I have kinda reviewed The Avengers before, and I basically came out of that review with the sentiment that it was my favorite movie ever and I loved virtually everything about it. All of that is still accurate six years later. So with the release of Infinity War (which I'm about 50% expecting to be an incoherent pile of garbage) looming at the end of this month, this will be less of a review of why I loved The Avengers and more of a retrospective on why I consider The Avengers to still be the best movie the MCU has produced.
The first thing any movie has to do, particularly blockbusters and horror films, is manage the expectations of their target audience appropriately. If you don't do that, your movie will have a tough time gaining traction. Joss Whedon, who wrote and directed The Avengers, is well aware of this fact, considering he has a bit of a history with it (Titan A.E., Cabin in the Woods, Atlantis...). The Avengers benefitted from already having an established fan-base and previous films to help inform audience expectations, and the marketing for the movie didn't do anything to try and change that. Some people worried that the movie would be ho-hum nothing-new-here as a result.
And in a way, they were right. The Avengers took everything that audiences had loved about the previous MCU films and went "okay, cool. Let's do all of that, but just a little bit better." And it worked. Audience reaction was amazingly positive because everyone basically left the theaters feeling like they'd gotten exactly what they wanted, except just a little bit more than they had thought they wanted. Sometimes it pays to subvert audience expectations, and I do love movies that do that (The Last Jedi, anybody?). But if you're confident you can give them exactly what they're expecting and still do it better than anyone had done it before? Well, do it.
So what exactly does your average MCU viewer expect from an MCU movie? What are the pillars that define their viewing experience? First and foremost, I think, they're expecting to see quality. The cinematography, the set design, the costumes, the special effects, everything they see should look good. They are expecting colors and designs that look like something they might see in real life, or they're expecting colors and designs that are bold and eye-catching in their weirdness.
MCU viewers also expect humor. For better or worse this started in the very beginning, with Iron Man, and nobody did anything to convince the world that humor wasn't what we wanted in our superhero movies leading up to The Avengers (even The Dark Knight has jokes). They expect witty banter, quips, and some situational irreverence from their heroes. There are limits, of course, and while the heroes may make light of the danger they find themselves in or the abilities or limitations of their accomplices, they should also be very serious about protecting people and the world around them.
MCU viewers also expect fighting. Lots and lots of fighting, between the heroes and the villain, between the heroes and the villain's minions, between the heroes and random side villains that are secondary to the plot, and between the heroes. They want to see conflict, they want to see that conflict become violent, and they also want the conflict to wrap up in a nice little bow at the end. They want a resolution that leaves them feeling positive about something.
MCU viewers also expect heroes they can love. Heroes they want to root for. Is your hero a scoundrel? Make him a hilarious scoundrel and give him a change of heart within the first hour. Is your hero self-absorbed? Make him hilarious and take his powers away till he learns to not be self-absorbed. Is your hero basically the perfect human? Make him come from humble beginnings and cast him opposite Hayley Atwell. MCU viewers expect their heroes to have flaws, but they also expect their heroes to be lovable.
All those things combined inform this last one, but above all else MCU viewers expect to have fun. Your movie can have parts that aren't fun, in service of building the conflict, or in service of showing the heroes flaws despite their lovability, or in service of showing how serious the hero is about protecting people. But after a few serious bits, tell a joke. Show something wild. Start a fight. Bring back the fun. At their core MCU viewers want to eat popcorn and have a good time, that's what they're paying for. So whatever other depth of character or moral you put into the movie, make sure that the end product is fun.
Some MCU movies have fallen short on some (or even all) of these things. Doctor Strange overdid the humor. Civil War forgot to make the heroes lovable. The Incredible Hulk... sucked. Other's did almost all of these things well, though they leaned more heavily on one of these pillars than the others, like the humor in Thor: Ragnarok and Guardians of the Galaxy, or the conflict in The Winter Soldier or Black Panther.
But to my eye we have one movie that balanced every pillar of a good MCU movie almost flawlessly, delivering exactly what MCU viewers were expecting and then some. And that was The Avengers. Was it a perfect movie? Of course not. If you are not an MCU viewer, odds are you think some of these pillars I'm talking about don't belong in movies at all.
But you know what? The Avengers wasn't made for you. It was made for the MCU viewers, like me, and we loved it. It really is my favorite movie of all time, because it gave me exactly what I wanted. There have been a lot of great movies in the MCU since then, but none of them have managed quite what The Avengers did. I don't want them to, honestly, I'd get bored if every movie were The Avengers with different names. I like the variation.
But it is really nice that somebody got that balance perfect, at least once.
The first thing any movie has to do, particularly blockbusters and horror films, is manage the expectations of their target audience appropriately. If you don't do that, your movie will have a tough time gaining traction. Joss Whedon, who wrote and directed The Avengers, is well aware of this fact, considering he has a bit of a history with it (Titan A.E., Cabin in the Woods, Atlantis...). The Avengers benefitted from already having an established fan-base and previous films to help inform audience expectations, and the marketing for the movie didn't do anything to try and change that. Some people worried that the movie would be ho-hum nothing-new-here as a result.
And in a way, they were right. The Avengers took everything that audiences had loved about the previous MCU films and went "okay, cool. Let's do all of that, but just a little bit better." And it worked. Audience reaction was amazingly positive because everyone basically left the theaters feeling like they'd gotten exactly what they wanted, except just a little bit more than they had thought they wanted. Sometimes it pays to subvert audience expectations, and I do love movies that do that (The Last Jedi, anybody?). But if you're confident you can give them exactly what they're expecting and still do it better than anyone had done it before? Well, do it.
So what exactly does your average MCU viewer expect from an MCU movie? What are the pillars that define their viewing experience? First and foremost, I think, they're expecting to see quality. The cinematography, the set design, the costumes, the special effects, everything they see should look good. They are expecting colors and designs that look like something they might see in real life, or they're expecting colors and designs that are bold and eye-catching in their weirdness.
MCU viewers also expect humor. For better or worse this started in the very beginning, with Iron Man, and nobody did anything to convince the world that humor wasn't what we wanted in our superhero movies leading up to The Avengers (even The Dark Knight has jokes). They expect witty banter, quips, and some situational irreverence from their heroes. There are limits, of course, and while the heroes may make light of the danger they find themselves in or the abilities or limitations of their accomplices, they should also be very serious about protecting people and the world around them.
MCU viewers also expect fighting. Lots and lots of fighting, between the heroes and the villain, between the heroes and the villain's minions, between the heroes and random side villains that are secondary to the plot, and between the heroes. They want to see conflict, they want to see that conflict become violent, and they also want the conflict to wrap up in a nice little bow at the end. They want a resolution that leaves them feeling positive about something.
MCU viewers also expect heroes they can love. Heroes they want to root for. Is your hero a scoundrel? Make him a hilarious scoundrel and give him a change of heart within the first hour. Is your hero self-absorbed? Make him hilarious and take his powers away till he learns to not be self-absorbed. Is your hero basically the perfect human? Make him come from humble beginnings and cast him opposite Hayley Atwell. MCU viewers expect their heroes to have flaws, but they also expect their heroes to be lovable.
All those things combined inform this last one, but above all else MCU viewers expect to have fun. Your movie can have parts that aren't fun, in service of building the conflict, or in service of showing the heroes flaws despite their lovability, or in service of showing how serious the hero is about protecting people. But after a few serious bits, tell a joke. Show something wild. Start a fight. Bring back the fun. At their core MCU viewers want to eat popcorn and have a good time, that's what they're paying for. So whatever other depth of character or moral you put into the movie, make sure that the end product is fun.
Some MCU movies have fallen short on some (or even all) of these things. Doctor Strange overdid the humor. Civil War forgot to make the heroes lovable. The Incredible Hulk... sucked. Other's did almost all of these things well, though they leaned more heavily on one of these pillars than the others, like the humor in Thor: Ragnarok and Guardians of the Galaxy, or the conflict in The Winter Soldier or Black Panther.
But to my eye we have one movie that balanced every pillar of a good MCU movie almost flawlessly, delivering exactly what MCU viewers were expecting and then some. And that was The Avengers. Was it a perfect movie? Of course not. If you are not an MCU viewer, odds are you think some of these pillars I'm talking about don't belong in movies at all.
But you know what? The Avengers wasn't made for you. It was made for the MCU viewers, like me, and we loved it. It really is my favorite movie of all time, because it gave me exactly what I wanted. There have been a lot of great movies in the MCU since then, but none of them have managed quite what The Avengers did. I don't want them to, honestly, I'd get bored if every movie were The Avengers with different names. I like the variation.
But it is really nice that somebody got that balance perfect, at least once.
Comments
Post a Comment