Avengers Review

The Avengers

From X-Men in 1999 to Iron Man in 2007, comic book adapted movies have come back into the limelight, long after Christopher Reeve first took to the skies as Superman back in the 70’s.  Most of the recently released movies have gone on to smash the box office and set records.  Spiderman 2 set the bar high for the highest grossing comic book movie ever. Just last year, the last Harry Potter film took the highest grossing movie of all time title. This year, a new “highest grossing movie” may be crowned.

The Avengers brings together four Marvel franchises on the big screen - Iron Man, Thor, Hulk and Captain America.  Each of the aforementioned characters’ individual movies hinted at the possible team-up, teasing fan-boys about the alliance like waving a steak in front of a hungry dog. I have to say, Marvel and Disney truly delivered. The Avengers starts out slow, as all origin movies do, despite the movie’s explosive opening sequence. Nick Fury, who has shown up at the end of the previous franchises respectively, seeks out people with unique abilities to become members of a special team whose goal is to recover a mystic artifact known as the Tesseract.  He contacts Natasha Romanoff, aka Black Widow, to locate and gather Bruce Banner. An early fight scene where she takes out bad guys while strapped to a chair showcases Black Widow’s agility and combat expertise, just as she is depicted in the comics.

 

As mentioned, Avengers starts out a bit slow, but I prefer call this the “developmental” stage in the movie.  Some people in the theater were getting a bit anxious; they wanted to see all the good stuff hard and fast - fight scenes, explosions, etc. However, a film that takes time to build up the plot, without running out of time, and truly forming into an effective climax makes for a better experience. In one scene, Marvel used just the right amount of time when everyone is on S.H.I.E.L.D.’s Helicarrier to develop interaction between the four main characters and give a better sense of what’s going on. Nick Fury disclosing so much yet revealing so little is well played out, as Tony Stark and Bruce Banner discover the espionage group’s true intentions.  A real scenario that also plays out is distrust, especially amongst a team of strangers. Thor, Tony, Bruce, and Steve—these guys know so little about each other that it drives a nail between them before they even try to fully come together.  This leads to conflict and banter amongst them that is oftentimes noteworthy of an evening sitcom.

Speaking of which, comedic moments are blended well here and fit the personalities of the characters, especially Tony Stark, who is as eccentric as always. There’s even a bit of banter between Thor and Black Widow regarding Loki. Widow bad-mouthed Loki, and Thor came to his defense stating that the Mischief God is still his brother.  But when he is told that Loki killed eighty people in two days, Thor withdraws his objection and states that his brother is adopted.  Just this small comedic moment, small as it is, will stay with fans for some time. Full of action, very comedic and very much talked about on Facebook.

The action in this film is over the top.  Loki has the Tesseract and he has opened a portal to another world.  An army of beings called Chitauri begin pouring through the portal, ready to conquer Earth.  There’s panic in the streets and mayhem everywhere. The Avengers finally get their act together, come together and clean house.  As much as I like the Transformers movies, Michael Bay’s got some competition in the large-scale action department. The special effects and action scenes were great!  Marvel and Disney really upped their game for this. Guess making all those “Pirate” movies helped. Thor’s got his hammer, zapping invaders out of the sky. Hawkeye is on the roof plucking them off like flies with assistance from Iron Man. The Hulk is doing his thing, bashing anything and everything non-human.  He took down a giant creature easily larger than a nuclear sub with one punch. And Captain America, he handled everything like a soldier does, getting people to safety and taking out a few Chitauri while doing so.  I don’t read Marvel comics much but the last half of the movie definitely appeared like it was pulled straight from the pages.

The acting was excellent. All the actors pulled off their roles without a hitch.  Since Marvel Ultimate Universe’s Nick Fury is based off of Samuel L. Jackson, it was likely for him to be the right man for the character. He didn’t get much air time before so it was nice to see him get more fleshed out for this. Though I have yet to see “Thor” or “Captain America”, I’ve enjoyed Chris Evans and Chris Hemsworth in these roles. Mark Ruffalo takes over as Bruce Banner and all I have to say is: why didn’t Marvel acquire this guy for the previous “Hulk” films? But not to worry, word is that the Hulk series is getting rebooted, likely with Mark at the helm.  Scarlet Johansson and Jeremy Renner were great as Black Widow and Hawkeye.  Maybe we’ll see them in their own movies. Who knows?  Tom Hiddleston makes evil look good as Loki.  And Robert Downey Jr. is dead on as Tony Stark/Iron Man.  He is just as entertaining here as he is in Iron Man 1 & 2.  I can’t wait for part three.

Again, kudos to Marvel for bringing us this awesome movie; it was a real delight.  Hopefully we receive the same experience for the sequel where they take on…whoa, that was close. Wanna know? Then go see this movie to find out the next baddie for the next movie.

Definitely seeing this one again,

Brian M.