*Directed by Joss Whedon
*Starring Robert Downey Jr, Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, Scarlett Johansson, Tom Hiddleston, Jeremy Renner, Stellan Skarsgård, Samuel L Jackson, Clark Gregg, Colbie Smolders, Gwyneth Paltrow
The Plot: With a plan in motion for Loki to dominate the Earth and unleashing an army called the Chitauri to annihilate, Nick Fury, head of the secret military organization known as S.H.I.E.L.D, brings together a group of unlikely heroes from different walks of life to stop Loki and his forces once and for all.
It's crazy to think that, as I'm writing this, just 5 years ago that this was one of the most anticipated movies of all time. To say this movie was hyped was an understatement because a film like The Avengers was going to change the game not just for comic book films, but films in general. A shared movie universe was already growing, but what we never got to experience was to see what the previous 5 movies in the Marvel universe were building towards in this awesome cross-over event that couldn't be missed.
I wasn't a comic book fan at the time, but I was for those movies, so, of course, to finally see this movie and all these characters together was nothing of short of being one of the most mind-blowing experiences in the history of anything. And as I watched this movie again in preparation for this review, for the 20th or 30th time, I can still say that this movie still delivers on being everything that it needed to be. The Avengers is a superb and ambitious game changer in the history of all things entertainment.
Look it can be easy to say that, but when you have a director like Joss Whedon behind this sort of project there's more to like out of this film than it just being a fun superhero movie. I'm not even much of a Joss Whedon fanboy and never watched the shows he worked on save for the pilot of Firefly, which I do plan on revisiting. It's not because I didn't like his previous work, but I never got around to fully invest in them or I got caught up in something else. But just by watching this movie you can just grasp the fun lightheartedness and intensely gripping suspense he infuses in this film. I was able to garner the impression that this was a comic book coming to life and The Avengers as a film came off as being something truly more than that.
You can tell that just from the writing and the strong personalities given by the cast that these are characters that have weight. It was so important to see how these characters had a bit of a conflict before becoming these amazing heroes banding together. These are actually people who can disagree over things with larger than life stakes ahead of them. And what I also appreciated was that since there was a bit of a conflict amongst the team and when something tragic happens that their character arcs continue to progress. We've seen each of these characters change individually in their own movies, but to see how they can change even more I found to be quite convincing and very eye-opening.
The team dynamic and tension works because not only is there solid writing involved, but performances that make it all the more believable. Robert Downey Jr, Mark Ruffalo, Scarlett Johansson, Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, Jeremy Renner, and Samuel L Jackson all playing off of each other is really something to see. You're able to see that because of the previous films on top of this movie that they know these characters inside and out and to see each actor having even more of an incredible grasp on them is truly special.
I thought each cast member who returned to their original respective roles all do a phenomenal job to encapsulate these iconic characters. Mark Ruffalo, of course, was brought on replacing Ed Norton and while I liked Norton's performance quite a bit, I do feel Ruffalo added more of that charisma and those great quirks that make him more of a relatable Bruce Banner. We just didn't see as much of that personality in The Incredible Hulk, but either way, I was very satisfied with both takes on the role.
Another one of my favorite actors in the film was Tom Hiddleston as Loki, who I thought did amazingly well in the first Thor, but this time around like the other cast members excels his performance. The character is just taken to new places where there's more of that menacing factor like something out of Heath Ledger's performance as The Joker. It certainly adds something if you've seen the first Thor movie, but the film does a great job of at least giving you some insight about Loki's broken past and that he wants something to fulfill his life. The best villains are the ones you can empathize with and I can certainly say its the same for Loki in spite of the horrible things he's done that make you root against him.
What I also have to give props towards were the strong female characters incorporated in the mix of it like Johansson's Black Widow and Colbie Smulders as Agent Maria Hill. Seeing them hold their own and contribute to the action is always a major plus and a fine balance between all the male characters.
I also have to say that the action sequences in this movie are still remarkable and will continue to be long remembered scenes in film history. Of course, there's the brilliance of the battle in New York, which is exhilarating beyond words and has remarkably integrated visual effects, but I also think the other action scenes in the film are very underrated. The prologue where the Tesseract causes S.H.I.E.L.D headquarters to crumble and Loki escapes with Barton and Selvig I thought was a great edge of your seat sequence that I still remember captivating me ever since I saw the film opening weekend in May of 2012. There was also the fight between Iron Man and Thor in the forest where you start to see some tension arise amongst our heroes, which is also wonderfully grounded with some hilarious back and forth banter between the two.
Speaking of banter, I mentioned Whedon's great writing earlier, but what I also love about this movie was the very natural and down to earth personality that called for such an amazing sense of humor this film had. There are some very hilarious quotes and smaller moments in this movie that just prove to show how unforgettable these characters are. If the amount of heart that went into the direction for this movie wasn't there, it just would've been another paint by numbers superhero movie. It's not a matter of it being the same good vs. evil movie you've seen a bunch of times, which it probably is and what film isn't, but it's just a matter of how it's told and what makes it a very moving and exciting comic book movie that I'm still buzzing about to this very day.
With a fusion of espionage, sci-fi, and fantasy The Avengers proves to show that viewers can still thoroughly enjoy and be whisked away in a memorable superhero storytelling experience without having read a single comic book.
Final Verdict:
5/5
This is still one of my favorite movies of all time and I'm so glad that after all these years with being bombarded by a lot of comic book movies that I'm still not sick of this movie in particular. It makes me excited for the future of Marvel, but it's also amazing to watch on its own. I thought Whedon knocked it so far out of the park.
So that's my review for The Avengers and look out next week for my review of Avengers Age Of Ultron and Captain America Civil War the week following.
Check out my previous Marvel reviews by clicking here and follow me on social media in the links below for more updates:
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