War v Peace

Ten minutes into the new Avengers movie I knew I was in trouble. The small theater was full, half with adults with kids and half with adults, and the sound was earthshaking. The movie rumbled like an elephant barreling down a bowling alley. I was expecting it. I’d seen enough blockbusters to know what I was in for. The strangely thin CGI effects, the video arcade war games. The flat, unfunny banter the superheroes tossed off back and forth on invisible headsets. (I counted one laugh from the audience, not a single cheer.) Iron Man’s weirdly calm monologues inside his armor suit, as if all that hyperkinetic flying about didn’t jostle him an ounce. All the bloodless mayhem, fight scenes so fast you can’t tell who is doing what to whom. All of it present within the opening scenes, set in predictable motion, the next hour and a half already predetermined. I didn’t care who they were fighting or why they were fighting. I wasn’t supposed to. This movie was about itself. The bad guy? An operating system, a rogue computer mind as subtle and dangerous as a human mind, with a jacked up superconductor brainstem. Once again Hollywood was taking about itself, showing off its muscles. It didn’t take long for the thing to take human form—part Darth Vader, part Terminator, part bored dandy thug. All of a sudden the team of super heroes, who’d been divided and nearly defeated simply by being forced to see their own dreams (Holy Cow, Batman!), only to come back together as a unit, bonded by the call to duty. But now they weren’t slaughtering the enemy; they were evacuating an entire city. Their love and care was so thick I almost gagged. America was suddenly both the avenging angel and the peacekeeping angel. At the same time! Disgusting. I went out to get another beer and check on the state of dusk in the parking lot. If I stalled out long enough, I’d miss some important plot point, be spared connecting the dots.