Marvel’s The Avengers: How does it impact Infinity War?

What didn’t work?

The Avengers is a great movie, but all that charm and accessibility can also be somewhat of a double-edged sword. It will forever be remembered as a movie that pushed the superhero genre forward, but never one that pushed its boundaries.

Whedon, for all his affable dialogue and likable characters, is at his best when he doesn’t linger on hard questions, when he is free to dabble in darkness only as a means to give contrast to his lighter work. For all the death and destruction inherent in the plot of this film, it is more of a romp than anything–a modern-day adventure tale where the characters are ready to banish serious discussion with another wry quip at a moments notice, and where evil seems as fantastical as the powers of the heroes who battle it.

The Avengers is family fun. Sure, there’s the “scary” part with the Hulk, and even the chitauri would be downright terrifying as adversaries in a different movie, but here, they’re fodder–robotic goons to be clowned by our unstoppable protagonists–and no amount of grim expressions from Cap and Thor, or somberly scored scenes can change that.

This is not a sin. It’s no crime to have fun. To the contrary, a willingness to embrace fun and humor may be much of what has seen Marvel become a global cinematic force where others have faltered, but even in its own movies, there are tiers of maturity. Avengers never reaches the intellectual or emotional heights of some of its successors.

Its expertly crafted, brilliantly written, and formed with loving, worshipful care toward its source material, but its a kid’s movie and a movie for the kid in all of us.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Civil War, Black Panther, Logan, these movies were able to lay claim to being something other than a superhero movie, something that asked important questions. The Avengers never does.

Is that a fault? If so, it is a minor quibble. Still, for a movie that, for one summer, held the collective attention of an entire nation, maybe it could have been more than just great fun.