In The Battle Of Superhero Movies - The Avengers Still Wins

My personal summer superhero trilogy is now complete. I wasn't going to do it but in the interest of an excuse to get out of the house for a family outing, Mrs. DisneylandTraveler, the Boy, and me headed off to the multiplex to see The Dark Knight Rises. It was 107 degrees here at home yesterday, let's use someone else's air-conditioning for awhile (and with a running time of close to 3 hours, a very long while).

The Dark Knight Rises caps off the Warner Bros. and DC Comics latest Batman trilogy directed by Christopher Nolan. The quick review - The Dark Knight Rises is long, plodding, dark, and violent. Not that it isn't interesting or have it's moments but in the end, there is something unappealing about its bleakness. Glad I saw it. I will probably rent it when it comes to home video, but after that, I will quickly put it to rest and forget about it. No plans to go out and buy the movie when it becomes available which is always the truest measure of how much I like a movie.

So over the summer, we have seen Disney / Marvel's The Avengers, Sony / Marvel's The Amazing Spiderman, and now Warner Bros. / DC Comics The Dark Knight Rises. Guess what? The Avengers wins - easily. Am I prejudiced because The Avengers is a Disney produced movie and this is a Disney blog? Nope - The Avengers is flat out better than the other two and by a pretty large margin.

The Amazing Spiderman was somewhat surprisingly entertaining but brought nothing new to the party from the original 2002 Spiderman movie. It was basically the same movie - entertaining but pretty much forgettable. On the other hand, The Avengers advanced and grandly topped off the Marvel Cinematic Universe - Phase One series of films that began with the original Iron Man (and continued with The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man 2, Thor, and Captain America - The First Avenger). 

The Avengers delivered the goods - highly entertaining, sharply written and directed by Joss Whedon, and had nice performances from a cast of fine actors. Most of all, The Avengers was a fun movie, something that could not be said about the other two films.

Mrs. DLT is already chomping at the bit for when The Avengers hits the home video market (Sept 25, I believe is the day). The only question is whether to buy the blu-ray Avengers package or shell out the 140 bucks (an Amazon pre-order price now - about $220 closer to the release date) 10 disc set that contains the other four prequel movies and tons of special features loaded into its special briefcase packaging. Tempting.