There's a couple of history lessons you can learn from action franchises. Some feel the need to keep making things bigger with each movie, until they bloat up into something beyond nonsensical (see the third X-Men movie, X-Men: The Last Stand from 2006, or Transformers: Dark of the Moon, from 2011). Other franchises think sequels need to just keep increasing the number of supervillains to generate buzz (see Spider-Man 3 from 2007, with the “dark” alter ego Spider-Man, or the pre-reboot Batman movies from before Christian Bale).
Iron Man was a lot of fun but the second one was disappointing. Ang Lee's Hulk (2003) was too recent a memory to have any interest in seeing it rebooted just five years later with Ed Norton in The Incredible Hulk. And while Thor was OK, Captain America disappointed. Add a couple of not-super-but-surpremely-skilled heroes in the mix (with Black Widow and Hawkeye), and you have to ask, If three villains is hard to manage, how could The Avengers possibly succeed with six heroes?
Well, it sure is nice to be surprised once in a while. The Avengers is a solid hit; one of the better superhero movies yet seen.
© Marvel Studios.
The Avengers is a true ensemble action movie, and director/screenwriter Joss Whedon (“Firefly,” “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”) succeeds in creating an actual team without resorting to isolating each superhero in a separate silo until a final climactic battle. Add to that a layer of Whedon-esque dialog and humor, and the audience is in for a pretty good time.
If you haven't seen all of the previous movies, then the most important one for you to catch if you want to be initiated is probably Thor, followed by Captain America. Thor will give you the back story on Loki (Tom Hiddleston), turning up again as the requisite supervillain. Loki is Thor's brother from the realm of Asgard, and is sent by some dark entities to Earth to retrieve the tesseract (see Captain America for this backstory), an object of unlimited power. Loki's price for delivering this is that he gets to rule over Earth with the army the dark entities will provide as payment.
The first step of stealing the tesseract goes off without much of a hitch, but actually sending it back will prove a challenge, as Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson, seen in all the previous movies) finally has a reason to implement the Avengers Initiative—to bring Tony Stark aka Iron Man (Robert Downy Jr.), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Steve Rogers aka Captain America (Chris Evans), and Bruce Banner aka The Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) together—to form one team. Also on his team are the surpremely skilled Black Widow (Skarlett Johansson) and Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner).
That's a lot of mayhem potential. But Whedon is smart enough, and restrained enough, to not just make The Avengers a wall-to-wall orgy of violence and explosions. He pulls back and allows periods of time to show not only the personalities of the characters (as opposed to the archetype they represent), but also how they interact.
Surprisingly—for the character, if not the actor—the best performance comes out of the Bruce Banner role. Mark Ruffalo brings subtley to his performance as Banner, a man who must always be in control and always has excuses for losing that control. And modern film technlogy allows Ruffalo to portray not only Banner but The Hulk as well, creating a visual connection that was generally lacking in previous versions.
© Marvel Studios.
It is no surprise that Tony Stark gets all the best wisecracks; that is what the character did in the previous Iron Man movies—but Thor and Captain America get a couple as well. But the real surprise is that the two biggest laughs in the movie are provided by The Hulk. Not Bruce Banner, but The Hulk, the least comedic superhero of all time.
If The Avengers has a flaw worth mentioning (besides lacking substance), it is that Whedon does prove he is a better writer than visual director. Unless odd camera work was necessary to hide Scarlett Johansson's inability to kick butt, most of her action scenes were mutliated by weird cuts, close-ups, and odd camera movements. Unfortunately, the movie does build up to a massive flying battle against aliens in Manhattan (and ends by playing a bit too loose with 9/11 iconography for a fluff movie) that can't help but be compared to a similar conclusion over Chicago in the last Transformers movie.
But even that last battle scene, if viewed side by side, will demonstrate that spectacle (which Transformers has in spades) does not equal quality. The version of it ending The Avengers has pacing, at least some sense of space, a build-up towards a grand climax that can be followed, and most importantly, continues to present the various characters as individual entities working together rather than interchangeable parts almost as anonymous as the faceless horde they battle. But as with most action movie epic battles, it is mostly glossed over, and best forgotten, that hundreds or thousands of people are being killed.
The Avengers, with its superhero ensemble, succeeds at setting a pretty high bar for this year's summer box office.
Disney bought their way into this movie by purchasing Marvel, but all indications are it is going to work out well for everybody. At least this time.
The Avengers is a Marvel Studios release.
Wide theatrical release Friday, May 4.
Directed by Joss Whedon
Starring: Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, Samuel L. Jackson, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner, Mark Ruffalo
Running time: 142 minutes
Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of sci-fi violence and action throughout, and a mild drug reference.
Alex's Rating: 9 out of 10
