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.
