< The Avengers (2012 film)

The Avengers (2012 film)/YMMV


  • Anticlimax Boss: Years of superhero movies have taught viewers to expect that a final battle between The Avengers and Loki would happen towards the end of the movie. It doesn't happen quite that way.
    • That being said, Loki's defeat was still a pretty awesome moment for the Hulk, who thrashed him like a ragdoll and left him a whimpering wreck.
  • Awesome Music: The score by Alan Silvestri, particularly the Avengers anthem. Try to listen to it and not feel ready to repel an Alien Invasion. Go on, try. We'll wait.
  • Catharsis Factor: The Hulk smacking Loki around. After seeing the latter spend the entire movie being a bastard--and especially his callous murder of Agent Coulson--this was quite satisfying. Unsurprisingly, this scene was a hit with audiences with many packed movie theaters breaking out into applause and cheers at Loki's defeat.
  • Cliché Storm: It wasn't lost on several critics and movie goers that The Avengers, for all of its praise, hardly broke new ground in superhero movie storytelling (especially compared to The Dark Knight and Watchmen). It's more than a bit predictable, and every convenient plot twist unfolded in the way most people would expect after viewing one too many superhero flicks. Still, because The Avengers blended the best elements of superhero movies together, this is an exceptional case of Tropes Are Not Bad for many.
  • Crowning Trailer Of Awesome:
  • Draco in Leather Pants: Go on, look at Tumblr. Search for Loki. We dare you. The fangirls have gone nuts about Loki ever since the first Thor film. It was more understandable in Thor, but here it's baffling to see this genocidal psycho attract so many apologists.
  • Ear Worm: Like the sun, we will live to rise...
  • Ensemble Darkhorse: The Hulk (and Mark Ruffalo as Bruce Banner. Remarkable for The Other Darrin.)
    • Agent Coulson has also become very popular. Not bad for someone who was created specifically for the movies and never appeared in the comics.
  • Fan Dumb:
    • Some fans complained about Black Widow's lack of a Russian accent. She identifies herself as Russian in the film but talks about having been raised in the United States and then spending a lot of time abroad. Additionally, she's an international spy who has mastered multiple languages. So obviously, she can speak with a perfect accent. If she couldn't, she wouldn't be very good at her job. The comic character has never been described as having a Russian accent and in fact, has passed herself off as an American citizen more than once so it is safe to say that the original version speaks English with a US accent.
    • Some fans were enraged at Cap's line about Thor ("There's only one God, ma'am, and I'm pretty sure He doesn't dress like that"), claiming that Joss Whedon was having a case of religious Writer on Board. Putting aside the fact that Cap has always been a deeply religious Christian (and therefore such a line isn't out of character for him), Joss Whedon himself is a staunch humanist who once derisively referred to the Abrahamic God as "the sky bully."
  • Fan Nickname:
    • "Thorbuster" for Coulson's unnamed BFG[1]
    • Shawarmavengers, for the second stinger.
    • Steelix for the giant biomechanical Leviathan-things.
  • Fridge Brilliance: Loki gets his mouth sewn shut in the Norse myths after a trick with the dwarfs goes awry. At the end of the movie, there's a muzzle over his mouth as he's taken away to Asgard.
  • Fridge Horror:
    • Considering that it took going unconscious to break Loki's Mind Control, take a look at Hawkeye and Selvig throughout the movie. This is especially true for Selvig--he never changes clothing and starts noticeably growing stubble. It's clear that Loki is forcing those he controls to stay awake constantly in order to complete his project. It also explains why Hawkeye looks worse and worse. It may also have affected him while fighting with Natasha.
  • Genius Bonus: Loki exploits his infamous Leitmotif from Wagner's The Ring of the Nibelung to make a dramatic entrance. He even waves his scepter around as if he were conducting the music, suggesting that he's listened to such things a lot.
  • He's Just Hiding: Coulson is speculated to have actually survived his encounter with Loki. The fact that Nick Fury was later revealed to have at the very least lied about where his Captain America cards were located, as well as his actor stating that Whedon has him booked for more Marvel movies also leads credence to this.
  • Ho Yay:
    • A lot of the lines between Stark and Banner sound kinda flirty, and a thousand fanfics were launched in the single moment when Stark randomly pokes Banner in the stomach and Banner just puts up a mild, vaguely amused protest. Couple that with the scene where the Hulk saves Iron Man twice in rapid succession, and the fact that these two are the only two members of the Avengers to hit it off the instant they meet...
    • Perhaps it's less suspect in Asgard, but the way Thor cupped Loki's cheek and neck while asking him to come home seemed a bit affectionate (in a not so brotherly manner) to mortal audiences.
    • Cap and Thor. Seriously. That searching look Thor gives Cap when Cap goes on fighting after he's hit...it's like a light went on inside his head.
    • As in the comics, Cap even gets this with Stark. During their arguments, one can't help but think, "Just KISS already!"
    • Agent Coulson's fanboy tendencies toward Cap is played for laughs, but the way he tells him "I watched you when you slept" can be interpreted in some ways...
  • Holy Shit Quotient: As befitting.
  • Hype Backlash: With so much hype, this was bound to happen to some.
  • Iron Woobie: Bruce Banner.
  • Like You Would Really Do It: Few people really believed that Iron Man was going to kick it.
  • Magnificent Bastard: Loki zig-zags between this and Smug Snake. While he's a lot more blatantly egocentric and prone to going off on spiels about how much better he is than everyone else, he still successfully plays the Avengers like a fiddle by turning them against each other and almost killing everyone on the S.H.I.E.L.D helicarrier during his escape.
  • Memetic Mutation:
    • "I have an army." "We have a Hulk."
      • And its variations, such as 'We have a Coulson'.
    • Also, variations of this piece of dialogue:

Steve Rogers: Big man in a suit of armor, take that away and what are you?
Tony Stark: Genius billionaire playboy philanthropist.

  • Moral Event Horizon: While he was still quite sympathetic in the original Thor movie, here he goes far over the deep end with his attempted genocide against humanity which involves mass-Mind Rape, the death of the beloved Agent Coulson, and allowing the Chitauri to cross over to Earth and attempt to kill everyone. Come the second Thor movie where he's been taken to Asgard to pay for his crimes, Odin has flat out disowned him.
  • Music to Invade Poland To: Technically, Loki's invading Germany, and only as a distraction. Still, two seconds after he starts a buttkicking rampage set to the tunes of Richard Wagner, he's pretty accurately compared to Hitler.
  • Narm: The UK's Market-Based Title "Avengers Assemble".
  • One-Scene Wonder: Harry Dean Stanton as the random security guard. "Son, you've got a condition."
    • The old German man who stands up to Loki when he orders a crowd of people to bow to him, who is all but said to be a Holocaust survivor.
  • Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: The Hulk. Two previous attempts to bring the character to the cinema screen proved somewhat lackluster (middling box-office gross, lukewarm reviews), the role got recast once again, and the character had already developed a reputation of being the most boring of the team. However, a combination of Mark Ruffalo's acting and clever screenwriting turned The Hulk into an unexpected favorite of the movie, making the possibility of a new Hulk film much more likely. Might be one of the fastest turnaround times for this ever. Shortly before release producer Kevin Feige said there were no plans for a Hulk movie. Shortly after release, it was let slip that a Hulk movie may be in development for 2015 and that Mark Ruffalo had signed on for six more films.
  • Special Effects Failure: Minor one, repeatedly after the scenes once they're on the helicarrier, the arc reactor's light is not visible through Tony Stark's shirt when it should be. It comes and goes.
  • Take That:
    • The album of Alan Silvestri's score (as opposed to the song album - of which exactly one track is in the film). How can a soundtrack be a Take That, you ask? Well, soundtrack fans have long complained about digital releases having extra material not on the CD (most recently with Silvestri's Captain America the First Avenger, which doesn't have this on the disc and was only available as a download). The digital album of the score of The Avengers lasts 64:25... but the physical CD runs 76:17, and several of the tracks on the download last longer on the CD (in particular "Tunnel Chase"--not the first time Silvestri's used that title--and "Stark Goes Green"), capped with the CD having a whole extra cue ("Interrogation"). Of course, if you're strictly download-only...
  • Too Cool to Live: Agent Coulson.
  • Villain Decay: Loki isn't quite as menacing as he was in Thor, but he's still a lot of fun to watch.
  • Visual Effects of Awesome: A movie about a superhero team required an equally awesome team of visual effect studios to get right, with ILM and WETA spearheading the effort. Special mention goes to the absolutely amazing S.H.I.E.L.D helicarrier and the enormous Chitauri Leviathans.
  • The Woobie: Bruce Banner. The poor guy knows that he's always one bad mood away from turning into an unstoppable rage machine, and absolutely hates it.
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  1. ↑ The name came from an Iron Man suit Tony designed based on Norse weaponry in case he had to take on the pantheon.
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