Review of The Avengers (2012) by User R — 19 Dec 2017

After five stand-alone movies, the Marvel Cinematic Universe finally adjoins to have six World War II, Norse mythology, and modern-era superheroes band together to fight alien-looking monsters with an iconic score blaring in the background. In other words, the first superhero crossover movie is finally here. After many movies behind its back, this movie is set to make five times the money. For too many years now, the concept of them banding together was nonexistent. There is no question why that scene of them standing in a circle, loaded up in the heart of New York, ready to fight for humanity was ever so important. If you are not sure why that is so meaningful to the audience of the movie, you may have not seen the post-credit scenes to every film beforehand (particularly Iron Man and Thor) as Samuel L. Jackson recruits members to his team.

Beforehand, it would have been clear not to anticipate the film. But now we can only thank director Joss Whedon for creating such a fun-filled thriller of a summer blockbuster. Whedon had previously been known for creating TV's Buffy the Vampire Slayer and can now claim his right to balance large-scale projects as a coherent piece. Having been trusted by such a project though, he seems to have forgotten the millions of Joker fans counting on him to make this entire film work together and instead saves space for Wizard of Oz, playing cards, and Asgardian family jokes. But the fact this still works makes you only love the film even more.

The amount of millions Hollywood has spent reintroducing these characters in movies may seem unnecessary. It is. Robert Downey Jr.'s character, Iron Man, is basically a billionaire tech-geek who owns an iron suit. Chris Hemsworth's Thor and Chris Evans's Captain America are both super-soldiers from non-modern times who have received the spotlight recently so they don't need stand-alone movies. In fact, the central Avenger who steals the show in this film has actually not been introduced before, at least not with this actor, is Bruce Banner, who has rage issues and turns into a green monster known as the Hulk.

These team members assemble with Scarlett Johansson's Black Widow, an agent for Nick Fury, and Hawkeye, an archer for SHIELD portrayed by Jeremy Renner, who just came off of the smashing success of The Hurt Locker, in order to defeat an Asgardian known as Loki, who has come down to invade Earth. Loki is played by Tom Hiddleston and spends much of the movie demanding humans kneel before him without very dark intentions. It is almost a shame that this is the threat the Avengers are facing against.

As this cast and crew are set into action against this script and threat, a MacGuffin-type power cube which tends to always show up in any sci-fi action movie, The Avengers begins to follow its earlier themes and genres: a buddy-cop comedy. The fighting amongst the members of the Avengers in this film actually turns out to be rather refreshing, turning two-dimensional comic book characters into three-dimensional big-screen superheroes. While the script seems to be weak at times, it wins itself back through these conversational exchanges.

It is the action sequences that truly make this film what it was meant to be, while being easy to follow in the process. In a beautiful scene, SHIELD's helicarrier takes off into the air and in a similarly breathtaking action sequence, it gets destroyed by Loki's forces. They then return in the third act as Manhattan gets wrecked to pieces in an effort for the world to be saved.

The battles won seem reminiscent to our fantasies of superheroes saving us from external threats and avenging our world in outstanding action scenes. The film's title certainly displays avenging. While this is probably not the case, the film gives us a breath of fresh air by choosing to go the old-school light way. The nostalgic route the film chooses gives more heart rather than fear and plays well just at that, granting comic book fans their dreams. Even Hulk is granted heart as well as anger. The audience will feel the same way.