Hey man, I'd rather be obnoxious and juvenile than an overgrown nerd in denial. Avengers is the grossest thing I've ever seen...the ultimate non-movie, where enough money forces viewers to not care anymore. It satisfied yearnings of comic book fans, sure, but at the cost of not actually being a movie. Pokemon: The First Movie, from 1999, wasn't a movie either. It felt like a false, out of step representation of the show, because it was really just a cash cow bonus for the rest of the franchise. That's all Avengers is too; a big pile of money. When I see JB slobbering over it in a decidedly non-professional fanboy "review," it clues me into one thing at least: JB may have grown up between 20 and 40, but his perspective on movies never did.

Your first point that "enough money forces viewers to not care" makes no sense. Money doesn't force people to not care, it makes people care more because the movies are better and more exciting. Movies didn't use to use as much money because the technology was not available. Now that it is available movies are deeper and more exciting and viewers care more about the characters because not only are they well developed but they make sense in a way realistically because the money makes them look real, so it's easier to identify. The more money there is, the easier it is care about the movie because of how much more strongly it's made. That's why Nolan makes better movies than people like Lars von Trier and Hitchcock, because movies like The Dark Knight and Inception are able to be so deep because they have the money behind them to make them more interesting and have things happen that are more realistic than if the money wasn't there.

The other point also makes no sense as well. "It satisfied yearnings of comic book fans...but at the cost of it not actually being a movie." Just because something has more fans and makes a lot of money doesn't mean it is automatically a bad movie or that it is not a movie at all. When you think about it, the more fans of something that is turned into a movie, the better the movie is regardless of it's quality because people are more emotionally invested in the material, and the goal of a movie is to invest it's audience emotionally and/or entertain them. Since movies like The Avengers and The Dark Knight Rises are able to do both, they are very strong movies compared to older movies.

Just because JB understands this doesn't mean he is a bad critic, it just shows your own lack of understanding

Why are you here?

No seriously, why are you here?

Since you have no regard for James as a critic or as a person, it makes one wonder why you are hanging around this website. The vast majority of people here at this website (myself included) have a great amount of respect for James and his opinions on cinema. We may not always agree with James all the time, but we can know that he can justify his opinions astutely and eloquently. When he speaks his mind, we know that James knows what he is saying.

I'm not saying that you should leave this website and never come back. I just like to know what you're getting out of being here.

I'm looking for truth, and I don't know how to get it. Only 1 out of 10 times do I get a response to what I'm actually saying. I didn't post that Ebert quote to piss people off, I posted it because I'm actually interested in the content he wrote and in what other people have to say about it. "It's bullshit" is not a legitimate response. "You're an asshole" is not a legitimate response. It's as if you don't even care what Ebert has to say, only about the fact that I'm an asshole for posting it. My question at the bottom of all this is, when is the elevation of nerd-dom going to come to an end? JB calls Avengers a "gamechanger" as if superhero movies are the only genre left in cinema. At the rate we're going, the lore of the films is going to overwhelm the source comics themselves. The plot of Avengers is so thin and it's content so fundamentally general that it feels as if the same movie could be made dozens of times without fans getting tired of it. It literally can't be bad. But if it can't be bad, how can it be good? It's a little like making a deal with the devil, isn't it? This movie has no overall cohesion; it's not really about anything.

It's just like putting hamsters in a cage and watching what they do; but that setup doesn't allow for perspective. I stand by a belief that characters, a plot, set pieces, and a camera do not make a movie by themselves. A real movie has to have something to say that's worth saying. It has to be pointing at something, and that something is what justifies everything else. The Avengers is like Griffith's Intolerance without the Intolerance, if he had simply jumped back and forth between time periods without that theme/message to bind it all together. I mean for God's sake, when Godfather 2 cuts between Young Vito and Michael it isn't just doing it for the hell of it; there's a serious thematic purpose there. And if he were doing it just for the hell of it, it wouldn't be just lacking in greatness, it would be a bad movie, a non-movie, a hollow shell. The Avengers feels to me like a violation of the trust we place in the movies we want to love. Our guilty desire is that we just want to escape and have a good time, right? But for me at least, buried under that desire was the need for a movie to be meaningful in and of itself. I believe films like this have simply taken advantage of the fact that that desire is no longer at the forefront of anyone's mind. But if all we want is to have a good time, why did we need to wait 4 years for this? Avengers is exactly the movie I had in mind when they started hyping it in 08, no more, no less, and no different. Is that really enough? Is no store set by imagination and creativity anymore?

The JB I started following 7 years ago would have, or should have been able to see through this. About Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, which was also a non-movie, he said:



His review of that film is also filled with wise little insights into the popularity and success of what he rightly calls a phenomenon. Tonally, it is professionally detached and reassuring; you get the sense that he knows what he's talking about. The JB of that review is, as far as I can tell, gone. Avengers only out-rates HP1 by half a star, yet we go from keen observation to "Avengers kicks ass." Am I crazy, or is something not quite right there? My guess is that at some point JB decided to do two things: cave into the spoiled pleasures of his childhood, and also cave in to childish presumptions about smart criticism (which would explain his high rating of The Artist). You're wrong, I don't disrespect JB as a person. I disrespect what he's become as a critic. I don't know him, but if I had to guess, I'd say his family and job have, in recent years, had to take precedence over his passion for film. Most of us were around for JB's bitter disappointment when he finally realized he would never, ever be able to make a living off of this website. I think that disappointment is part of what took away his critical edge. He just doesn't seem to care as much anymore. He's moving on with his life, while I, for one, want to go deeper and deeper into movies. I think JB was once on track to do that, but decided to stop. I'm here because I'm looking for more people who want to keep going.

Wow, that was quite something, especially the last paragraph.

Seriously, about the Ebert quote, how can you be "interested in the content he wrote and in what other people have to say about it" if you present it with this:
then followed with his quote. The quote itself isn't that much offensive, a little bit of humorous teasing, at least for me. What is offensive, however, is how you put "reality-check" cloak over the content of his quote and turn it into a demeaning call that people who don't agree with this are living in a delusion.

I don't know how JB can make it clearer. In his blurb: "Is THE AVENGERS a game-changer for the superhero movie genre?". I mean, what faults do you have with that? What logic in this and his last paragraph sample: "many comic book translations will find themselves chasing The Avengers and more than a few will be found wanting. This is a game changer" that you find at fault with cinema? I read and comprehend it as "a game changer for superhero movie genre/comic book adaptation". How is his perfectly reasonable opinion rubbing you wrong? Or do you just find the word "gamechanger" offensive when someone uses it with something you don't like, even though it's valid?

Your next paragraph kind of confuses me with how again you stated your opinions as if they are facts. I find some meanings in The Avengers. I saw how The Avengers makes the point that even when you have an all-powerful group of people together, if you allow distrust and egos in, nothing can be accomplished or overcome. It's simple, but it's there, and I found how the movie presented it, with all the heroes humorously insulting and using their own powers against each other while outside forces easily came and conquered, compelling. I understand if people thought it didn't justified the movie. What I don't understand is how you use your own opinion and disappointment to make claims about other people and state that there is no creativity or imagination anymore.

Finally, for the last paragraph, I find it incredibly amazing that you can make so many grand assumptions about a person by just reading reviews and reelthoughts. For the Harry Potter review, it's a 3-star movie with some serious flaws. How can you expect enthusiasm found in the review for The Avengers, a 3.5 that he found does many things very well? His 3.5-4.0 movies mostly sound exclamatory like that to me. If I remember correctly off the top of my head, his 4.0 review for the final Lord of the Rings had something along the line of "Gandalf gets to kick butt big time". That's 2003. And have you read many of his 0-1.5 reviews? He doesn't sound professionally detached and reassuring. He's just interested in shredding the movies to pieces (to some very entertaining effects). To me, the JB reviews have always reflected what he really felt of a movie. In your case, it seems like you're just projecting your opinions on the reviews.

This movie isn't intended to be some profound take on the meaning of life. I believe all Josh intended was to deliver a fun, entertaining, film that everyone could enjoy. I wasn't thinking, "I wonder if josh is going to use this next scene to delve into the complexities of human nature or use that scene alluding to a metaphor for the situation going on in Egypt right now." I was thinking, "damn this is a fun movie...the hulk is awesome...I wish tony stark really existed...that fight scene just kicked ass."

It's called a summer blockbuster dude, with source material coming from a comic book...not a Cormac McCarthy novel. Not every movie needs to evoke human truth. What is wrong with just having fun, enjoying the spectacle and magic of cinema. I love watching movies such as The Godfather, 2001, Lawrence of Arabia. I also get pleasure in going to the biggest, loudest, nicest theater I can find for summer blockbusters where I can just enjoy comic book characters coming to life. Get off of you high horse bro.

I like summer blockbusters too...good ones. Ones that don't feel like each scene is rushing into the next like a traffic jam, and ones that at least require you to think on the most basic levels. You know, a moviegoer has a right to question what they're watching, even if it's just for "fun entertainment." By your standard, any movie ever made is good.

It's interesting that you say this, because I've never seen JB as anything close to a professional who has his own fanboy takes on things like science fiction and such. I've never seen him as similar to anything up to the standards of the big critics such as Ebert or White, and frankly I'm fine with that, because neither am I nor do I aspire to be up to them. And frankly, I think you should consider that maybe, just maybe, not many here do either.

Well, that's another way of looking at it and I guess it's fair.

I'm kind of blown away that I haven't seen any critics, or anyone here, mention that the movie is about the War on Terror. I mean, the movie wears those idea on it's sleeve with all the talk about freedom, mentioning of WMDs, and setting the climactic battle in NYC to evoke 9/11. It's just so obviously about the U.S. political landscape of the last 10 years or so, that I can only think that most people and critics want summer blockbusters to be "mindless entertainment" even when they aren't.

Groupthink is a motherfucker.

By my standard any movie ever made is most certainly not good. I'm not Vexer here, i.e.. Ecks vs. Server is fucking terrible. I think that frogster guy is a straight troll who likes to pop open a cold beer and fuck with some people on here, or he is your alternate persona. I enjoyed The Avengers though, as did most of the rest of the world (professional critics as well.) In your opinion, how could the Avengers have been good (if it was so blandly awful)? The editing and choreography were top notch: there wasn't a moment I couldn't tell what was happening. The writing (dialogue) was witty, punchy, humorous, (and serious) all at the same time. It was well acted...I mean Downey is Tony Stark personified, and Ruffalo played a perfect interpretation of Bruce Banner. The others held there on. Each comic character was given his or her do.

The Plot? Loki wants to destroy earth to get revenge on Thor as well as be given a chance to rule. He must be stopped. Simple yet effective. I mean, what do you want in this?

I don't think this should be considered praise. The fact that many action movies fail at doing this doesn't make it a greater quality in the Avengers. I feel like if you can't produce decipherable action, don't make an action movie.

There's reasons to praise the film, but I really don't think this is one of them.

I don't know. Action is very hard to do well, yet because action movies are popular everyone wants to make them. But there is so much effort and skill that goes into composition and choreography that it takes a good director to get it right. The reason why so many movies don't show you what's going on, is because usually what actually is going on is pretty poorly done. It takes effort to make a good action scene, and The Avengers has some that border on great. I think that's plenty of reason for praise.

The climactic battle was probably set in NYC because NYC is the center of the Marvel universe and has been since the 1960s. Why would they set it anywhere else?

But do you really think Whedon was thinking of those things in anyway that's cohesive? It makes references to those things without amounting to anything.



Enjoyment isn't enough to make a good movie. You can watch the superbowl for 2.5 hours and enjoy it immensely; does that make it a good movie? Look, I don't deny I had a good time at The Avengers. I was with friends at a midnight premiere, there was humor, and it was fun to see a 4-year hype come to an end. But I'm sorry, my judgment of a film doesn't stop there, no matter what the film is or what it's trying to do. I don't think the editing was top notch at all, in fact I noticed several sloppy cuts along the way. Also, editing isn't just about coherence or "being able to tell what's going on." There's an art to the pacing of a feature, about which Whedon seems unaware. It's a fact of the form that information/emotions/ideas register better with more finely tuned editing. There were many parts of this movie that did not register for me at all; it was either too rushed or too overscaled. The whole idea of editing is based on coverage, and I don't think even the concept of coverage applied to this film. The budget was so huge, they didn't even need coverage; they just got NYC's destruction in a series of overwhelming, all-encompassing shots. No composition or editing choices registered; the only thing that registered was size, SIZE, SIZE!!!!



Again I assert that beyond a certain budget, nothing in The Avengers takes any real effort. It's not action; it's just dollars and cents. For real action, that required sweat, blood, tears, and an immense amount of talent, watch Casino Royale or MI4. How can one look at those, then Avengers, and not see the difference?

huh, that's funny I just saw MI4 before Avengers, and was thinking during the 'big finale' of Avengers how blah it was compared to MI4. I'm not really a comic book guy, just kind of got sucked into the hype(& the reviews, good lord they were a bit overboard) agree with much of what you say. Guess Whedon isn't the craftsman that Bird is. He was a weird choice to direct this(understand why he would be the writer though)
Popcorn films aren't what they used to be, I don't think its just about me outgrowing that stuff, there do seem to be a lot of the same issues year after year. I guess it doesn't take much to 'excite' audiences these days.

Well, those movies are also both $150M+ films too. I guess you could argue that they should be expected to have good action too. But just because you spend enough money on something doesn't mean it's going to turn out good. Green Lantern looked awful, and had a budget approaching The Avengers. The composition of action in the Transformers movies are awful. More money wouldn't have fixed these movies, what they needed was better conceptualization, perhaps more comprehensive story-boarding of the action scenes, and not to mention greater attention on the story and screenplay. I certainly don't think The Avengers is perfect, but it wasn't money that made it good, it was the talent behind it. Joss Whedon's worked with smaller budgets before and managed to make action scenes more competent than some of the major blockbusters.

I thought Whedon did a good job directing considering that this is his second movie. He had a lot to balance on his plate, and I feel like the resultant movie was about as good as it could have been. That’s not a criticism or a compliment; just a thought.

Who do you guys think could have done a better job?

It's not a question of who could have done better. The project is more fundamentally flawed. All it ever was, based on the film we got, was a product of outlandish hype that somebody just needed to manage. That somebody turned out to be Whedon, but the badness isn't his fault. With its overblown budget, lazy editing, and lack of clear structure, Avengers doesn't look like it was directed by anybody at all. It looks and feels like an impersonal product both visually and tonally. Whedon was hired to direct a monster, but it's not really a movie. That's what I'm trying to get at with my superbowl comparison. Avengers takes personal perspective completely out of the equation, even though that's always been probably the most important element of good filmmaking. It's like it's not even the director's art form anymore; Avengers is the art of the producer and marketing team, not the director. Avengers is by far the worst case of this problem, but it's a problem we have indeed been seeing for a while now. It was part of my argument against Nolan, that his films felt like studio products with the vague conceit of depth. Obviously, Harry Potter was never the director's format. I think Scorsese was completely lost inside Hugo, another overwrought mammoth, Avatar was merely the artform of James Cameron's ego, and Jackson didn't direct Rings and Kong so much as effusively spill fanboy zeal into a large pile of money, which fed itself into lights and cameras.

I wouldn't harp on these points if I thought all hope was lost and that this over-budget trend would last forever. Like I said, eventually I think the John Carters will outweigh the Avengers of the market.

I think Whedon did a pretty good job overall, though it took a bit too long for the main plot to kick into gear for my liking, the movie definitely could've used some trimming in a few sports to tighten the space(was it just me, or did the scenes on the aircraft carrier seem to drag on?)

The finale was pretty damn good, but I couldn't help but think of "Dark Of The Moon" while seeing it, what with alien robots attacking a major city and a magical cube being at the center of the conflict.