10 Movies That Should Have Started 5 Minutes Later
2. The Avengers
Despite being one of the Marvel Cinematic Universe's best films, The Avengers also features one of the most underwhelming openings in the entire franchise.
The film's 12-minute pre-title sequence involves Loki (Tom Hiddleston) showing up at S.H.I.E.L.D. HQ to steal the Tesseract, but before Loki arrives we're made to sit through almost exactly five minutes of exposition about the Tesseract's importance in order to bring more casual viewers up to speed.
But audiences aren't idiots, and so there's really little reason for this blandly shot, excessively talky opening to exist. Kick the film off when Loki shows up and it's immediately much punchier and more exciting.
The pre-title scene does admittedly still feel inferior to the rest of the movie, strangely evoking the vibe of a TV show, but at least it'd feel pacier and less bloated if the early chit-chat were jettisoned.