Defining Greatness

Do you know what a great movie is?

“The Avengers” is not it. If you think it is, I’m starting to think it is not that you are wrong but that you are sadly naïve. Maybe you have a good reason to defend why it is great, why it is worthy of its praise, why it is a cultural landmark, but more likely, you had fun.

It is admirable that you have fun at the movies. A critic’s job should be to encourage the joy of going to a movie theater and watching with an enraptured audience. And fun and entertainment is inseparable from art. This much is obvious.

Hopefully my reason for targeting “The Avengers” is clear too. I don’t mean to attack those who had fun at it specifically. In fact, I did as well. But it’s the movie of the week, and those defending it have somehow convinced the world of its importance. It is not enough that this film is popular and fun, for the audience that loves it most feels it cannot have detractors either. It cannot be seen only as a popcorn movie or as something other than a landmark achievement, and those who dislike it do so because they don’t respect the art of comic books.

I’ve heard Michael Uslan, the producer of every Batman movie ever made, opine twice in person that comic books deserve a place in the canon of American folklore and great art. And yet when you see a movie like “The Avengers” raking in the record weekend high of $207 million domestically alone (it made even more last week overseas), it’s hard to see how any comic book fan can still call their culture neglected.

“Those one-time comic-book pariahs are now the dominant force in pop-culture entertainment, and their works are deemed to be not just big but also relevant and important, much the way that Cecil B. DeMille’s crap-history spectacles were in another day,” writes Salon film critic Andrew O’Hehir in the article “Will superhero movies never end? (you can read it here) “It’s a neat little postmodern trick, actually, to simultaneously position this movie as the most central pop-culture event of 2012 and insist on some kind of edgy, outsider status that renders any and all detractors as pipe-smoking William F. Buckley squares, defending a nonexistent Establishment.”

This is all very interesting, and not ironically more interesting than “The Avengers” itself. O’Hehir’s critique of the film is perfectly right in saying that the movie only passes for being not completely terrible. I myself praised the movie for somehow being able to combine all the giant egos and loose ends into one movie without being completely overwhelming, but that hardly makes it a great movie; it just makes it a success. And when it achieves this just barely passing grade that does nothing to go above and beyond, that reflects in the TomatoMeter and Metascore, and fans use that as a defense that their movie is special.

This trend continues until the next movie comes out. It’s already happened this year with the release of “The Hunger Games,” the other Joss Whedon project “The Cabin in the Woods,” and will only continue with the release of “The Amazing Spiderman” and “The Dark Knight Rises.” Louis C.K. has a joke that as a society we rely too heavily on certain words, “amazing” being one of them. If each of these movies is “amazing,” what will you call the movie in which Jesus Christ himself directs and explains the meaning of life?

The general consensus, however, is meaningless. It suggests only ubiquity. I watch something like “The Avengers” and have a good time, but for me it’s like getting fast food and enjoying my meal. It’s not my FAVORITE thing or the BEST thing I’ve ever tried.

When people tell me something so common and so safe is amazing because it is fun, I really get the idea that a lot of young movie goers simply do not know what a great movie is. Their reaction is the opposite, and something that is “awesome” is somehow better than one of those boring old masterpieces.

But a great movie is something more. A great movie does not check all the boxes and get a passing grade. It goes above and beyond. A great film stimulates your body, mind and soul in a way that is rare or foreign to you. It haunts you, moves you, enchants you AND entertains you. It makes you feel alive.

And yes, having fun is a part of being alive. People associate masterpieces with tedium, with eating your cultural vegetables. Except how did vegetables get that bad rap? Sometimes a great salad is healthier and tastier than any meal. This is true of the movies. “Citizen Kane” is not homework, nor is it a slog. It requires attention, but it is full of wit and vitality. Not every great film is “Schindler’s List,” but even depression and terror is not strictly unentertaining. Passion and enthusiasm goes both ways, and it is important to fully know your emotional spectrum.

Going back to “The Avengers,” the film is only great because of how it slightly improves upon the shared formula of the dozens of other films like it. O’Hehir again on the film: “To praise the movie lavishly, as so many people have done and will continue to do, basically requires making endless allowances. It’s really good (for being a comic-book movie). It’s really good (for being almost exactly like dozens of other things). It’s really good (for being utterly inconsequential).”

“The Avengers” then is part of an unhealthy diet. There is nothing wrong with it in moderation. But when it and every other blockbuster like it are “awesome,” “amazing” and “unbelievable,” you get spoiled on the same meal.

My goal has always been to broaden my palette, and although I write to share my thoughts, I’m finding it increasingly difficult to find people who will join me. My voice for change, difference and thought in the movies has become a caricature of me telling people they are wrong. This gets amplified with a movie like “The Avengers” because acting in unwavering defense of it comes with the territory. Again, O’Hehir puts my frustration perfectly.

“My problem is less with the movie or its audience or Joss Whedon — although I honestly don’t think being an A-list Hollywood director serves his talents appropriately — than with the penumbra of bratty, entitled coolness that surrounds the whole project.”

This is the cool movie, and anyone who doesn’t join us in saying so is adamantly not. This group is vehemently opposed to change, exploration or contrarian ideas. When I go up against it, I’m frustrated, depressed and even frightened that this mediocrity is what the movies are coming to.