re: Avengers AOU Tomatometer Watch Thread - 79%

I'm not. This is the perfect film for comic movie critical backlash.

It is filled w/characters from several movie series which means its likely several reviewers haven't seen all of the preceding films or if they have it was just once for a review when they came out. This gives many a critic the easy out for the "I don't know what's going on" line that is generally code for "I don't like this kind of thing so I didn't pay much attention to begin with" in reviewer speak.

Here is a line from a negative New Yorker review

quote:

---

First, you try to understand what the hell is going on. Then you slowly realize that you will never understand what is going on. And, last, you wind up with the distinct impression that, if there was anything to understand, it wasn’t worth the sweat.

I gave up around the time that we were presented with something called the Mind Stone, yet another cosmic thingamajig, and apparently one of six “infinity stones,” which sound like the kind of stuff that Bilbo Baggins would hawk on QVC.

---

LINK

The numbers on Rotten Tomatoes don't affect me much one way or the other unless they are really low (say below 50) or really high (say above 90).

I do like to read a sampling of the reviews and see what they are saying and to see how what they are saying is likely to affect my particular likes and dislikes in movies.

For the reviews on Age of Ultron if you throw out the outlying few who either really liked it or really disliked it a lot of the reviews read pretty much the same and it is sometimes hard to see why one review is a fresh and another is a rotten.

Here most seem to like the quieter moments with the characters between fights, sitting around chatting, etc. and the fact that there is a bit more character development with Hawkeye and with Widow/Banner. And most seem to like the voice work on Ultron. Most seem to dislike a fight with another large army of sort of faceless and definitely characterless "soldiers", the fact that a lot of the movies is fights, destruction, etc. and maybe Ultron's look.

As an Avengers fan since the 70's and a big Hawkeye fan I've seen enough good stuff in the reviews that I am excited to see the movie. I will say I didn't really care for the hordes of Ultrons that much in the comic story-line so from what I've seen in the trailers I probably will end up agreeing with the critics on that count.

(I also don't particularly care for the title "Age of Ultron" because that seems to have been lifted from an X-men story-line. But that's an admittedly fan-boy nit-pick).

That's why they have the average score meter. This one is at 7.1/10 currently, which I think is actually pretty accurate.

Although that average score thing seems pretty fricked up, too. Man of Steel has an average score of 6.2/10 and yet has a percentage of 56%. Iron Man 2 has an average score of 6.5/10 and has a percentage of 73% Certified Fresh. WTF? That shite makes no sense.

This isn't a case of critics trying to be cool by bashing a Marvel movie. I've heard many of the same complaints by fans and the consensus seems to be that it's a good popcorn flick and really nothing else. If anything, 79 is probably generous.

god, Iron Man 2 is easily the worst Marvel Universe movie. Hopefully Avengers 2 is somewhere in the top 5

Cap2
GoTG
Avengers
Iron Man
Cap1
Thor
Hulk
Iron Man 3
Thor 2




Iron Man 2

quote:

---

It was going to be popular to hate it on it.

---

So how do you explain the critical praise for The Dark Knight Rises (currently at 88% on Rotten Tomatoes) when that was a popular movie to hate on? Just because a film follows a critically acclaimed one doesn't mean the critics are going to hate it just for the sake of hating it.

Many of the reviews I have read say that Age of Ultron ignores important character development which occurred in the previous stand alone films. There also seems to be very little tension or sense of peril in the action scenes. And apparently the writers of the film couldn't decide which way they wanted to go with Ultron because he can be incredibly menacing in one scene while dishing out cheesy one liners the next. All this from reviews of the film.

I will approach this movie with an open mind but the reviews have gotten me down a bit.

I think he was kidding.

quote:

---

This isn't a case of critics trying to be cool by bashing a Marvel movie. I've heard many of the same complaints by fans and the consensus seems to be that it's a good popcorn flick and really nothing else. If anything, 79 is probably generous.

---

The movie simply is not as good as the first Avengers film.

Think of a cross between Avengers & Transformers.

Thinking about it more and more, people are really going to hate the direction Marvel is going with Tony Stark. Iron Man 3 was just the beginning.