Review of The Avengers (2012) by Scottface — 05 May 2012

I guess you can't please all of the people all of the time. With many reviewers complaining that this was a brainless action flick, and others complaining that there wasn't enough action, I thought this movie absolutely nailed the sweet-spot between the two, with some of the best action and biggest effect sequences of any comic-movie yet, and great dialogue in between.

The first half of the movie's pretty slow, understandable when you consider all the characters that needed to be introduced/re-introduced. Black Widow got a great introduction, there were some cool moments with S.H.I.E.L.D and some minor scraps between the heroes themselves which were great fun, but the bulk of the action was saved for the big-scale Manhattan battle at the end. With all the actors slipping effortlessly back into their roles (except for Mark Ruffallo's Hulk, more on that later) there's plenty of room for banter between the heroes, which provide some of the biggest fun in the movie. It's hard to pick out one "main" character as they all get an equal share in the proceedings, exactly as it should be. RDJ shines once again as Tony Stark/Ironman, his trademark wit and cool oozing from every pore, Chris Hemsworth's Thor bringing his big Asgardian personallity to the party, all the S.H.I.E.L.D members suitably official and millitaristic. Evan's Steve Rogers/Captain America is the fish-out-of-water in this new time-period, but steps up to the role of team leader in time for the finale. Then there's the Hulk.

Now, I should preface this by saying how much I LOVED Ed Norton's Hulk film. After the godawful Ang Lee effort a few years before, the Incredible Hulk was everything a Hulk movie should be, and I was a little devastated when I heard Norton wasn't reprising his role for the Avengers. It turns out, I needn't have worried. Ruffallo, in his biggest role yet, shines as the self-depricating Banner, and the Hulk himself has some of the most crowd-pleasing, punch-the-air moments in the whole movie. Tom Hiddleston returns as Loki, the films antagonist and does a great job once more. He has some great one-on-one moments with most of the heroes, most notably with Stark and of course his brother Thor, but the best by far is his short-lived encounter with the Hulk, a scene which WILL make you laugh, HARD. Now, I could complain that the overarching plot was a little basic as some reviews have, but to be honest I thought the plot was exactly what it needed to be. There's an alien invasion coming, we need to gather Earths mightiest heroes to defend it. That's about the long and short of it and I wouldn't have wanted it any other way. There were simply too many characters for anything more complicated than that to work effectively in the first Avengers movie. Perhaps in future sequels something a little more substantial would work, with all the characters now established as well as their roles within the team, but this was perfect for a first outing.

All of this led to a finale which was just awesome. You know that battle in Manhattan you've seen in all the trailers? That goes on for half an hour. For the majority of that half-hour, I practically couldn't stop smiling. I seriously dig superheroes, and for me, it was like christmas seeing them all work together against the alien threat. There's a moment where all the heroes are gathered and Cap gives the team their orders, including a particullarly crowd-pleasing order to the Hulk, before they all spread out and do their thing. It was seriously cool.

Speaking of Cap, I have to bring up my only real criticism with the movie, and that's Cap's new costume. It just looks cheap, to be honest. Why they re-designed it at all, I don't know. In the Captain America movie, they managed to make the costume look right without it looking too silly, but this new incarnation just didn't work for me. Other than that, the movie was great. Great fun, great actoin, great humour, great dialogue. If you like action movies, you gotta see this. If you like superheroes, you absolutely must see this. Twice. I've only seen it once, and writing this review's made me wanna go watch it again, so it looks like I'm off to the cinema this afternoon.