[Movie Review] Marvel's The Avengers

So, is this movie worth all the hype? Yes. Should you see in 3-D and IMAX? If you enjoy post-production 3-D movies. Did Joss Whedon do good? Frack yes.

The seeds of this movie began in Iron Man 1 with the appearance of Nick Fury played by Samuel L. Jackson informing then Tony Stark played by Robert Downey, Jr that he was not the only superhero around. These seeds would show up in other movies, The Incredible Hulk with the super solider serum made famous in Captain America, Thor with the Tesseract, Iron Man 2 which set up a lot of what was to come with Captain America.
So, after nearly 4 years of waiting what do we have to show for it?
Characters that do not play well with others. And, that’s really what makes this movie work. It worked in Alien and it works now.
Stark being the showboat, Steve Rogers probably gets the shorter end of the plot lines being the man lost in time without the Buck Rogerisms but that’s where 30mins worth of deleted scenes of the DVD can cover. Black Widow and Hawkeye played by Scarlett Johansson and Jeremy Renner have some history that isn’t spelled out and doesn’t need to be but could probably rolled into a Black Widow movie that shows her going to the Dark Side and only to come back to the Light Side due to Hawkeye’s cookies. David Banner isn’t the ticking time bomb for a change and Nick Fury is just trying to get things started when Loki played excellently by Tom Hiddleston arrives to take over the world and his brother Thor right behind him to take him back home. Supporting characters from previous films like Agent Coulson played by Clark Gregg, Pepper Potts played by Gwen Paltrow and newcomer Cobie Smulders playing Agent Maria Hill.
With most of the creation of these characters peppered throughout the previous films there isn’t really a big need to front load the film with large amounts of backstory and so that leaves plenty of space for characters to beat each other up which happens enough to keep the thin plot moving.
I only call it a thin plot because the final act is the invasion of New York and this is where Loki tends to disappear for much of it until he winds up in the Avengers cross hairs and some suitable hysterical scenes commence that make us forget this is a aliens invade and New York gets pounded plot.
Ignoring the alien invasion plot for a moment, the focus on each of the team members is done rather well, each of them gets their time to shine during the rising to the invasion. And, one of them even shines brighter than most and then falls. I won’t spoil it for you, but the scene is both weepy, funny and perfect because this misfit group of heroes needs something worth fighting for and the Earth while large and easiest to focus on it is not the reason why they assemble. They assemble for one of their own and that’s what makes this movie.
The music by Alan Silvestri does not fair well in this movie unlike his Captain America music. Captain America it felt perfect but in Avengers it feels like it’s supposed to be generic action music with a central theme sure but it has no identity like Titanic or Aliens where you’d be able to tell a few cords from one track.
SFX are top notch. The fact the battle for New York is filmed in broad daylight instead of at night was a great idea.
In the end, the movie is worth the money is pulling in. With all recent Marvel Movies, I recommend watching the movie all the way through till the end credits and I mean to the bitter end.
Marvel has put out a Art Book of the Avengers.
And if you’re looking for Joss Whedon is my master now t-shirt is over here.