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| This happened. And it worked. |
Clif's review of The Avengers
A Triple Dragon Punch Presentation
It was a risky venture. Five separate but interconnected films about four different superheroes-some totally unproven at the movies-culminating in a real life Avengers Initiative under the direction of a geek genius with the worst luck in Hollywood. Nothing like this had ever been done. What if one or more of the solo films had tanked? What if all of this "Marvel Cinematic Universe" was lost on John Q. Moviegoer and his wife Betty? What if the writer/director's past bad luck struck again (more on this later)?
I can now say after seeing it four times in four days, for me all of these concerns have been put to rest. The Avengers delivers on every level.
The set up is simple: Loki, the brother of Thor, comes to Earth to find the Tesseract-an unlimited energy source-for a mysterious being from another world in exchange for the Earth itself. Nick Fury recognizes this is a very specialized threat that normal people can't handle. He assembles a response team made up of Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, Hulk, and rounded out by two of his own SHIELD agents, Hawkeye and Black Widow to stop Loki and save the world if they can learn to work as a team. Where The Avengers really shines isn't so much in the overall story, but in watching these characters come together, interact, grow, learn to work together, and become the team we all know and love. Of course they get into plenty of fights-both with their enemies or each other-which lend themselves to some awesome action scenes, but we'll come back to that.
All of the main cast's performances are outstanding. Robert Downey Jr lights it up as Tony Stark again and I feel it's his strongest performance as Stark yet. He's witty, he's hilarious, he's sarcastic, and he is the PERFECT foil for Chris Evans' Captain America. Steve Rogers is a man outside of his own time. He's seeing all of this stuff for the first time just like we are. He's our window in. Evans plays Rogers straight laced and firm, but understanding. He's a born leader for this team despite the fact that he's 70 years behind everyone else. Evans nails what Christopher Reeve got about Superman, in that he's a stand up guy wants to do the right thing all the time, but he doesn't come off hokey. Chris Hemsworth's Thor is just as awesome as he was in his solo movie. His story in this is the one I find the most interesting, being that the villain of the film his his brother. Even after all Loki has done, Thor is not willing to write him off just yet. Joss Whedon's talent for writing strong female roles serves Scarlett Johansson's Black Widow very well. She's given a surprising amount of important things to do, and it's great to see a woman who has more on her plate than being saved by or swooning over the heroes. Samuel L Jackson's awesome as Nick Fury, and it's great to see him a lot more this time around. He's given a few "Sam Jackson" moments that are super fun to watch. Clark Gregg's Agent Phil Coulson is given an interesting twist concerning Captain America which is fun to watch. Only Jeremy Renner's Hawkeye feels underserved here in my opinion. He's just not given a whole ton to do, although Renner makes a pretty convincing Clint Barton. Longtime Whedon fans will recognize a hints of a certain brown coat-wearing Captain in Renner's dialog.....
Of the four main Avengers, my least favorite character is Hulk. However, Hulk gets his own paragraph in this review, because Hulk kind of steals the show. Every moment he's on screen is super entertaining. This is easily the best version of Hulk on screen to date. A lot of what makes Hulk work is Mark Ruffalo's portrayal of Bruce Banner. He gives Banner sort of a sad, out of place, stand offish quality that really helps sell how careful Banner has to be to keep the Hulk at bay. And when he reveals "his secret"....oh man.
Tom Hiddleston plays Loki as Marvel's Hannibal Lecter to great success. He's charming one second then he flips the switch and becomes monsterous the next. He's arrogant, he's sarcastic, he's menacing, and he's smiling almost the whole time. I really enjoyed him more than I did in Thor, and he was already good there.
None of this would have come together nearly as well as it does without one man: Joss Whedon. Let's think about this for a second: A string of successful filmmakers have come through and all made solid solo movies based on these characters. Some of these guys are multiple award winning, highly respected, successful blockbuster directors, and a guy who's had every show he's ever put on TV cancelled, who's only theatrical directorial effort was a flop, and who hasn't been able to catch a real break for years has delivered a better film than all of them, and the reason is really simple: He's passionate about the material. Whedon gets it. He's written comics. He understands these characters. He understands ensemble casts. He writes clever dialog. Some of the best moments in this film are just characters talking. Stark and Banner in the lab having a "did we just become best friends?!" moment was priceless. Steve Rogers' reaction to meeting Bruce Banner for the first time: a simple statement about how he feels about Banner's other half was the best embodiment of Steve Rogers and a character I could have imagined. Tony Stark dropping pop culture references to describe the other characters was super clever. We get to see these characters come together and feel each other out. We see them disagree, we see them bond, we see the team form. It makes the last act of the movie, the final battle so much more satisfying.
And what a battle it is. The last third of The Avengers was the coolest action spectacle I have ever seen. This battle is the first time we see The Avengers fully assembled, and it's like a dream come true. Seeing these characters battling this threat together and working as a team was absolutely exhilarating. The action was well choreographed as well, none of this hard to follow "shaky cam" nonsense so many people seem to like today. No, we get big, sweeping, splashy shots of action that-well, feels like a comic book. Fancy that. It's made that much more rewarding because of how well we know these characters by this point. Every character is given their own role in the battle and their own moments to shine. There is a long, continuous shot during that battle that shows every character in their element, playing off of each other that almost made me leave my seat with excitement.
When you think about it, The Avengers itself is kind of like a parallel to it's own making. By the end of the movie you know that Nick Fury's crazy gamble has paid off, and so did Marvel's. Joss Whedon has successfully assembled The Avengers and the world is better for it.
-Clif
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