But herein lies the question: has The Avengers aged poorly?
In a manner - yes. Some of the costumes lack the edge of their later designs, and the plot lacks depth. These aren't the areas where the film most shows its age though - it has the aspect ratio to thank for that.
In the end, The Avengers just looks like a film out of place. It's a compelling one despite its flaws, and while the film doesn't live and die by the change in ratio, it's a glaring change and one that distinguishes it from its contemporaries - for the worse.
Yes, this might be the nitpickiest critique to have graced the halls of infamously nitpicky critiques, but The Avengers is an action film all the same, and its action suffers because of the ratio in question.
WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well.
In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.
