Entry 6: RE: "Avengers" - Fun v. Character

Posted by: Bradley Redder

He knows a hero when he sees one. Too few characters out there, flying around like that, saving old girls like me. And Lord knows, kids like Henry need a hero. Courageous, self-sacrificing people. Setting examples for all of us. Everybody loves a hero. People line up for them, cheer them, scream their names. And years later, they'll tell how they stood in the rain for hours just to get a glimpse of the one who taught them how to hold on a second longer. I believe there's a hero in all of us, that keeps us honest, gives us strength, makes us noble, and finally allows us to die with pride, even though sometimes we have to be steady, and give up the thing we want the most. Even our dreams. 

You might recognize this, Chad. It's a quote from the best Marvel movie to date. That's right: Spider-Man 2. Since I saw The Avengers last week, I've been craving a quality Marvel movie. It's been eight years since this came out and Marvel still has not been able to top it, despite its many efforts. I'd love to remain the cynical voice in this argument and say nothing has come close, that they've gotten away from the purity that makes it great, but that's just not true, not until The Avengers, anyway.

You seem to have this idea that fun and character are mutually exclusive, that individual hero movies should carry the burden of character building and this ultimate team-up movie gets to have all of the fun. That's insane. Spider-Man 2 isn't the best just because it appeals to pretentious filmgoers who seek out a perfectly constructed piece of art; it is the best because it is the most fun. It has everything: romance, mystery, drama, action, special effects, humor, characters, emotion, style, spectacle, spectacle, spectacle, etc. It has more action sequences than The Avengers, but I'm sure if you asked a fan of the film to describe the experience for you that they would be able to describe it with other rhetorical devices than onomatopoeia. It's about something. It forms a connection with its audience beyond assaulting them with loud noises and things that go boom. It stands for something. And it has one of the many things that The Avengers is sorely lacking: Peter Parker.

It may seem unfair to criticize a movie for not featuring a character that isn't part of its universe, but I'm not talking about Peter Parker as a specific character that needed to be featured, but rather the idea of the altar ego, that which makes the superhero interesting or sympathetic, relatable, vulnerable. It's what makes Spider-Man 2 great. Yeah, the action is cool. Yeah, watching Spider-Man swing around New York is exciting and all. But what really makes it fun is knowing what's underneath it all, what happens if he fails. You know what's more interesting than Spider-Man swinging between the cab and trailer of an 18-wheeler? Seeing him three minutes later and finding out he can't pay his rent. We're constantly divided between wanting the best for Peter Parker, and wanting Spider-Man to fight Doc Ock. But we can't have both, and the fun lies in the reconciliation of the two; seeing how Spider-Man's heroics prevent Peter's happiness, and in turn how Peter's unhappiness prevents Spider-Man's heroics.

It almost sounds depressing when stated like that, but goddamn does Sam Raimi make it entertaining, and he doesn't have to rely on a series of awkwardly inserted jokes to do it, but rather the personalities of the characters and the situations in which they're put: Jameson makes Peter come to a celebration for his astronaut son and take pictures for the paper. Peter accepts because he needs the money. Turns out Jameson's son is dating Mary Jane and, after she scolds Peter for not being able to admit his feelings, accepts a marriage proposal from Jameson's son. Peter stands there looking on, stunned. We feel his pain along with him and savor the moment until Jameson pops into the frame and barks at Peter to snap a photograph of the happy couple. It's a perfect moment, capturing the essence of these two characters at the same time. We can't help but feel for Peter and sympathize with the position he is in, yet Jameson's relentless crassness pierces the emotion with humor. The Avengers features nothing near this good, and the worst part is that it never even tries for it.

And it's not as though it doesn't have the potential. As you point out, this is a team-up movie. It has six characters. Okay, to be fair, it only has four. To call Black Widow a character is a stretch, and to call Hawkeye a character is a bald-faced lie. But still, that's four characters with which you could actually do something fun. Four characters with whom something fun has been done. But we never see their altar egos; we never see a vulnerable side. I say this movie lacks a formidable opponent, and that's a problem. The Avengers are never challenged physically, and Whedon never challenges them mentally or emotionally, either. There are no stakes in this film. These characters don't sacrifice anything; they don't give up their dreams. They don't stand for anything like they do in their respective individual films. They're not defined by anything but what their superpowers are. Tony Stark is interesting in Iron Man because he is a cocky arms manufacturer who has gotten obscenely rich off of selling deadly weapons and comes to realize he wants to be a force for good, and eventually fights the very men who bought his weapons. Thor is interesting in his film because he is a demigod who has almost infinite power and due to his arrogance and vanity is banished to Earth, where he has little power without his hammer. The interest we have with superheroes is not in their strengths, but in their weaknesses, their vulnerability. Throwing them all together and removing that which makes them relatable, creating an ultimate force and pitting them against a silly, ill-equipped, and underdeveloped villain is about as far away from interesting as it gets. Take away the jokes, and what have you got here? Costumes and noise... Two and a half hours of it.