Like
pretty much everyone, I’ve been looking forward to The Avengers for a very long time. The prospect of throwing all
these iconic characters together into one film under the supervision of Joss Whedon is
a thrilling prospect, and since most of the heroes had worked reasonably well
on their own there was reason to expect great things. At the same time, I’ve
grown to somewhat resent this whole Avengers
project, mostly because it’s kept Marvel from giving us great standalone
superhero movies. Instead, films like Thor,
Iron Man 2 and parts of Captain America were devoted entirely to
setup, and there were long stretches where I just wanted to get back to the
actual movie, already. It’s not like the tickets were any less expensive just because it was a prequel.
This
relentless Marvel universe-building put a whole lot of pressure on The Avengers. This couldn’t just be a
capable superhero movie. We’ve already had several of those. It had to be a
truly epic superhero movie; the thrilling culmination of all the Marvel films
we’ve watched over the last several years. Not only does it have to feel like a
huge movie, but it also has to
be a good one. All of the characters have to get equal time, the dialogue has
to be smart, and when the end credits finally roll there has to be a feeling
that it was all worth it. In a rather brilliant gamble, the Marvel team decided
to hand the keys over to Joss Whedon, who in this case is a fan as much as a
filmmaker. He knows exactly what Marvelheads would want to see out of an Avengers movie, and he comes through. This is not a film without rough patches, and some aspects are
a tad sloppy, but if it’s an all-star team of superheroes coming together you
want, it’s an all-star team of superheroes coming together you’ll get. And then
some.
Somewhat
inevitably, Robert Downey, Jr.’s Tony Stark (a.k.a. Iron Man) often takes over
the proceedings, but that may be more of an issue of charisma than anything
else. When Loki (Tom Hiddleston, villain of Thor)
steals a mysterious—and possibly apocalyptic—glowing object called the
Tesseract, our friends over at S.H.I.E.L.D. (Samuel L. Jackson, Clark Gregg,
Cobie Smulders) decide to bring in the gang of misfits that they have built up
over the years. There is the aforementioned Iron Man, but also coming aboard
are the now-modernized Captain America (Chris Evans), Thor (Chris Hemsworth),
Bruce Banner/The Hulk (Mark Ruffalo, replacing Edward Norton), and two others
that didn’t get their own stinkin’ movie: Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) and
Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner). After arguing with each other a lot, they eventually
have to put aside their differences and take on Loki and his extraterrestrial army
in the streets of New York City.
There
are long stretches of The Avengers
that are just about perfect, chief among them the climactic battle in New York
that goes on for a while but never loses steam. The film is able
to utilize all of the characters satisfyingly without any moments feeling
shoehorned in, and it’s all complemented by some truly incredible special
effects. There’s obviously a ton of CGI at work here, but it’s always
appropriate. It isn’t used just to make things easier on the filmmakers, but
instead to create detailed, thrilling visuals that make the film feel as grand as
it should. Whedon knows he’s making one of the hugest event movies in years,
and he is sure to make everything as appropriately massive as possible.
One may ask what makes this climactic fight better than, say, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. To that I reply: a functioning nervous system.
All
the actors are tremendous here as well, but it’s Mark Ruffalo’s Bruce Banner
who swoops in out of nowhere and occasionally steals the film. Going into The Avengers, the addition of Ruffalo as
one of cinema’s shortest tempers seemed strange to me. His characters are
usually of a more laid-back sort, and even when they get angry it seems like a
great inconvenience more than anything else. True rage—the kind that could turn you into a muscular green
monster—normally seems out of his grasp. Somehow, Whedon and Ruffalo are able
to take his easygoing persona and turn it into an asset rather than a liability.
Ruffalo’s relatively chill Dr. Banner is a man who hates his problem and is
willing to do anything to stop it, and when he ultimately transforms it’s a
shockingly impactful moment. By the end of the film, Ruffalo went from a
curious choice to the only
choice.
The
rest of the cast is stellar too, though it helps that they all had a film or
two to grow into their roles. Hemsworth was the best part of his rather slight
film, and now that he’s got more substantial material he feels just about perfect. Evans
continues to impress as Captain America; a man suddenly in an unfamiliar world
and trying to come to terms with his new responsibilities. And of course,
Downey, Jr. fits into his Tony Stark role like an old glove.
The
film is at its best when it focuses exclusively on the central team of
superheroes and how they uneasily come together both on and off the
battlefield. Outside of the familiar faces and the action scenes, not a whole lot is very interesting. Not that it had to be, and perhaps it’s
best that not everything is explained, but some aspects of the film just feel
glossed over. The most obvious example is the alien army that attacks at the
climax. While they are introduced in some early scenes, we really don’t know a
whole lot about them besides they are the bad guys and now the Avengers need to
kill them. The end. The Tesseract is also something of a MacGuffin, and Stellan
Skarsgård just feels wasted in his role. And don’t get me started on the teaser of a mid-credits scene. I mean, this is The
Avengers; the movie that’s been teased at us since Iron Man. We’ve made it. Can’t we enjoy this one pinnacle before
getting another sequel teased at us? It never ends, does it?
I
may complain about these things, but then I think back to all there is to love about The Avengers. If you are someone who has been looking forward to this film at all,
I cannot see a universe in which you are disappointed. As annoying as
some of Marvel’s buildup has been in their last several movies, you have to
give them credit for making the grand finale worth all the trouble. Does it
ever transcend the superhero genre and become high-level art? No, it never
really comes close, but that’s not what any of Marvel’s movies have been going
for. Leave the “ideas” and “tragedy” for Christopher Nolan and his pouty Batman movies. This was intended to be
nothing more than massive-scale fan service, and it was made by a filmmaker who
knew precisely what had to be done for it to work. With The Avengers, Marvel gave
Joss Whedon $220 million and told him to give the people what they want. And so
he did.
Grade: B+
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