The Avengers trailer delivers kaboom, but it looks oddly small, soulless, artless.

Well, this is indeed a teaser for The Avengers.  I don't expect to see a ton of new footage behind what was teased in the Captain America credits sequence last July, but I am weary that this trailer is actually a perfect example of what I discussed yesterday.  While the film seems action packed, you'll notice that 80% of the action beats seem to be from the same exterior sequence, which is indeed the finale of the picture (with the remaining 20% apparently from a second-act invasion of the 'hall of justice').  With a budget of $220 million, only $20 million more than the nearly action-less Iron Man 2, will the film be mostly set-up for one giant battle in the last 20-30 minutes?  What we do see looks fine, if a bit small in scale and lacking any real sense of art or purpose.  Yes the special effects are not done, and I wonder if we'll see alien ships in that big shot of the randomly exploding cars in the final cut, but what's there pales in comparison to the sense of scale found in any number of big tentpoles of late (Transformers: Dark of the Moon, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part II, even Battle: Los Angeles).  It's characters we know and love basically posing for the camera (with Johansson again causing an explosion with her farting) and trying to convince us, the already converted, how bad-ass these heroes allegedly are.

Speaking of Johansson, it would have been nice to catch a glimpse of Cobie Smulders as Maria Hill, so as to highlight that there is more than one female in the entire film (hopefully Smulders will actually get to talk and have a personality).  The dialogue on display is weirdly bland, with Samuel L. Jackson spending 25 seconds painfully explaining the obvious point of such a super group ('take all the good guys and let them fight the bad guys!') and Downey Jr.'s inexplicable "If we can't protect the Earth, then you can be damn-sure we'll avenge it!" line (because we have to explain why the group is called 'The Avengers'?).  Other than Stark's trademark quips, the only other dialogue of note is Loki's villainous monologue, which actually hints at how the film will likely end (IE - mankind will not turn on each other, but rather rise up at the last minute and defeat the threat alongside the superheroes).  So while the film looks colorful and the finale at least looks like a grandly epic showdown, it's quite strange that this Joss Whedon film seems to be missing his two trademarks: clever dialogue and a strong female presence.  Anyway, I'm sure we'll see another trailer around Oscar-time, and as always, we'll see...
 
Scott Mendelson