Marvel's The Avengers

Movies like The Avengers just don’t get made. It requires a massive budget, years of preparation and the ability to get a bunch of big actors to share the spotlight (and filming time in their schedules.) So I’d like to thank the Marvel lawyers who locked down these actors with multiple film contracts. Directed by sci-fi maven Joss Whedon, the film has the superhero team unite when Loki (Tom Hiddleston), originally from the Thor film, threatens global war with an alien army at his disposal. He also steals the Tesseract, a power source with infinite possibilities.

So the various SHIELD agents go and bring in the team, which includes Iron Man, (Robert Downey Jr.) Captain America, (Chris Evans) The Hulk, (Mark Ruffalo) and Thor (Chris Hemsworth). Not enough characters for you? SHIELD agents are also in the fray. They include Black Widow, (Scarlett Johansson) Hawkeye, (Jeremy Renner) Nick Fury, (Samuel L. Jackson) Maria Hill, (Cobie Smulders) and Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg). Plus Gwyneth Paltrow and Stellan Skaarsgard reprise their previous Marvel roles. I list those out to show the absolutely ridiculous amount of characters they brought together for The Avengers. It’s like a ten year old’s action figure fight has come to life.

Now what about the movie? The film’s success lies with the approach that no characters can be as fully developed as they would in their own film. But since the audience already received most of the origin stories in other films, this works fine. Sure we begin to learn about Johansson and Renner’s characters but there isn’t much need to learn more. It’s no secret that these are second class characters.

The script does well to time out the start of the film. It isn’t quite as hectic as the second half, but that gives a bit more space for the well-spoken and intriguing Loki to build up the story. Interestingly enough, Hiddleston is the biggest stand out in the film. Sure Downey and Evans personify the Cap vs. Iron Man rivalry we were all looking forward to, but Loki is just awesome. I never expected a character that had already been defeated in a previous film to fit so well.

The Avengers plays out as expected with some surprises sprinkled throughout. It is a great achievement in balancing so many intricate pieces, but does not reach the innovative level a film like The Dark Knight did. More family friendly, it will be interesting to see if the next time we glimpse the characters in their personal films (Thor 2 and Iron Man 3) they will hold up without looking like a shade of the super group we saw in The Avengers, Marvel’s crown jewel.

Each film earns either zero, a half or a full arrow in five categories. The categories are Acting, Writing/Directing, Emotion, Innovation and Overall Impression. The arrows are added up to equal the full score.