Marvel Studios has been trying to sell audiences the idea of a movie starring comic book heroes the Avengers since 2008, when after the end credits of the first Iron Man film, in which Samuel L. Jackson's Nick Fury approached Robert Downney Jr.'s Tony Stark to tell him about "the Avenger initiative." This is a movie that has basically been five years in the making, and is the culmination of a painstaking effort, consisting of two Iron Man films, as well as films starring the Hulk, Thor and Captain America, to lay the groundwork for arguably the most ambitious superhero movie ever to be made. Each of those films, some more than others, contained narrative cues leading up to the introduction of Marvel Comics' most popular superhero team.
Now that it's finally here, one inevitably asks the question: does it live up to the hype? As far as I'm concerned, it certainly does and more, which is quite an achievement considering that expectations for this film are no doubt sky-high.
Story-wise, it's a continuation of threads that were started in last year's Marvel Films Thor and Captain America: The First Avenger. Thor, starring Chris Hemsworth as the titular God of Thunder, introduced the villainy and angst of his adoptive brother Loki (Tom Hiddleston), and Captain America: The First Avenger, starring Chris Evans as Marvel's iconic super soldier, introduced the power of the Cosmic Cube, known in Marvel's cinematic universe as the Tesseract. The Avengers brings these two story elements together as Loki, having lived in exile since the events of Thor, makes a deal with mysterious alien beings and steals the Tesseract from the custody of S.H.I.E.L.D., the super-spy agency that has been in possession of the artifact since the organization's founder, Howard Stark, fished it out of the ocean at the end of the Captain America movie. Nick Fury (Jackson) concerned, decides to dust off an old plan of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s that has been in mothballs for some time: The Avenger Initiative. For this he needs superheroes, and one by one Captain America (Evans), Bruce Banner/a.k.a the Hulk (Mark Ruffalo in a surprisingly well-textured, nuanced performance), Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), and Thor (Hemsworth) come on board at one point or another of the journey. Another member, Hawkeye/Clint Barton (Jeremy Renner), comes on later for reasons I will not spoil here. The question then arises: is even the combined might of the Avengers enough to take on the forces that Loki, using the Tesseract, is about to bring to bear on the hapless population of Earth (particularly Manhattan)?
The Avengers is not a film that's heavy on subtext or social commentary. It doesn't try to make profound statements about the human condition, but it does offer viewers a lurid, somewhat entertaining glimpse at a dysfunctional group of people thrown together in the hope that they can accomplish something great together, and as incredible and eye-popping as the action may be, this is actually the film's single biggest asset. Ever since he paired an insecure cowboy doll with a deluded astronaut doll in 1995's Toy Story, of which he was a co-writer, Joss Whedon has most definitely been the man for the job. As many heavyweights as this film sports, Whedon is hands down its biggest star. Handling both directing and co-writing duties (having rewritten the original script turned in by Zak Penn), Whedon infuses a distinct intelligence, humanity and humor into a film that could easily have been, in the hands of lesser filmmakers, one of the biggest clusterf**ks of all time.
As many fans and critics alike have pointed out, the action is sublime. It's frenetic but still judiciously paced, the viewer can actually tell what's going on at any given time, and there's actual suspense to see how things will turn out in the end. Critical to the action, though, is that it features characters whom people can actually care about, and it is in this aspect that Whedon succeeds considerably. In one crucial respect, Whedon's The Avengers stands head, shoulders and every other bodily appendage over any of Bryan Singer's X-Men films in that this is a true ensemble piece. Sure, the X-Men films had the whole metaphor for prejudice going for them, especially the last one, but the thing is, each and every one of those films, with the exception of the Wolverine-centric prequel, was supposed to play out as an ensemble piece but instead ended up revolving around one character, whether it was Wolverine in the first three films or Magneto in the latest one. The Avengers, which could have easily degenerated into Iron Man 3 considering Downey Jr.'s megawatt charisma, or Thor 2 considering that it picks up where the first film left off, actually feels like an ensemble piece in the way it devotes screen time and hefty character development to so many members of its cast. One reviewer says that Downey Jr. steals the show, another one says that Hiddleston steals the show, while Whedon himself feels that the Hulk is the most important character of the movie. This is an extraordinary achievement in that there are so many outstanding performances in this movie, and yet none of them got lost in the shuffle of so many characters.
Whedon, I feel, is Marvel Studios' first true visionary, and that includes the directors of the studio-made Marvel movies. I say this as someone who thoroughly enjoyed the Bryan Singer X-Men movies and the first two Sam Raimi Spider-Man movies and Jon Favreau's Iron Man films (yes, even the second one). All of those directors turned in solid, admirable work and even flirted a bit with greatness at times, but I don't think any of them could be mentioned in the same breath as Steven Spielberg or Peter Jackson in terms of the ability to construct epics involving massive destruction and conflict. What Whedon has done here, though is something unprecedented, a balance of egos and monstrous logistics and some of the most amazing digital effects I've seen since James Cameron raised the bar for effects with Avatar a few years back. His script brims with pathos, nuanced interpersonal interaction, some tense, some tender, and dollops of impeccably-timed humor. I'm loath to use a cliche that many writers have no doubt used and will no doubt use to describe Whedon's feat but he's really knocked this one clean out of the park.
The ensemble cast of actors, three of whom already veterans of their own individual films, do an amazing job with Whedon's script, and even though they've already each had a film each (two in Iron Man's case) for some healthy character development, they still manage to take their characters to new places this time around and considering they had to share the somewhat crowded film with each other it's really quite a marvel (pun intended) that they were able to make their performances work the way they did. For my part I think special mention should go to Tom Hiddleston in his second go-'round as Loki. To be the arch-villain in a film starring six superheroes is no mean feat and it would not have worked, no matter how spectacular Loki's powers, if they hadn't gotten an actor capable of conveying a genuine sense of menace, something Hiddleston achieves quite admirably with some pretty interesting dialogue. Mark Ruffalo also surprised as Bruce Banner; I was a fan of Norton's performance and was not expecting him to live up to it, but he definitely made the character his own and I hope, for once, Marvel sticks with this particular actor for the inevitable sequels to this film. It helps that in rendering the Hulk, the visual effects crew(s) behind this movie have finally gotten him right. Alan Silvestri's bustling music score deserves a shout out, too, though for some reason it seems infused with a slightly anachronistic 80s flavor at some points.
I'd be lying, though if I said I didn't have any problems with the film at all. Having watched the film in 3-D I have to say the conversion job on this movie was a huge improvement from the half-assed post-production changeover Marvel did with Thor, and a number of effects shots look amazing as a result, but it resulted in a movie that was, overall, conspicuously dark, especially the parts that took place at night, of which there were many. Considering this was Marvel's format of choice I can't help but roll my eyes at their blatant cash-grab. Another quibble I have with the film was that the alien army Loki uses the Tesseract to assemble are, in the comics, a prominent group of bad guys in their own right, (whose identity I will not spoil) and certainly deserved better than the cannon fodder treatment they got here. Still, those are mostly "nerd" concerns, and overall the viewing experience is not significantly diminished by them. This movie is one of those rare examples of the whole being so much greater than the sum of all its parts. As much as I enjoyed most of the individual movies of the characters featured here, some more than others, Joss Whedon has truly set a new standard for the Marvel Studios film.
Score: 5/5
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