Movie Review #11

Ladies and Gentlereaders, we have reached a historic occasion: I have now published more than ten movie reviews!  So, here we are, review #11, and the question on everyone's lips is: "Will The Dark Knight Rises be as good as its predecessor?".  However, that is NOT the question I've come to answer.  Instead, I'm giving a bit of a late answer to "Can Marvel pull off an Avengers movie?"  That's right folks, today I'm reviewing the smash-hit (box-office at least) film, The Avengers!

The Avengers

Now, anyone who stayed for the credits of "Captain America: The First Avenger" saw the clip where Nick Fury approaches Cap with a mission that will apparently involve saving the world.  "The Avengers" expands on that, and let's just say Fury does not lie about that subject.  Our story starts at a S.H.E.I.L.D. base where the Tesseract (a.k.a. Cosmic Cube for you Marvel buffs out there) has activated, but no one has done anything that would cause this.  Clint Barton, a.k.a. "Hawkeye" notes that since the Tesseract acts like a doorway, the change may not have been caused at their end of the door.  Then a portal opens, and who should pop out but Loki!  Evidently he's been busy, as he is trying to lead an alien army through to take over Earth.  He proceeds to take over the minds of several people, including Barton and a physicist friend of Thor's.  The unstable portal then collapses, and the S.H.E.I.L.D. base is leveled, but not before an action scene that results in the cube getting snatched by Loki and minions.  Fury decides that the only way to stop him is to form a response team to find and retreive the Cube.  So, he pulls together all the superheroes we've seen in the past movies (minus Thor, S.H.E.I.L.D. doesn't have a means of interdimensional communication.  Yet.) to stop Loki's plan.  They manage to find him, and while Hawkeye acquires a stabilizing agent for the portal, Cap and Loki do battle, and they are evntually joined by Iron Man.  Amazingly, they manage to capture him and after a breif spring and duel with Thor, they head back to the Hellicarrier, and begin tracking the Cube, with help form Bruce Banner, a.k.a. "Hulk".  Why is he here?  Because the Cube emits small traces of Gamma Radiation of course!  They need someone who is able to track it, so they call Banner.  I haven't mentioned this yet, but Edward Norton, who played Banner in "The Incredible Hulk", does not return for this movie, and the role of Bruce goes to Mark Ruffalo (who's from Kenosha, Wisconsin, my hometown! [At least, that's what I call it.  When you live in a place for ten years, it starts to feel like home.  Go figure.]).  Don't worry, no one else is replaced.  Even Clark Gregg shows up again.  Anyways, they search for the Cube, and it's evident that these people may not be the best team there is.  Arguments frequently break out, and Loki sits in his cell, waiting for the inevitable clash.  This happens when Hawkeye attacks the Hellicarrier, blowing up a huge section of the behemoth with an explosive arrow.  S.H.E.I.L.D. tech is hardcore.  This injures Banner, unleashing the Hulk.  Hawkeye and crew take the prison area, free Loki, and easily trick Thor into the same cage Loki was in, which happens to be suspended above a giant airlock.  Thor's cage is released (Spoilers: he survives), Hulk is knocked off by the Black Widow, who also frees Hawkeye, Shellhead (Tony for you laymen) reactivates the engines, and the bad guys escape.  The tracking system is also destroyed, but since Tony is a "genuis billionaire playboy phillanthropist", he figures out that Loki's divaness means he wants to show the world just how beaten they are by moving the portal device to the newly commisioned Stark Tower.  The heroes regroup in NYC, and Loki opens the portal.  However, with The Avengers finally assembled (pun fully inteneded), can he ultimatly win?  (Spoilers: He can't)

So that's the plot of the movie.  It's not neccessarily big, but with a movie like this, a somewhat thin plot is needed to develop the characters.  And developed they are.  Each has their own distinct mannerisms and quirks, and all are played by great actors.  RDJ, however, gets special kudos from me for totally pulling off every single one off Tony's fantastic one-liners.  ("That man is playing Galaga!  He tought we wouldn't notice, but we did.")  Props also have to be given to Mark Ruffalo for easily assuming the role of both Banner and Hulk, especially given the fact that he was not in TIH.  And then of course, there's Stan Lee in his funniest cameo yet (the entire theater died when they saw his part).  But the real hero of the day never even showed up on the screen.  Joss Whedon, (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Firefly) co-writer and director, is the one who really made this movie a fantastic joy-ride.  From incredibly witty humor ("Puny God!), to effective character managing, he made a masterpiece.  In fact, looking back, this film shouldn't have worked.  It's an incredibly ambitious move to get six superheroes all teaming up on the silver screen.  Add to that the fact that you have to throw in a villian, this movie normally would've collapsed under its own weight.  But Joss Whedon, with his effective directing, smart dialogue, and clear understanding of the charecters, managed to pull it all together.  In my eyes, no one else could've pulled it off the way he did, and he deserves a lot of credit.  And the action finale was amazing.  All the characters were totally kicking alien butt, and looking awesome while doing it.  This movie not only lived up to my expectations, it surpassed them by a large margin.  This is the best sperhero movie I've seen since "The Incredibles", and you do not want to miss this amazing work of genius.  And now, I shall end this review the only way one could.  Excelsior!