This was it. The Avengers was the proposed pay-off of a gamble that started back in 2008 with Iron Man and was built up in the succeeding films that followed. While there were a couple bumps on the road to this crossover (The Incredible Hulk and Iron Man 2 spring to mind), the rest of the way was fairly smooth. But it all hinged on this film. The fate of this film lied in the hands of director/writer Joss Whedon, who seemed like the right person for this job what with being best known for his snappy dialogue and great character interaction amongst ensemble casts. And so the pressure was on. But it wasn’t just a matter of making a good film. It was also a matter living up to the incredibly high expectations Marvel Studios had created over the previous four years.
it paid off with flying colors.
After being cast out of Asgard, Loki (Tom Hiddleston) makes a bargain with an enigmatic, malevolent entity: Retrieve the Tesseract, which is in SHIELD’s possession, and in return will be given command of an army of Chitauri soldiers to win him the Earth. When Loki steals the Tesseract and brainwashes Clint Barton/Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner), Director of SHIELD Nick Fury (Samuel L Jackson) must assemble Earth’s Mightiest Heroes Tony Stark/Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), Steve Rogers/Captain America (Chris Evans), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Bruce Banner/The Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), and Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow (Scarlet Johansson) to save the world.
The Avengers works as a standalone film. If this is your first foray into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it’s a great jumping-on point. But it also helps that most of these characters were established in their own films before bringing them together. Black Widow may have made her cinematic debut in Iron Man 2, but this is the film where she actually becomes a character. She’s intelligent, strong, but also carries the burden of her violent past which motivates her into being heroic. And even though he’s the only new actor amongst the team, Mark Ruffalo really shines as Bruce Banner and gives us the best film incarnation of the character to date. Along with being intelligent and resourceful, he imbues the character with enough isolation and tragedy, but not so much that he affects the film’s upbeat tone. The only real casualty here is Jeremy Renner’s Hawkeye. Not that the character is horribly-written, but he spends most of his screen time brainwashed as one of Loki’s henchmen. While he does get his moment to shine like every other hero in the film, we never really get to know him on a personal level.
The film is in no rush to get to the spectacle, but it also wastes no time spewing exposition about these characters and how they relate to each and their surroundings. It is trusting of its audience and it always plays fair. We get brief glimpses into Cap’s internal struggle of being a literal man out of time and Thor and Loki’s sibling rivalry, but the film is never about just one character. It is about a group of people first and foremost. But their backgrounds, ideologies, and viewpoints are what fuel the conflict of the film. Whedon thankfully realized that friction in a story like The Avengers is the result of when individuals with great power and intellect are thrown into the same room and forced to work together for the greater good. He carefully decided that no character should be the righteous one or the wrong one. These people all have legitimate points of view, which is what makes the action scenes all the more rewarding.
Think of action sequences like musical numbers in a musical. In a musical, whenever the emotions get too high, the only release for the characters is to break out into song. That is what a fight scene should be. Not just fighting for the sake of fighting. Fortunately, the film realizes this and makes sure that we not only grow to care about these characters, but also understand where they’re coming from. It never feels like were being pummeled into submission with lengthy, boring action scenes featuring hollow shells in tights. The tone of the film is light-hearted and epic. As the story progresses the pacing evens out. Just in time for the climatic final showdown.
And the climax is every fan’s wish come true. It’s thrilling, but never exhausting. It’s long, but never feels lengthy. It’s a perfect blend of mayhem, destruction, heroics, humor, and crowd-pleasing moments. Looking back on it when I saw it for the first time at the midnight screening, I remember being one of the best movie-going experiences I’ve ever had. Very few films since then have been able to match that experience. That speaks to the success of Marvel’s gamble. It took years of planning, careful consideration, and a director who had a deep passion for the source material to come to this moment. And the aftershock is still being felt to this day. The Avengers didn’t just change the landscape of comic book movies; it revolutionized franchise models in cinema. Now just about every studio has plans for interconnected cinematic universes. While there will of course be ones that don’t succeed (Looking at you, Spider-Man), that should not ever take away the impact this film had.
Its great The Avengers wasn’t a failure. It was even better that it surpassed expectations. Marvel Studios and Joss Whedon crafted a fantastic summer blockbuster in every way. It has heart, humor, action, and character. The film is pure geek nirvana and certified Marvel as not just a studio, but a brand. But then it was time for the team to go their separate ways for a while. The first one up was the kickoff to Phase 2 and the film that had almost nothing to do with the MCU.
Final Rating: 9 out of 10.
Tomorrow- Iron Man 3