Poll: What Did You Think of ‘The Avengers’?

Marvel’s ‘The Avengers’ has, officially, had the biggest opening weekend of all time. Odds are, if you had any interest in seeing the movie, you probably did so already. So, tell us what you thought of it in our poll.

I’ve mentioned previously in this blog that I actually wasn’t all that excited for ‘The Avengers’, mainly because I don’t have much attachment to any of the superhero characters featured in the mash-up. Nonetheless, I got caught up in the hype, and wanted to support director Joss Whedon (who deserves to finally have a hit), so I dutifully trekked out to the theater to see the film during its opening weekend.

I’ve got to say, it won me over. This is easily the best of all the Marvel comic book movies I’ve seen, if not one of the best comic book movies of any sort. Yet it’s not perfect. In all the buzz about the movie, why is it that nobody has talked about how long it takes to warm up? Honestly, the first hour of the picture is kind of painful. It spends far too much time devoted to the least interesting characters, the plot set-up is really hokey, and most of the action scenes at the beginning are pretty lame.

Fortunately, once the team finally assembles, the movie really gets cooking and never lets up after that point. Whedon does a great job of juggling all the characters and making each of them feel relevant. He’s the first director who’s known what to do with the Hulk. Practically every one of the big green guy’s appearances was accompanied by audience cheers in my theater.

My vote in the poll would have to be that the movie is pretty good, but has some issues. What did you think of it?

What Did You Think of 'The Avengers'?

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36 comments

  1. Alex

    Thought it was fantastic, and that they need to green-light(ha!!) a Mark Ruffalo “Hulk” movie immediately.

    • Shayne Blakeley

      I read somewhere that he signed something like a 6 picture deal, which likely includes a Hulk stand-alone feature as well as cameos in the other characters sequels and Avengers 2.

    • curtis

      Disagree about the Hulk. While a great writer and director can make anything good, the Hulk just doesn’t seem like a character you can make full feature out of. He was so great in this in that he was used sparingly as part of the team.
      And on a related note, his character was one of the few nitpicks I had as they seemed to cut the part that explained how he could go from out-of-control hulk trying to kill Black Widow and Thor to being a in-control (for Hulk) teammate. I have no doubt Joss had it in there as it seems to big a detail to overlook, just assuming it got trimmed from the final.

      • Shayne Blakeley

        My fiance had the same issue with that, but I thought it worked pretty well. SPOILERS! When he turns and says the secret is he’s always angry and changes of his own free will, it’s different than when he’s set off by something. I didn’t feel it needed more explanation than that. All this time he’s been suppressing it, but when he let it come out without fighting it, he was able to control and aim it to some degree.

        • Jason

          additional spoilers!

          when banner first hulks out he has been manipulated by loki. as has everyone in the room with the scepter.

  2. lordbowler

    I could gripe about one or two very brief moments in the over 2 and 1/2 hours, but why bother!

    It was Awesome, so good I saw it twice!

    Loved every moment of it!

  3. Drew

    I saw it four times over the weekend. Twice in D-BOX, once in 3D, and once in true IMAX.

    I’m pretty sure you know how I voted.

  4. I loved the humanity, the emotions and the dedication Mark Ruffalo brought to the role of ‘Hulk’. He really made it/him a deeper, more profound character. Very well done.

  5. The “Build Up” didn’t bother me AT ALL. Hawkeye and Black Widow didn’t have their own movies so I was ok with a little more time devoted to them at the beginning. And hell, who would complain about seeing more Scarlett in that outfit?

    I thought the movie was great and hopefully it will hold up more than The Dark Knight has (runs for cover).

    • curtis

      Assume you are referring to the ‘slow first half’ nonsense some reviewers put. Not only was it not slow but had the big battle gone on any longer the same folks would have been saying meaningless action with no character development. If anything I felt like the people and story dev was a little rushed in a few spots to move the plot forward. 30 mins of deleted scenes Joss said will be on the Blu-ray should help fill in some of those gaps.

      • Shayne Blakeley

        Yeah, I don’t understand the slow first half comments either. It takes like 2 minutes for Loki to fuck shit up, and it doesn’t stop for a breath after that.

        • Exactly. Without the character development we would have had “Transformers 2” with an action sequence that went on about 45 minutes too long. And NOBODY wants that.

          • Barsoom Bob

            Character developement ? Seriously ? It was a somewhat fun ride, the scene with Hulk and Loki was priceless, but you guys drank the kool aid. There are no real emotions or real threats or god forbid actual ideas in this movie, it is empty calories and actually it IS Transformers 3, only instead of auto cons fighting the big mechanical snake thing that is destroying the city, it is our intrepid band of superheros.

        • Josh Zyber
          Author

          The opening scene, which takes place in the deep dark reaches of space, where two faceless villians pontificate about how evil they are in dialogue so echo-y that I could hardly tell what they were saying, is an incredibly lame way to start the movie. The big action scene in SHIELD headquarters immediately after that goes on forever and is super, super boring. The next half hour or so is then spent with characters just dumping exposition on one another.

          The movie doesn’t start crackling until the whole team is finally assembled. From that point on, it’s all golden. Well, except for the fact that the aliens themselves are pretty generic and cheesy, but I can forgive that since the main characters wipe them out hundreds at a time.

          Sorry, that’s how I felt. I liked the movie overall, though.

          • Well thats fine, everyone is allowed their opinions, but I simply cant see any of it, same with Barsoom up there, I wasnt drinking any koolaid, this movie was fantastic from start to finish plain and simple, and its hard to make comments on stuff like “I could hardly tell what they were saying” Well I could hear every word perfectly fine, so that ones on you, not the movie my friend. I’m glad you liked it overall but the build up and beginning of the film was just as good, funny and fun as the fantastic action scenes at the end. This is easily one of the best movies I’ve ever seen and I’ll gladly pay for it again if I get the chance

          • Shayne Blakeley

            I’m with Chaz on this one. I’m still buzzing from the first viewing, going to see it again tomorrow, and will probably see it once or twice more after that. Few movies have ever felt so satisfying.

  6. I liked it a lot, but don’t think it’s a “great” superhero film…just a very entertaining one. Let’s face it, the plot here is pretty thin, but the action, humor and chemistry between the actors make it quite the fun ride. So much depends on the prior films though, that if one went into this “blind”, they’d be pretty lost.

    • I had only seen ‘Captain America’ and ‘Iron Man’, so I consider myself ‘semi-blind’. I understood most of the story, but not everything. It didn’t have an impact on the overall likeability of the movie, though.

    • I’m sure most people going in to this movie werent first time watchers of any of these films, if you havent seen anything before going to watch this, thats your fault, this was a culmination and build up from multiple films, there is no way they could change that to make it more friendly to people who didnt bother with anything before it. I’m amazed that this would even be brought up as a criticism…

      • A movie should stand on its own. Period. Especially if it’s not a sequel. I always hate people that say…”well, if you read the comics” or “if you read the book” or “if you watched these five other films.” 🙂

        • Except that this IS a sequel. Going into this movie having not watched the others leading up to it isn’t on par with “if you read the book” gripes, more accurately it’s like starting a series of books at book 6 and then bitching about it being confusing.

  7. I definitely had a great time, even though it was a bit too long.

    I found myself giggling every time the Hulk transformed, and when the Avengers assemble, his presence is absolutely essential!! Not just an uncontrollable rage monster, he actually controls himself enough to be a worthy candidate for the team.

    The funny parts are absolutely brilliant, and I can’t wait to see the movie for a third time! Saw it in 3D both times, and it was great. Looking forward to the third showing, in 2D.

  8. J.J.

    I consider the Avengers the greatest comic book movie of all time. It followed the path of actual comic books. Iron Man, Captain America, Thor and Hulk all were established characters in comics. Marvel had the brilliant idea to take all these characters and make a supergroup and have its own stand alone comic. If you ever read the first issue of the Avengers without reading any of the other characters comics, most likely you would be lost, but you could still enjoy the comic. The same can be said for the movies. If you ended up seeing the movie without seeing all the other connected previous movies, then you might be lost, but that doesn’t mean you couldn’t enjoy the movie. The Avengers is in a category all its own in movies because, essentially, it is the first to ever be a sequel for 4 other movies. Right from the start of the movie I was hooked. 2 and a half hours went by so fast I was hoping it would never end. I thought it was a terrific blend of action, humor, heroics and fun. It was the best movie going experience I have ever had. I felt many different emotions throughout. After staying through ALL the credits, I wanted to immediately watch it again. When I fully enjoy a movie from start to finish and I know I want to see it again right away then I have to consider it a great movie. My only real complaint about the movie is I don’t want to hear the word “Tesseract” ever again. It might have been said about 143 times during the movie. I was relieved when Cap finally called it “The Cube” LOL In summary, I loved it. If you haven’t seen it, go see it now! If you didn’t like it, I’m sorry you had such a sad childhood. 😉

  9. Jason

    I’ve seen it twice. a midnight showing and the following evening with “she who must be obeyed.” Having grown up reading the comics and being a fan of Whedon’s work I loved it. The Whedon seal was on it but it didn’t ooze quirky which I was afraid it was going to. I loved the nod to the Buffyverse in the first act. The added depth Black Widow has in this film is clearly because Joss loves the strong ladies. It was clear that this film was made by someone that understood the characters and respected their stories. I’ll probably see it again in the theaters.

    • And yet, for some reason, they’re selling Thor action figures WITH permanent helmet on. And Hawkeye figures with a mask (when did Jeremy Renner wear a mask?). And Captain America with permanent mask.

      Is this to avoid some “actor likeness” rights issues?

  10. JM

    For ‘The Avengers 2’ which other superheroes exist in this universe?

    If I understand the source material, the next villain will win, unless Sony and Fox license Disney some help.

    Joss Whedon is already refusing to write/direct, to improve his negotiating position. Do they make big enough bank trucks, to back up to his house?

    • As much as I love the guy, I hope he doesnt turn into a jerk because of what he did, refusing to do anything when he’s such a big comic fan is just dumb, sure we all want more money but if I just made the best comic movie of all time, I would be jumping into the next one with no issues, sure I wouldnt work for peanuts (well what they call peanuts) but I wouldnt be all bitchy about not doing it. I just dont understand how these people think, he definitely deserves a raise after destroying box office records but again, I hope he isnt a jerk about it, last thing we want is for them to bring in someone else after he did such a great job with this

      • Josh Zyber
        Author

        It may not just be about money. It may also have to do with how much creative control they allow him. Jon Favreau walked away from the Iron Man franchise because he had such a miserable time with Marvel sticking its hands into Iron Man 2, vetoing everything he wanted to do, and forcing him to include all those extraneous characters and storylines that he felt would be better saved for later sequels.

        • As much as Marvel has been kicking ass, how is it they still dont know how to make things work properly, same thing happened with Spiderman 3 and Sam Raimi, he’d already made great movies and yet Sony still felt they knew better what should go into the third one. Joss Whedon made one of the best comic book movies of all time, how is it STILL a problem for guys like this to have control over their movie, THEY are the director and Marvel hired him to do that job, I never get why they like to stick their nose in and ruin stuff.

          I’m sure its a mix of things, he deserves more to do the sequel because of the mega bank the first one got, that I can get why he would hold off for a while, but I hope they dont try and mess him over for the sequel by sticking their hand in the cookie jar, when will these companies learn that this usually results in fan hate and terrible films?

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