To most people who helped push last year's culmination of Marvel's Phase One to its frankly astounding one and half billion dollar haul, The Avengers was pretty much perfect summer entertainment. The only people who dared speak out against it were Brits who felt stupid asking to see Avengers Assemble at the ticket office. Well, it turns out one person wasn't totally impressed the films director. Speaking
exclusively to Entertainment Weekly Joss Whedon discussed his rise from comic book loving teen to blockbuster titan, but the most interesting thing to come out of the interview was the reveal the 49 year old super geek doesn't think of his superhero genre celebration as a great movie.
When I think of a great film, I think of something thats either structured so perfectly like The Matrix or made so lovingly like The Godfather Part II. There was haphazardness in the way it comes togethernot just the people, but the scenes.
In a world where Quentin Tarantino will exclaim he wants every film to be 100% (he clearly missed Death Proof) its quite nice to see a director will some humility. Whedon has a point in so far as The Avengers has plenty of holes in its logic, most glaringly why Loki bothered bringing Earths mightiest heroes together just to try and split them apart. But youd be forgiven hes been a little overly bashful in his comments. Personally, how a film makes you feel, how it performs within its genre and whether you are entertained is more important that what it has just on a technical scale. If it was just the latter that mattered wed all be trumpeting Only God Forgives as film of the summer. I can agree that The Avengers isn't a perfect movie, but as summer entertainment its pretty hard to top, embracing its sense of humour rather than pushing it down and what else could it have done to be dubbed 'great? Whedon did an amazing job of taking a series thus far defined by serviceable mediocrity and turning it into something universally adored. Whats particularly attention-grabbing is how he describes The Matrix as perfectly structured. An entertaining film and with a reputation heavily influenced by the lacklustre sequels, The Avengers is pretty much on par with it as far as greatness goes. Believe it or not that's only second most exciting Avengers news of the day. After nearly two months the San Diego Comic Con teaser for Age Of Ultron has found its way online. And teaser is the word. As you can see below, there's nothing really there except a glimpse at Ultron. But with epic quotes from the first film it's a reminder of what made the first film so, well, great.
The Avengers: Age Of Ultron is in cinemas worldwide from May 1st 2015.