MARVEL'S THE AVENGERS Review

MARVEL’S THE AVENGERS Review

By Darin Skaggs

     When I watch a film I look for what it did for me emotionally, what it made me think of and what were the themes and metaphors were in the film.  Rarely after seeing a film do I just say “Cool!” I rarely just have pure fun during a film.  In Joss Whedon’s The Avengers I had a ton of fun.

     The Avengers has been in the works for years; it has had several films leading up to it.  Films including The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man, Iron Man 2, Thor and Captain America: The First Avenger.  I have only seen Iron Man, Thor and Captain America.  When I went into this film I wondered how they were going to make a movie with all these characters and let all of them have a big moment and a character arc, but somehow the film pulls it off.  Literally every character has something cool, interesting and even some have emotional parts happen to them.

     The film opens with Nick Fury played by Samuel L. Jackson studying the tesseract from Captain America.  Then Loki, from Thor, comes in.  He steals the tesseract and a few S.H.I.E.D members with his staff and then destroys the area.  Then the film goes into Nick Fury assembling the force including a character only seen for a few moments in a previous film Black Widow.  The film sets her character up well.  When we meet her she is tied up being interrogated, but then with almost no effort at all she gets out of it.  The rest of the characters are also set up nicely.  It takes a little longer than I would like for the characters to get together, but there are still good moments in between.

     The film has all around great acting.  The villain, Loki, has great chemistry with all the Avengers.  The Avengers all work well together also.  You can tell they are ticking each other off at points and feel the bond they eventually form for the end battle scene.

     This film has great special effects and great action scenes.  Unlike other films with CGI action scenes where I can’t figure out what is happening to the characters fighting I can actually figure out what is going on, where the explosion is coming from, what caused it and who caused it.  This is true for the entire film especially the final battle scene where every character from the film seems to be doing something and there is none to little confusion to what is going on.

     For the films tone it is a really funny film.  It has great one liners from each character, great jokes and references.  This film stays really funny while still keeping every character true to form and taking everything seriously.  It does not make fun of The Avengers series nor its fans.  Another clever aspect of the film is that the writers realized that mostly all these characters are invincible.  During the second act many of the Avengers they are fighting each other, but they are not easily scratched. Every hit they take they fly across the room.  When Thor first appears there is a big fight between him, Iron Man and Captian America where they hit each other so hard they knock over a few trees. I’m glad the writer knew the ridiculousness of the situation at hand and took full advantage of it.

If it was even possible, the one character who steals the show is the Hulk. He is wonderfully played by Mark Ruffelo.  It takes him a while to turn into the Hulk, but it doesn’t bother you.  You’re too invested in Ruffelo’s performance.  Then when he turns into the Hulk it is terrifying and later when he transforms it is constantly cool and funny. 

     There are some flaws in this film, but the film is so entertaining they are not much of a bother.  Hawkeye is under used even though he is set up as a very important character.  The control that Hulk has with his powers during his second transformation is confusing.  Nevertheless these problems are not big and do not make the film any less fun.

     This film is a blast.  It offers everything a film could give laughs, scares, drama, and action.  It is a good way to start the summer movies and a great entry into the superhero genre.