avengers. Notice that I never said The Avengers was a bad movie because it isn't. I really enjoy the movie for what it is: a fun popcorn movie. Just don't try and make it what it isn't: the greatest comic book movie ever.