10 Most Bitterly Disappointing Movie Showdowns

4. The Avengers

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSXld_syVhs The Avengers is a hugely entertaining film with a great script containing plenty of tongue-in-cheek humour, but I'm not convinced that an awful lot actually happens. Loki threatens Earth though his acquisition of the Tesseract and his alliance with the Chitauri. The Avengers are assembled to combat this threat. They argue, bicker, and squabble for most of the film but eventually put aside their differences. The Chitauri then finally make their long-awaited appearance with half an hour left to go and start causing a nuisance in Manhattan. Their ensuing battle with the united group of superheroes is mightily fun and visually spectacular, yet distinctly more amusing than gripping, since it readily becomes clear that none of the Chitauri forces can hold a candle to any of the Avengers, even the two with no superpowers whatsoever, Black Widow and Hawkeye. The final climax of the battle isn't even about which side will prevail, rather whether or not a nuclear missile will be allowed to hit Manhattan, thus nullifying the Chitauri invasion of Earth at the expense of a single city. The issue is not who will win, but rather the extent of the human casualties in the victory. Ever the ingenious one, Tony Stark intercepts the missile and guides it through the portal toward the remaining Chitauri fleet. The missile destroys the invaders' mothership, conveniently leaving their forces disabled on Earth Phantom Menace-style. So why the disappointment? I think it had something to do with the way the movie was marketed. So much of the promotional material, and the trailers especially, focused on the threat that Loki and the Chitauri posed to the world, with the emphasis on lines such as Tony Stark's €œIf we can't protect the Earth, you can be damn sure we'll avenge it€ really suggesting that something near-apocalyptic was going to happen onscreen. But we never got that. As said, the Chitauri's presence is established at the very start of the film but then they're largely forgotten about as the majority of the screen-time is devoted to the world's mightiest heroes' in-fighting. Their eventual appearance seems almost an afterthought (even Stark's words echo this), a hastily-tacked-on segment to provide the physical test of the Avengers' newfound teamwork and co-operation, and the fulfilment of the obligatory action-heavy finale. But the Chitauri do not convincingly live up to their potential of constituting a genuine threat to Earth; ultimately they come across as something of a joke. Here's hoping that the sequel supposedly starring Thanos as the new principal antagonist can promise a battle of more cosmic proportions.