Marvel's The Avengers: Movie Review

   

   Its time that I get around to reviewing the newest superhero action film. Marvel's The Avengers was released into theaters May 4, 2012. The film was directed by Joss Whedon and sported a cast of stars. Chris Evans, Robert Downey Jr., Chris Hemsworth and Scarlett Johansson reprised their roles as Captain America, Iron Man, Thor and Black Widow respectively. Jeremy Renner (Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol) took on the bow and arrow of Hawkeye. In Thor, we got a small glimpse of Hawkeye, but he never actually did anything more than say a few lines. In the Avengers, he was incredible. Mark Ruffalo stepped into the shoes of Bruce Banner and the 10-ton body of the Hulk; very successfully, too, I might add. And, of course, Samuel L. Jackson is back as a determined Nick Fury.

   The movie opens circling around the Tesseract, the cosmic cube, jewel of Odin's treasury. We were introduced to the Tesseract in Captain America: The First Avenger. The Red Skull used the Tesseract's galactic power as a weapon to vaporize his enemies. It was lost in the Arctic when it "consumed" the Red Skull and transported him to who knows where. Howard Stark, however, finds the cube when searching for the lost Captain America, and the cube is entrusted to S.H.E.I.L.D, a top-secret government security force, for safe-keeping. At the end of Thor, after the credits, we see Nick Fury petition Dr. Selvig, friend of Thor, to find out how it works. As we find out later in the Avenger's movie, S.H.E.I.L.D has plans for the Tesseract's use. What they are is better found out by watching the movie.

 The plots of Thor, Captain America: The First Avenger, and Iron Man 1 & 2 all come together to form Marvel's The Avengers. As far as I know, there is no connection with the plot of The Incredible Hulk with this story beyond the fact that Dr. Selvig used to work with Dr. Bruce Banner. The main story of The Avengers is this: Loki, demi-god brother of Thor, has teamed up with a mysterious alien force known as the Chitauri in order to become the sole ruler of Earth. The brains seem to be all Loki but the "leader", I'll call him, of the Chitauri is no dummy and, from a flashback of Loki's, it would seem that the demi-god fears this alien king. But this stops Loki's determination in no way. Loki goes around getting stuff he needs to utilize the Tesseract's power in such a way as to create a portal to the outer-space-like world of the Chitauri. Nick Fury feels threatened by Loki and, against the wishes of his directors, gets the Avengers together, hoping that as one they will be a strong enough force to beat Loki once and for all.

   When the portal begins to spew forth flying snake-ish monsters longer than skyscrapers are tall, the Avengers, who haven't exactly gotten along before now, band together to go into "destroy all aliens" mode. This last battle is, by far, the most exciting part of the film. Joss Whedon does a very good job of juggling six superheroes and their various superpowers as they rocket all around New York City on a Chitauri beat-down. The Hulk, predictably, smashes. Iron Man blasts aliens with his various weaponry; Thor electrocutes and hammers his way to victory, very impressively. Captain America teams up with Black Widow as the ground force; the Widow, by the way, sports a very interesting wrist-Taser. Hawkeye, though, is the most interesting, with his high-tech bow and arrow. He can toggle various attachments on his arrows and his quiver serves him the arrow so he can grab without looking. A very interesting take on the character of Hawkeye, and thoroughly enjoyable.

   Eventually, the Avengers prevail and save the day and everyone lives happily-ever-after. Or so we are led to believe. But a mid-credits snippet shows us that the battle is not over. An old face returns, ready to lead the Chitauri to victory, as well as successfully building up excitement for an undeniable sequel.

   Overall, the Avengers rocks. The plot took a backseat to the action, but this was not amiss. No one goes to see a superhero movie that makes them think; they'd rather see Iron Man taking down alien baddies with his repulsors. The CGI (computer-generated imagery) was incredible. The Hulk, the Chitauri, Iron Man, the pyrotechnics, it was all very well-animated. The action scenes were wicked awesome. Who doesn't want to see Thor and Iron Man going at each other? Marvel's The Avengers is a job-well done, and absolutely worth going to see this summer. Now, we wait for the sequel.

~Ian James~