The Avengers: Joss Whedon

I think I was naturally predisposed towards being excessively harsh in my evaluation of Joss Whedon's The Avengers for two reasons. First, I come from a film studies environment where many, if not all, of my peers had already condemned the film as trash before even seeing it.  Second, while I love Marvel Comics, I have always been a bigger DC fan. So I admit that I am biased against this film. But despite that, I still thoroughly enjoyed it.  The Avengers was the end result of a truly herculean cinematic effort that stretched four years, six films, and a countless number of writers, directors, actors, and editors. The fact that The Avengers was coherent and focused is a blessing. The fact that it is a great film is a miracle. It seems that Loki is on the loose and is using the power of a mysterious, potentially limitless source of energy called the Tesseract (known to comic book readers as the Cosmic Cube) to summon an alien army known as the Chitauri to conquer Earth. And so, the Avengers are formed with an all-star lineup of the world's mightiest heroes: Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, the Hulk, Hawkeye, and Black Widow.  The film has a ton of plot holes. How did Thor get back to Earth (an unconvincing one-line explanation is given and promptly forgotten)? Who are the council of unknown people who sit in darkly lit rooms and secretly run the world? Did Loki really expect the Chitauri to hand over reign of the Earth after they conquered it? But these plot holes can be ignored due to Whedon's flawless grasp on dialogue and character development. I still don't think Whedon is a very good filmmaker, per say. Many parts of this film felt like a television show with an unusually large budget.  But the action is fluid, not annoying. The film is well-paced, a merciful change from more recent blockbusters who don't know the definition of the term "three act structure." Bottom line: while it doesn't do anything to push the superhero genre forward, it doesn't do anything wrong. Even a DC fanboy like me can admit that it's a very fun film.

7/10