Unless you've been living under the proverbial rock somewhere, you are aware of the cinematic juggernaut that is The Avengers. One of the most anticipated films in years has finally hit the big screen after being set-up by a few other films, namely Iron Man 1 & 2, Thor, and Captain America, as well as The Incredible Hulk. Being a comic book nerd, I was REALLY looking forward to this one, not because any of these guys are my favorite super-hero (that distinction belongs to one Frank Castle), but because I had the feeling that this was being done RIGHT. Marvel and Disney released each of the above movies with teases here and there about the team coming together to battle a global threat, without revealing too much over-all. And I needed a Marvel team movie that would cleanse my palate after what I felt were three horrible X-Men movies. It's OK, gripe if you will, but until Marvel gets the rights to those characters back, they have seen no justice, but that's a story for another time.
Written and directed by Joss Whedon, the Geek God who brought you Buffy, The Vampire Slayer (the series, not the mediocre movie with Luke Perry and Kristy Swanson) and the much-loved but short-lived Firefly, The Avengers brings together all the superheroes from their respective movies to focus on a threat to the planet lead by the main villain from Thor, his adopted brother Loki (Tom Huddleston), who apparently is under orders from a shadowy alien-type inter-dimensional fellow, who is only referred to as "The Other". But before the gang can protect the Earth, they have to learn to work together to become Earth's Mightiest Heroes, which is much easier said than done. You've got a super-soldier still trying to come to terms with the fact that everything he knew or loved is pretty much gone since he's been asleep for 70 years, a narcissistic billionaire playboy, a pair of government super assassins, a demi-god who is sworn to protect the Earth no matter who or what gets in his way, and The Hulk (no description necessary).
Pictured: Not The Hulk
At first glance I had a similar fear that many of us shared, that this was going to be The Iron Man Show, featuring The Avengers, as Tony Stark/Iron Man played by Robert Downey Jr. is arguably the most popular of the characters, and while he does get a good amount of the screen time, he is nowhere near the center stage of this 2 1/2 hour epic. Most of the character development was handled for each character in their respective films, with the exceptions being Black Widow/Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson) who was introduced in Iron Man 2, and Hawkeye/Clint Barton (Jeremy Renner) who was teased briefly in Thor. While more is introduced about these characters and their back-stories, as well as their connected histories, the film overall is more about the big four: Captain America (Chris Evans), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Bruce Banner/Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) and the aforementioned Iron Man. These four actors work well off of each other, and share the scenes equally, with no character upstaging any other. The greatest actor in the film, however, is the CGI Hulk, who easily steals the show and has some of the best scenes in the film. He is, of course, the brute force who is capable of causing great destruction (and does), but also has much of the comic relief that is interjected at all the right times. You're used to Stark/Iron Man spitting one-liners, and you get that, too, but Hulk is surprisingly good for laughs, as well. And I want to put this out there, if Marvel is listening: Thor and Hulk would be great for an Odd Couple remake, just sayin'.
Cut me some slack, I don't have Photoshop.
And now here's where I had a problem with the movie. First off, I think they treated Hawkeye like a chump. He gets little screen-time, and the time he does get doesn't help his case, at all. When it comes to the action, he seems like the odd man out, he can't fly, is not super-strong, or super at all. He's really bad-ass with a bow-and-arrow. It's a great bow-and-arrow, and he can most definitely kick my ass with it, but even in the comics, the character seems like a B-Team kind of guy. At least he didn't bring his lame-ass costume from the comics along. Secondly, I'm a comic purist. I really like it when a comic licensed movie sticks pretty close (or close enough, Cowboys and Aliens) to it's source material, but in this case I cry foul. Nick Fury is not a black guy. For the longest time, since his creation in fact, Fury was an older, white gentleman with fabulous hair and was once even played by someone with hair just as magnificent: David Hasslehoff. When Marvel re-booted several of its characters and story-lines, set in an alternate universe, Fury was made a black guy by the writers and artists because they really, REALLY liked Sam Jackson. Conspiracy theorists might speculate this was done as a way for Jackson to eventually play the character in a movie, but I wasn't there and I'm not a bat-shit conspiracy theorist. I don't care what they did with the character in the comics, but it does touch on a continuity issue if you use a character from one universe in another that you're making a film of. Basically, if we're watching a movie that has the Marvel Ultimates version of Fury, do we assume that the rest of the characters are their respective Ultimates versions too? Because they aren't, but that isn't a discussion for a movie review. My point is that Nick Fury should have been a white guy from the start. So despite my fan-boy rantings, and these two issues I've just discussed, this film was quite a good time. I took in the 3D experience, despite warnings from friends, but I had no problem with it. The action was fast paced, the exposition and monologues delivered, and all the actors hit their marks. I look forward to the next slate of movies from Marvel/Disney as they set up Avengers 2, and where the Marvel Cinematic Universe goes from here as a whole, with new characters on the horizon, and not necessarily all of them being Avengers related.
