The Avengers | Review
This is the film Marvel Studios has been leading up to ever since 2008’s ‘Iron Man’, and you know what? It was well worth the wait! Making a movie where four of its major characters already starred in their own feature films is a difficult task. This was a tough juggling act that, thankfully, was given to Joss Whedon as he’s the perfect director for such an ambitious project. Whedon is already a fanboy favorite for his work on ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’, ‘Angel’, and ‘Firefly’. He’s a talented filmmaker with strong storytelling abilities, which is important in a film like ‘The Avengers’, because so many already-established characters with their own set of egos had to be balanced with one another. This is a film that managed to actually satisfy the intense hype that preceded it, becoming one of the best superhero films ever put to film, as well as the best Marvel Studios film yet!
After the events of ‘Thor‘, the villainous Loki, adoptive brother of Thor, returns to wreck havoc upon Earth. He steals the Tesseract, the all-powerful cosmic cube that was at the center of ‘Captain America: The First Avenger‘, from S.H.I.E.L.D. (Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division) and wages war against humans in order to become their supreme ruler. With this threat, S.H.I.E.L.D. director Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) puts into action the “Avengers Initiative,” assembling remarkable heroes together as one team. This team consists of Tony Stark (Robert Downey, Jr.), aka “Iron Man,” the billionaire genius; Steve Rogers (Chris Evans), aka “Captain America,” the World War II hero out of place in time; Thor (Chris Hemsworth), the God of Thunder; Doctor Bruce Banner (the third incarnation of the character, this time played by Mark Ruffalo), aka “The Hulk,” the man who turns into a giant rage monster when angered; Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson), aka “Black Widow,” the deadly assassin; and Clint Barton (Jeremy Renner), aka “Hawkeye,” the master archer.
Because of the previous Marvel films there’s no need to spend time introducing the major characters. Instead, more focus is on expanding these characters’ individual stories as well as having them try and work together as a team. When we first meet them, Steve Rogers is still adapting to the modern world, Bruce Banner is contempt with helping sick people from third world countries, Thor is saddened over his brother, and Tony Stark is, well, still Tony Stark. Just the way we like him.
Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow is given more character backstory this time around after her introduction in ‘Iron Man 2‘, which may be enough to lead into a sort of spin-off prequel in the future. Hawkeye only had a brief appearance in ‘Thor’, but is given much more to do this time around (although his character’s development is stagnant for the majority of the film because of a specific plot point I won’t mention).
The film starts off a bit slow, introducing Loki’s dastardly plans and Nick Fury’s attempts at capturing him. After the first 30 minutes or so, however, the film really begins to take off starting with the recruitment of these superheroes. As with any story of a group of misfits coming together, the superheroes in ‘The Avengers’ don’t exactly get along at first. Tony Stark’s snarky personality conflicts with that of Steve Roger’s straight-laced, serious tone. Thor speaks in Shakespearean dialect and views the humans pretty negatively. This mashup of heroes is especially fun to watch when each one fights one another at certain points in the film: Iron Man vs. Thor, Thor vs. Hulk, Hulk vs. Black Widow, etc. It’s nice seeing each character play off one another and to see their different fighting styles and techniques.
Tom Hiddleston is a fantastic actor and his performance as Loki in ‘Thor’ was one of the most memorable aspects of that film. He had a good, yet tragic basis for his turn to villainy. However, in this film he doesn’t really have much to do. His plan simply involves bringing an alien army to help him rule the world, which is pretty generic for the genre. Because of the complications of juggling six superheroes in one film, it’s probably best that the story is this simple. Perhaps the next ‘Avengers’ film (it’s pretty much a guarantee) will feature a better, more captivating story.
The entire film builds up to a grand finale of a third act, where an entire alien army goes to battle with The Avengers in New York City. This is a lengthy battle sequence full of spectacular special effects and visuals. At one point in the battle the camera zooms from one superhero fighting to the next, all in one beautifully shot sequence. This big battle is reminiscent of the large-scale fight in ‘Transformers: Dark of the Moon’, especially since both feature forgettable enemy henchmen and giant worm-like alien creatures. Though this battle in ‘The Avengers’ is amazing, it’s a little disappointing that the enemies are so boring-looking and forgettable. We’ve already seen grey/silver aliens attacking a big city with the third ‘Transformers’ film, and we’re going to see similar aliens in Universal’s ‘Battleship’ later this month. It would have been nice to have the bad guys in ‘The Avengers’ stand out a bit more, but again this is just a minor complaint in an overall outstanding film. At least ‘The Avengers’ features such an epic battle, which absolutely none of the previous films have had. Every single final fight in the five previous Marvel films have been underwhelming and sometimes anti-climactic. It’s a shame it took this long for a Marvel film to have a memorable finale, but the wait is finally over.
The most hilarious moments also appear during these battle sequences, and since I just mentioned it, I must talk about how funny ‘The Avengers’ is. It’s really, really funny. Most of this is due to sarcastic humor of Robert Downey, Jr’s character, but almost every character has their own turn at jokes. I wouldn’t want to ruin any of the great jokes in the film, but rest assure there are plenty of them; you can definitely sense that Joss Whedon sense of humor in many of the jokes (his unique sense of humor is evident in last month’s great film ‘The Cabin in the Woods’, which he wrote). The most memorable is, surprisingly, The Hulk, who is an absolute MVP of the film. I honestly thought Tony Stark would be the scene-stealer, but The Hulk is just that great in this film. The Hulk has so many scene-stealing, crowd-pleasing moments it’s just unfair for the rest of the characters. After two mediocre attempts at bringing The Hulk onto the big screen (sorry Edward Norton), director Joss Whedon has finally given us an awesome Hulk! Maybe this is due to the fact that I don’t find the character interesting enough to watch an entire film about, but having him as a back-up weapon of mass destruction was a more enjoyable experience than any of the previous films ever were. Perhaps The Hulk is best in small doses. No matter the reason, I’m now a fan of The Hulk and Mark Ruffalo and Joss Whedon’s take on the character.
Nothing like this has ever been done before and ‘The Avengers’ could have easily crumbled underneath its incredible weight, but instead it manages to succeed on so many levels. This is a clever and well-made superhero extravaganza that manages to effectively showcase breathtaking action, eye-catching special effects, and self-aware humor all wrapped together in this slick and stylish package. This is the must-see event film of the summer (next to ‘The Dark Knight Rises’ of course).
Four out of four Kents.
Extra Notes:
Make sure to stay after the credits for not one, but TWO, extra scenes after the film ends!
‘The Avengers 2’ is planned to come out after ‘Iron Man 3’, ‘Captain America 2’, and ‘Thor 2’.
The 3D isn’t bad, but it’s not anything to brag about either. Decent enough.
