The Dark Knight Rises vs. The Avengers

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Last year, everyone would have told you The Dark Knight Rises was going to be the must-see movie of the year and the highest grossing as well. It has a lot to live up to, but Nolan is a trustworthy director who has yet to disappoint his audience. The Dark Knight was one of the most hyped movies of all time when it was released and until the final Harry Potter film came out last year, it held the top spot on the opening weekend chart. As everyone knows, The Avengers abolished both opening weekend amounts, besting Harry Potter’s by nearly $40 million.

So how was The Avengers able to overcome even the most generous estimates and perform so well at the box office? Aside from being the biggest blockbuster of all time, combining four Marvel franchises into one movie, Marvel initiated a marketing campaign that probably had a budget equal to that of the entire film’s production. They released countless TV spots and clips, and as many people joked, you could have combined all the released footage and watched the entire film at home. Regardless, people still showed up and are still showing up to watch the film in theaters.

Marvel’s The Avengers Review: The Superhero of Movies in 2012

Tweet After countless clips, TV spots, and featurettes, The Avengers is finally in theaters and after looking at the first day numbers, it’s on its way to becoming the highest grossing superhero movie of all time (until The Dark Knight Rises?). There has never been a movie that had four separate prequels, all from different franchises. Marvel tied in The Avengers to each of these films and finally put them together to create not just what will become the highest grossing superhero movie of all time, but one of the best as well. The Avengers works on many levels and it’s led by its strong cast and excellent action scenes. Joss Whedon does a great job as the director and hopefully he will return to direct the inevitable sequel to The Avengers.

The film begins with Loki (Thor’s “adopted” brother) making a deal with an alien race called the Chitauri. Loki promises to provide them with the Tesseract (a powerful cosmic cube capable of providing unlimited sustainable energy) in exchange for power to rule the inhabitants of Earth. Not everyone who will watch The Avengers will have seen the prequels (judging by the box office numbers), and there may be some plot points that won’t be clear right away to those people, but the movie introduces each character well and gives some insight into their past. Captain America is shown struggling to leave his past behind; Tony Stark is as typical as he was in the first two Iron Man films; Bruce Banner is hiding in Brazil in an attempt to avoid S.H.I.E.L.D. One thing that wasn’t explained very well was Thor’s return to Earth. In his respective film, Thor destroys the Bifröst and the portal back to Earth. In The Avengers, he appears out of nowhere and it leaves the audience wondering how he managed to return. Loki only quickly mentions it and some people may miss it and be left without an explanation. It’s a minor annoyance for me and doesn’t do anything to negatively impact the film, but it is an important plot development that should have been addressed in more detail. Overall, the film succeeds on a character level because it does not solely focus on bring together the Avengers and having them battle against Loki, but rather focuses on developing their relationships as they struggle to gain trust and fight alongside each other.

One character who had little time for development was Hawkeye and it’s unfortunate because he’s yet to have his own film and has had no past introduction (aside from a cameo in Thor). He spends more than half the film under Loki’s control and does not have time to develop afterwards. Black Widow (played by Scarlett Johansson) gives a few details on his past throughout the film, but aside from this, all we know about Hawkeye after watching the film is that he can pretty much shoot his target blindfolded. Black Widow on the other hand is given a lot more screen time and has a much larger role than in Iron Man 2. The character obviously cannot compete with the superheroes, but she’s a good addition to the team and we get to witness her excellent abilities as a spy. Marvel may attempt to do a spin-off; however, given her lack of actual superhero abilities, it will be interesting to see how she does with a film just for herself and which “villains” she’ll be fighting.

The film ends with an all-out brawl between the Avengers and the Chitauri. The entire sequence is shot extremely well and each character gets their fair share of kills. However, it is somewhat unreasonable that the Chitauri can be killed by a single gunshot. The power of their weapons make up for their lack of strength, but considering the circumstances (the Chitauri are making a deal with a “god” and threaten to kill him), it would have made sense for them to have been stronger and more resilient to human gunfire.

Joss Whedon does a great job with The Avengers and it’s an accomplishment considering he’s only directed one film previously (Serenity) that no one has probably even heard about. Marvel hasn’t been giving their films to popular big-name directors, which has allowed these less experienced directors to showcase their talent, such as Iron Man and Jon Favreau; Thor and Kenneth Branagh; Captain America and Joe Johnston. All of the Marvel films have had different styles of directing, but they’ve all been good in their own way. Marvel put a lot of faith in Whedon by giving him one of the biggest films of all time, but the risk has paid off. People have acknowledged the job Whedon has done, and the film is making tons of money (this is due to the insane amount of marketing and hype). The Avengers was also well-scripted, and the moments of humor were well spread out. In terms of the score, the film doesn’t do much, as the main theme is heard only twice or thrice for only a short period, and all the other pieces are forgettable. Hopefully an effort will be made to improve the score in the sequel.

The Avengers is a must-see-in-theaters film, and not only because of the explosive action scenes, but because of the 3D. Like Thor and Captain America, The Avengers was post-converted into 3D after filming had finished. However, the post-converted result was more closely related to Thor, with only a few lapses and a greater overall experience. My complaint with Captain America is that you could tell the conversion process was hurried, as the 3D was blurry in many instances and worsened the film. You could wait to see The Avengers when it eventually gets released on TV or you could download it illegally (as thousands of people are undoubtedly doing), but if there was ever a reason to spend money on seeing a film in theaters, it should be for a film like The Avengers. It’s an experience you do not want to miss, and I urge you to check it out as soon as possible. The Avengers instantly ranks as one of the best superhero/comic book films of all time, and it’s only a matter of time until production begins on a second film.

Score: 9.5/10

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Captain America: The First Avenger Review

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Going into the movie, I knew Captain America would be good, but I wasn’t as sure as I had been months prior to the release because critics were giving the movie very average reviews, mostly in the mid 7s. After watching it last night, I can tell you it’s definitely better than average. I won’t go so far as the say it’s the best movie of the year (Harry Potter, X-Men Origins: First Class and Super 8 are still ahead of it), but it’s a great flick that you should check out if you have the chance. In terms of comparing it to other superhero movies, I would put it slightly above Thor, but still behind the first two Spider-Man and Batman films, along with the first Iron Man. I haven’t seen Green Lantern, but I’ve yet to hear anything positive about the film, so it’ll probably stay that way.

Assuming you’ve seen the commercials, you probably know the main plot. The movie takes place during World War II. Steve Rogers is a miniscule man with a lot of heart who wants to fight for his country and he’s given the opportunity to become a soldier by having an experiment done on him which turns him into Chris Evans (I mean, Captain America). His main enemy is played by Agent Smith from the Matrix (Hugo Weaving), who creates an army equipped with an all powerful weapon that is pretty much unstoppable. Now, of course, this is a superhero movie, so you really shouldn’t expect it to be that realistic. I don’t have any complaints about the plot, so let’s move on to something else.

Chris Evans was a strange choice when I originally heard about it. The only movies I’d watched him in were Fantastic Four and the Losers, and he was a pretty funny character in both those movies, but going on only those roles, I could not picture him as Captain America. The role is not very humorous at all; it required a lot more emotion and chest muscles than his previous films. Regardless of what I had originally thought, that doesn’t matter because I now realize how great he is for the role. He acted out the role well, and I’m glad I’ll be able to see him again as Captain America (if not in Captain America 2, then in the Avengers next summer). The girl with the lead role (Hayley Atwell) played her part, and though I didn’t find her to be the most attractive girl in a superhero movie, I enjoyed the scenes with her. Hugo Weaving did a good job as always, and the rest of the cast was good as well. Of course, you can’t expect the acting in a superhero movie (aside from Nolan’s Batman films) to be superb, but it was still a solid all around performance by the cast. Tommy Lee Jones served partly as the comedic relief in the film, and had a few funny lines (“That boy’s making me cry.”). Nonetheless, he still acted as well as he’s known for, and I’m glad he was in the movie.

The direction style is an interesting one, because besides the movie taking place in the 1940s and everything looking very retro and old fashioned as it did back then, the picture wasn’t the same as on most other movies. It’s similar to that of Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, starring Angelina Jolie, Jude Law and Gwyneth Paltrow, so if you’ve seen that movie, then you’ll know what I am talking about. It gives the film an old and authentic sort of look and feel, which goes along with the timeline of the film. I’m not the greatest fan of these visuals, but they didn’t make the movie any better or worse. One thing that annoyed my slightly was the 3D. It was clearly post-converted and at certain times, the picture is blurry and you can see two lines instead of one. There’s one scene where the camera is scrolling over snowy mountains and they were blurry to the point that I wanted to take my 3D glasses off. Therefore, go watch the movie in 2D if you can. The 3D does add depth at certain points to make it look better, but the blurry points honestly make it not worth it for the extra $3. One other thing about the direction I’d like to point out is that I’m not too big of a fan on how some of scenes with Captain America fighting were filmed. I don’t like those scenes, in any movie, where the protagonist wins a fight, and then as he/she is walking away, there’s an explosion in the background, while they continue to walk away from the scene, in slow motion. There are some scenes in Captain America that are similar. He is either running from the scene or riding away with his bike through fire as the explosion is happening. I’ll give it more leeway because this is a comic book film and it’s filmed in more of a comic book style, but I really think directors should avoid filming scenes like that. It’s meant to look cool, but I find it to be more corny than cool.

Overall, the movie is very solid; no more and no less than what I expected it to be. That’s not necessarily a good thing, because Captain America was the most anticipated movie of the summer for a lot of people (of course, I mean guys). However, there is enough action and the movie should satisfy the majority of its fans and others who’ve yet to see the movie. It’s one of the best movies of the year, so far, and one of the better recent superhero movies.

Score: 8.4/10 (Not quite deserving of an 8.5, but close)