Everything wrong with Everything Wrong with "The Avengers"
Published: 12/23/2012 6:00 AM
Last Modified: 12/23/2012 7:49 AM
The Avengers was a great movie. Let no one tell you otherwise. DISNEY / AP Photo
This is a tesseract, and that’s pretty much all you’ll ever know for sure about it: Not true. While we still don’t know the full extent of the tesseract’s power we did find out it emits gamma radiation, can power weapons (saw in Captain America) and can open portals to space.
Secret military research facility on brightly lit exposed mesa: First of all, that place is out in the middle of nowhere so who in the heck is going to go mindlessly walk in a desert and look for it. Second: At the top just appear to be office buildings which can easily be explained by the government. The real stuff takes place underground.
Helicopters do not need to follow roadways: Pretty sure that was just the way the camera was positioned.
Coulson wears sunglasses at night: Apparently you have never heard of Sunglasses at Night by Corey Hart, sir.
Nick Fury’s character development literally begins and ends with “eye patch”: We have already established Nick Fury is the leader of S.H.I.E.L.D. in Iron Man. And we’re not here to learn more about Fury. We are here to see the superhero’s fight.
Exciting superhero movie starts with plodding exposition: Of course it does. It’s called build up. We can’t just start a movie with exciting action sequences without building something up.
Possibly-racist movie kills two Asian extras in a row: They were just two shoulders. Doesn’t mean the movie is racist.
Tesseract powers allow for mind control by tapping the center of the chest: Loki gave that big speech about the heart, so he touched the heart of Hawkeye on his chest to take over his mind. We are dealing with an alien artifact here.
Dangerous energy source space doorway with gamma radiation? Screw it, transport by hand: While yes, that could be dangerous. Let’s see where we are in the movie: Loki has killed a few of your men, mind controlled your awesome sniper and plans to take that thing which would be bad. So you really don’t have time to safely transport it a few inches with proper equipment. Take your chances.
The “bullet-proof-vest fake out”: Nick Fury works for a shadowy government organization and shoots at people a lot. Why NOT wear a bullet proof vest?!
First action piece of major superhero film is a boring car chase: When is a car chase boring? I saw a car chase in the movie The Dukes of Hazzard and there was a sequence of the Duke Boys drifting in a circle. That was one of the best sequences I have ever seen.
Scene does not contain a lap dance: Not a stripper, sir.
Bruce Banner is hiding out where only little girls and S.H.I.E.L.D. can find him: It was set up later that Banner was acting as a medical doctor in the village, so locals probably knew where to find him. Next, it’s S.H.I.E.L.D. Fury himself broke into Stark’s house undetected. They can find you. They will find you.
S.H.I.E.L.D. answers to: 4 people on vertical plasma screens?: Hey, they may be a shadowy government organization, but they do have bosses.
Bad guy henchmen running laps: Loki’s base of operation is in the center of this complex. If it was just a straight line to him, it’d be too easy.
Loki’s scepter is also a space phone: Alien technology. We have already established this thing can take over people’s mind. Who knows what this thing can fully do.
The Heli-carrier is hella stupid: A flying battleship is stupid?! HOW?!
Cloaking device is dumb, but also I don’t know why they’re hiding: Airplanes in the sky. Don’t really need them reporting down to the ground that this flying base is out there. Kind of defeats the purpose of the shadowy organization.
Cap pays off bet he never technically accepted: He never said it out loud, but in his heart…he did.
“We’re sweeping every wirelessly accessible camera on the planet”: I seriously don’t know how many more times I can keep saying SHADOWY ORGANIZATION! Plus, let’s not forget Batman did this in The Dark Knight to find The Joker and guess what…He found him!
Loki makes grand appearance changes that barely change his appearance: Loki needed to at least get close to his target to get a print of his eyes. If he started off with his horns, armor, and wicked looking scepter, people would perhaps choose to stay away from him.
Attacks Germans but lectures them in English: You ALMOST had me there, but if you recall in Babylon 5 episodes, aliens sounded like they were speaking English, but when humans trying to interact with them, they didn’t understand one another. Probably because in the show’s universe they were speaking their own language, but it was just translated to English for our human ears watching the show. (Thank you for that ONE bit of Babylon 5 I saw that one time)
Did he just jump from a plane?: He’s a super soldier. I bet he doesn’t take fall damage. You know who else didn’t take fall damage? Master Chief. Well, he did in Halo: Combat Evolved, but afterwards no fall damage.
Cheesy and pointless Hit…Let’s move on.
Late night kidnap brotherly argument on a mountain: It was already established in Thor that his and Loki’s relationship was pretty Shakespearian. Arguing on a mountain? That’s about as Shakespearian one can get.
Superhero pissing contest: You have obviously never read a crossover comic. This kind of thing happens all the time.
Supervillain prisoner left unattended: Loki didn’t want to run. Part of his plan.
Superhero pissing contest number 2: Once again; happens all the time. These guys are alpha males, so they will do that from time to time.
Cap & Iron Man almost kiss: Funny.
Mighty heli-carrier basically neutered by one freaking arrow: Have arrow with the tip loaded with a high explosive on a machine flying at high altitude….Yeah, you’re going to do some damage.
Clearly no radio in his ear but he pretends to have one: You got me there.
Computer virus delivered by arrow: He’s Hawkeye. Man has an arrow for any situation.
For a super soldier, Captain America is a terrible shot: His weapon of choice is a shield. Not an assault rifle.
Loki tricks Thor with the old “Lucy/Charlie Brown” football prank: A staple in Loki’s arsenal of tricks. Also, Thor is not really much a thinker in the movie; More of a doer than a thinker.
So Loki’s plan was to get captured on purpose and have Hawkeye break him out, but no real objective?: His plan was to cripple the team and divide them, which he did rather successfully.
Long boring fight scene between characters we are already trying not to hate: That scene was pretty entertaining and what is to hate about Black Widow and Hawkeye? Because they have no powers? What power does Captain America have? The man is literally just a guy on super steroids.
Tesseract mind-control powers erased with a simple blow to the head: It takes over the mind. You knock out the brain for awhile, it’ll reset. Mind control loses its effect.
Fury gives intimidating death stare to a computer screen: He’s upset at the situation. Have you never thrown a controller or yelled at your computer just for being slow?
“Dying-person-can’t-finish-their-last-profound-statement-before-dying” cliché: It’s a cliché because it is used so many times. It’s used so many times because it works.
Bad news negates the need for medical care: When you are receiving news from your commanding officer and all you got are a few cuts and bruises; it does.
Nick Fury motivates the team by lying about the location of baseball cards: I heard a quote once that said something along the lines of: “You don’t have to beat the game; you just have to beat the man.” You play at a person’s emotional core the right way; you’ll get the reaction you desire.
Cap gets……NEXT!
Basically-indestructible heroes still need little league pep talk to get up for the big challenge: As stated before, these heroes are pretty much alpha males and one of the key weaknesses they all have is their pride and Loki pretty much decimated all of theirs with his attack, so yes; a pep talk was needed.
Thor has trouble picking up his hammer but it’s never explained: Thor could have easily summoned it, but he hesitated as he believed he wasn’t worthy to wield it. It was a struggle with himself and his confidence.
Every gadget in this [CENSORED] movie has to glow with a blue light: It’s got to glow something. That’s how you know it is working.
Loki patiently waits for Iron Man to remove the damaged suit, grab a drink, banter a bit, and put on a new suit instead of just killing him: Loki is a very very VERY arrogant villain. He pretty much thinks he has won at this point so he is going to gloat.
Too bad Loki’s mind control powers only work if the scepter touches the exact center of a person’s chest: It did touch the center, but it touch the vibranium core of Tony Stark’s chest, not his flesh. So the mind control did not work.
Generic bad guy soldiers whose abilities and shortcomings are never explained: They’re army grunts that look scary and have space weapons. What more do you need to know?
Why are they even trying to stop an army that we never once see kill or injure a human being: Because if The Avengers didn’t stop them, they would have killed and injured humans. The Avengers are just that good. PERFECT!
Captain America is really more of a super-gymnast than a super-hero: You don’t need superpowers to be a superhero.
Black Widow knows exactly how to handle and fire an alien weapon seconds after picking it up: Black Widow herself has had expert military training. It does not take a rocket scientist to wield a staff like a staff. Plus, it is also a gun and all you need to really fire a gun is find the trigger and pull it.
And suddenly, there was Bruce Banner on a motorcycle: Bruce was gone for a bit after changing back from The Hulk, so safe to assume he got some transportation in that time.
Production Design 101: Don’t imitate anything from Transformers: Not true. Transformers did have some cool looking robot fight scenes in them. Watching Optimus Prime rip off The Fallen’s face was visceral.
Hulk can suddenly control his powers because the story demands it: It is not all of a sudden. It was set up in The Incredible Hulk that Bruce was training himself to control The Hulk. It worked.
Thor’s lightning turns out to be really, really effective against the aliens, but he only uses it once: It’d be a pretty boring action movie if it just broke down to one move.
The Council would rather kill everyone in New York with a nuclear weapon than maybe have some die in an alien invasion: If The Avengers failed the aliens would have then swept over the planet unopposed. The Council saw a change to hopefully take them out and decided to act.
Loki gets caught monologuing: Loki is arrogant as stated before. It is a weakness for arrogant villains.
Nick Fury fires a missile at an American to stop him from firing a missile at Americans: Which sounds better: Taking down one plane or letting that plane go to blow up New York….I’ll wait for your answer.
All the enemy soldiers die like [CENSORED] once the mother ship is exploded: The Alien invaders were of one hive mind apparently. Take out the hive mind, the soldiers are gone.
There is no gravity in space, but Iron Man falls back to Earth anyway: The portal between space and New York was still open, so it is safe to assume the gravity from there could pull him back.
Are Banner and Stark dating now?: Smart bros. stick together.
Credits scene to tease the next movie turns out to be homework assignment: Doing your homework keeps you in the loop of things.
Shawarma scene missed by any moviegoer who didn’t realize there would be two end-credit scenes (so basically everyone): It’s your own fault if you missed out.
Do you have a topic you would like the Prairie Nerds to address? Let us know at PrairieNerds@tulsaworld.com
Written by
Chris Moore
Web Production Tech
