I’ll be upfront with you on this one: I was never a huge fan of The Avengers. Nothing against them, but when I first starting reading comics, I wasn’t really into the team books like Avengers or X-Men or Justice League or whatever. I liked the solo misfit characters: Spider-Man, Hulk, Ghost Rider, Lobo and the like.
Now it’s a week after its release, and The Avengers has smashed every box office record in its path within its first few days, earning over $200 million domestic and over $640 million worldwide on opening weekend. My $13 made up a part of that sum.
And I’ve got to tell you, I love The Avengers. Love it. I can’t recall the last time I felt such a pure rush of giddiness from watching a superhero flick.* Fans will know what I’m talking about: seeing your childhood characters come to life on the big screen, where the writer and/or director got it right.
The Cosmic Cu– er, the Tesseract.
The movie features eight lead characters (Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, Hulk, Black Widow, Hawkeye, Nick Fury, and Loki). Director (and co-writer) Joss Whedon manages to explain the presence of each character without slowing down the film—that’s impressive with a cast this big.
The plot is simple enough: Loki (Thor’s brother, if you’re up on your Norse mythology) has teamed up with aliens called the Chitauri to get the Tesseract,* an alien artifact capable of generating unlimited power, currently in the possession of S.H.I.E.L.D. (Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division), whose director is Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson). Fury is also the guy who put the Avengers together, just for the occasion when such worldwide threats make themselves present. With the power of the Tesseract, Loki and the Chitauri can subjugate the Earth, because, to paraphrase Loki, freedom sucks and humans desire to be ruled. He’s a jerk. So it’s time to call in the Avengers.
The action is big, explosive, and frequent—and it’s got the best damn Hulk I’ve ever seen. He steals every scene he’s in. He looks like Mark Ruffalo, he moves fast and you really get a sense of his raw, brutal power. His scenes are arguably some of the funniest in the film too.
But it’s not just Hulk—everyone does well here: Scarlett Johansson is fierce and deadly as Black Widow, Robert Downey Jr. was born to play Tony Stark (Iron Man), and Tom Hiddleston is another scene-stealer as Loki.
Best Hulk ever.
One of the things I liked most about it is something that might irk some of the fans: the humour. This is a Joss Whedon film, so we shouldn’t be surprised by this, but these characters quip a lot. In some scenes, the dialogue is nothing but one-liners flying back and forth, and I can see where that might bother some fans, but those are fans without a sense of humour. It’s comics—it’s supposed to be fun; there’s no need to take it so seriously. I didn’t feel that it took away from the gravitas of the film; the threats were big and bad and world-ending to be sure, so a little lightheartedness is needed to break up the tension.
Black Widow
There were a couple of missteps along the way: they don’t explain the change in Hulk’s demeanour, and the love story between Hawkeye and Black Widow isn’t fleshed out. The movie also occasionally suffers from that action-movie flaw that so many modern films fall prey to: the action happens too fast for the eye to follow. If I wanted to watch a Michael Bay picture, I would’ve done so. Actually, I would’ve killed myself first, but that’s neither here nor there.
The Avengers isn’t a perfect movie, but for a big blockbuster building on a franchise with five movies behind it, it’s pretty damn close. The audience applauded at the end, and of course, make sure you stick around for the credits for two extra scenes, one of which made all the comic book fans squeal with glee or outright shout out obscenities (though not angrily). You don’t have to be a fan of comics or superheroes to enjoy this one, but it helps. It’s worth repeated viewing, that’s for sure.
In fact, what the hell am I doing talking to you about it? I’ve got to get in line for the next screening.
Loki, the buzzkill of humanity.
*The Cosmic Cube in the comics.
(Originally posted on mississaugalife.ca.)
Leo Graziani 