Van-El's Marvel Movie Megapost!
So, I just got back from watching "Marvel's Avengers" (or as the UK and Ireland billing has it, "Marvel Avengers Assembled" in order to avoid confusion with a certain 60s and 70s UK Cult TV classic detective show which got a Hollywood remake starring a villainous Sir Sean Connery). If you want to find what I thought of the film, just follow the LJ cut below and read on., True Believer!
Note: There are many plot and Easter Egg spoilers beneath the cut, but they are hidden behind spoiler tags and as such will only be visible if highlighted or you hover your mouse over them. Thought you should know.
tl;dr - It's an amazing popcorn/action-movie that will certainly entertain for the nearly two and a half hour runtime. Seeing it in 3D is well worth the cost of admission. Seeing it in IMAX 3D will make the visuals even more impressive.
Click to viewIn full: OK, so Joss Whedon had a lot on his plate - tying together the hints of the Avenger Initiative from the "Iron Man" movies, the Cosmic/Tesseract Cube from the "Captain America: The First Avenger" flick, and the concept of alien and interdimensional aspects of the Marvel Universe in "Thor," and somehow make room to explain how this ties in to the "The Incredible Hulk" movie and its post-credits scene after the battle in the streets of Harlem.
While he does a great job doing so, with all these threads to pull together - he does have a bit of a struggle to explain it. If you've not seen the other movies, you'll have the odd speed bump catching up - but if you're the target audience of this movie, chances are you've seen all five and won't be mentally putting together a "who's who" chart in your head and grasping at plot threads.
The movie plays its plot well - Loki has found allies after his fall from grace at the end of Thor. Having been denied the Asgardian throne, Loki now seeks to take Earth as his Kingdom to spite his adopted brother, offering the Tesseract Cube as a price for the use of an Alien invading force, known as [Minor Spoiler (click to open)]the Chitauri (who Ultimate Comics Marvel Universe fans are familiar with, though these guys aren't shape-shifters and seem to have a cybernetic/hive-mind thing going on). When he steals the Cube from SHIELD's Joint Dark Energy Research Facility [Minor Spoiler (click to open)]with the assistance of a mind-controlled Professor Erik Selvig and Agent Clint "Hawkeye" Barton, among others, Nick Fury reactivates the decommissioned Avenger Initiative and calls for the assistance of people around the globe who will form "Earth's Mightiest Heroes." Unfortunately, these same heroes are such a clashing group of personalities, that it will take a miracle for them to band together. That or the threat of the End of the World, of course.
[Near-Complete Plot Spoiler (click to open)]Initially the team appears successful - with Cap, Shellhead and Widow being able to capture Loki with extreme apparent ease that unsettles the stoic Sentinel of Liberty - their victory is cut short by the arrival of Thor, who seeks to capture both Loki and the Tesseract Cube and return them to Asgard, leading to a three-way battle royale beatdown by The Big Three as they settle their differences on how to deal with the Trickster God.
Unbeknownst to the team, they aren't being told the full story - it seems the World Governments are running scared because of the events of the last five films, especially with the revelation that Earth is hopelessly and hilariously out-gunned and outclassed by alien and other-dimensional beings. As a result, they seek to use the Tesseract Cube to power weapons much like Hydra and the Nazi Regime did in World War II. While SHIELD and the heroes clash over this revelation, Loki makes use of the in-fighting to enact his ploy - and reason for easy capture - to destroy the SHIELD Helicarrier from within, using the Hulk as his ace up his sleeve - and sow dissent in the ranks.
The movie has multiple trademarks of both Stan Lee and Joss Whedon in the writing. From Stan, you have the conflicts and inter-personal details that often make you wonder just HOW this collection of flawed heroes is ever going to be a team and not a loose-knit group of individuals without a common goal. From Joss, his witty dialogue - with the best lines seemingly reserved for Tony Stark and Phil Coulson - is everywhere... and one OTHER trademark of his that would lead to spoiler territory. The delivery of the all star cast is what draws you to the story - aided by a good, if not great, script.
One question that comic book fans will be asking is how the team gains the name "The Avengers"? Without Janet Van Dyne as the Wasp to explain that the team should avenge the wrongs done by others, the name doesn't automatically come to mind for the team until[Major Spoiler (click to open)] the death of Agent Phil Coulson at the hands of Loki - stabbed through the back with his otherworldly sceptre. This event is used to galvanize the group into a functioning team with a single purpose, and it was definitely a big surprise to the crowd in the theatre with me!
But it's not all talking heads and round tables and harsh words... or even comedic timing. No, people want to see this film because they want stunts, explosions, beat-downs, collateral damage, laser beams, shield slings, bullets flying, archery, acrobatics, magic, lightning... and a big giant green guy in torn purple trousers smashing things up. You get all that - and THEN some.
The final set-piece, a battle raging through the streets and skies of Manhattan as the six heroes band together is one that - by all appearances - dwarfs most of the other competitor budgets for an action sequence.
Or, as Hulk would put it. "Puny buildings and puny enemies GO SMASH!"
Onto a couple of Easter Eggs: Marvel Comics nerds and aficionados should look out for several key names of politicians from the Marvel Universe, particularly those in the SHIELD Oversight Committee. Stan Lee's cameo is right at the very end of the film[Easter Egg Spoiler (click to open)] during a man-on-the-street interview over the events of the film's climax - lamp-shading the ludicrous notion of superheroes in New York, and is hilarious as always, and no Marvel Movie is complete without some kind of post-credits scene. This one is a doozy. It appears [First Spoiler Repeated (click to open)]the Chitauri have a leader, and it's a cosmic villain who hasn't been seen outside of comics - I don't think he's even featured in the cartoons...[Big Easter Egg Spoiler (click to open)] Thanos!
As a comic book nerd, I would give this film high marks - in the region of 8 or 9 out of 10. As a regular mainstream viewer, the length of the film may be a stumbling point and could cost the film between a half or a full point. Worth watching regardless.
Oh, and in case you were planning on asking me if the new Batman Trailer was on the reel before the movie? Not in the UK it's not.
Edited to Add: Having watched the film four times, now - solo, with my kid brother, with a group of friends who are comic book fans and with a group of pure action fans - I feel I need to add a little more to the review than when I initially published it.
The first and most glaring weakness of the motion-picture has to be Maria Hill. Despite fan excitement over her presence in the movie as the wary, hard-as-nails military security woman acting as Nick Fury's second - and a driving force in the events of the comics story-lines such as "Marvel Civil War," "Secret War" and "Dark Reign."
With a director/writing collaborator such as Joss Whedon, one would have expected Special Agent Hill to have *some* impact on the movie plot beyond being someone for Samuel L. Jackson's Fury to bounce lines off of. Sadly, she seems to have been reduced to a non-entity. It wasn't so much a shortcoming of Cobie Smulders in the role as it was the screenplay itself - and her lines and role could easily have been given to any other SHIELD grunt.
What are you still doing here reading? GO WATCH THE MOVIE NOW!