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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