Running Time: 2 hours, 23 minutes
Rating: PG-13
Director: Joss Whedon
Quick Impressions:
Reviewing The Avengers feels special to me. For one thing, this is easily one of the most anticipated movies of the year since Marvel has been teasing us with it ever since the tag at the end of the original Iron Man back in 2008. On a more personal level, this film marks the one-year anniversary of my time as a movie reviewer. Although I’ve been a long-time movie enthusiast, I had never actually worked up the nerve to write my first review until last May when Marvel released Thor, the first movie of the summer (and one of my personal favorites of the year).
Though Thor certainly had its weaker aspects, I still really loved it and thought it was a perfect way to kick off the summer of 2011. Of course, like everyone else, I expected The Avengers in summer of 2012 to be even better, to be something really special. And I’m happy to report that it was.
I actually saw the movie twice before writing this review (a rare thing since the birth of my daughter three years ago). Because my three-year-old won’t wear 3D glasses, my husband and I saw the film in 2D with the family over the weekend and again in 3D last night.
The 2D experience had its charms, many of them provided by my daughter. After the sinister opening monologue, she whispered to me, “Well that wasn’t very nice.”
When the hammer hit the shield in the forest, she exclaimed dramatically, “Wow! What happened?” and managed to crack up several people sitting around us. And throughout the entire thing, she was very excited about the antics of “the Green Goblin” which for some reason she persists in calling the Incredible Hulk. (She wasn’t the only one who loved him. This movie should create a lot more Hulk fans.)
But I really am glad that we went again and saw it in 3D.
2D Versus 3D:
Ordinarily I prefer to see movie reality in two dimensions. For me, it’s easier to process that way, more focused and less threatening than the confusing, overwhelming sensory nightmare that is actual reality.
But in this case, I have to admit that watching the movie in 3D did seem to enhance the experience. The film felt faster in 3D. In action scenes, the momentum seemed to build more quickly, and the intensity lingered longer.
The 3D in The Avengers is almost always used to add depth to a scene (which is the way 3D ought always to be used, in my opinion). With the exception of a couple of showy moments (like when Iron Man is theatrically welding in our face, for example), we get few obnoxious wow-look-it’s-really-jumping-out-at-you moments. Usually, the 3D is used to make the playing field seem appropriately immense (which in turn makes the stakes seem higher).
Last summer, the 3D in Transformers, while admittedly impressive, ultimately made the action scenes even more confusing for me. There was simply too much too look at, too many intricate lifelike details, and all of them exploding. I felt overstimulated and overwhelmed. In The Avengers, on the other hand, we’re almost always given a subject or two in the foreground to focus on. In other words, the 3D is used to direct our gaze, to place the person or thing who ought to have our attention in a place that we will look. The 3D actually makes it easier to follow the action in the fight scenes. Even though Transformers filmed with 3D cameras, I think this is the more elegant, practical use of 3D.
The Good:
Here’s what’s good—the movie. Not only is the film really solid, but it’s also increasingly fun to watch. Also, even though it has some dark elements, overall The Avengers is a movie that children will enjoy almost as much as their parents. We need more summer popcorn
flicks like this, movies that do not waste their astronomical special effects budgets because they actually have a decent script and capable cast.
It’s a movie that really makes you think. Over and over again, I thought, Why are most summer blockbusters so bad, so disappointing? Surely no one sets out with a big budget and a cool concept hoping to make a movie that sucks and disappoints everyone. But so many movies like this don’t live up to their potential. Last summer’s Green Lantern had cool source material, a capable cast, and obviously, an astronomical budget. But I watched it forlornly, wondering, Did they forget to hire a screenwriter? Did this movie even have a script?
As a fan of Joss Whedon’s TV shows, I’m rather pleased that he finally got a chance to write and direct a big budget theatrical release with a built-in audience. The Marvel precursors to The Avengers have all been more-enjoyable-than-average summer fare, largely because they don’t forget the importance of character development and interesting dialogue. I think Whedon’s done a wonderful job with The Avengers, better than anyone could have hoped, honestly.
The script is very solid, consistently engaging, often funny, and (perhaps most importantly) appropriately paced for the screen. By beginning immediately with the rise of the antagonist, The Avengers makes a smart opening move. An action film featuring so many protagonists doesn’t have any time to waste, so it doesn’t waste time. Granted, after Loki’s showy entrance, the time spent calling up all the various heroes is the slowest and least interesting part of the movie. But on a second viewing (when I didn’t have a three-year-old in my lap) it seemed a little faster and more purposeful to me. And even if kind of slow, it is a very solid opening act.
The film really finds its legs and begins to shine when all the various (and somewhat unwilling) members of The Avengers initiative finally get together and try to find a workable group dynamic. (Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick fury actually has a wonderful, telling line about who really wants to be there, one of many great lines in the film.)
Another huge strength of the movie is the talent and charisma of its cast. Every character seems perfectly cast, and they all work very well on screen together. I’m sure good direction is partially responsible. (Good editing also, no doubt plays a largely unsung role.) And of course, every one of the actors is talented. But I really think that their chemistry as a group is largely the result of good luck. Sometimes a talented group of individuals just don’t work well on screen together.
Fortunately, that’s not the case here.
Most Crowd-Pleasing Moment: We saw the movie twice, and both times, one scene drew the most sustained, giddy laughter from the audience. People seriously laughed so long and so loudly that on my first viewing, I couldn’t hear the dialogue at the very end of the scene. On Tuesday night, a slightly smaller crowd meant that the laughter didn’t completely drown out the last line. On that night, however, the audience spontaneously burst into applause as the scene ended. The applause seemed deserved. The scene had wonderful energy. It didn’t just amuse us, it left us feeling delighted, energized, excited, and (as if we had shared in the glory of the moment) triumphant.
What I’m talking about is the one-on-one confrontation between Loki and the Hulk during the final battle. It doesn’t last that long, but it definitely packs a punch. It elicits more than mere laughter. You can actually feel the excitement swelling in the theater. Honestly, it’s been a long time since a summer movie succeeding in delivering a moment that genuinely struck a chord and sent a wave of visceral delight through the entire audience. You see big budget popcorn flicks trying (and failing) to do this all the time. It’s something that every audience wants to happen. In almost every action extravaganza, you feel the desperation in the theater as people wait for that scene, that moment. Almost always, somebody tries to start some applause (and maybe a handful of people joins in, trying to make it happen). But this moment didn’t feel forced. It just felt awesome. And that’s something far too rarely encountered at the movie theater these days.
Best Line:
Since this is a comic book moved scripted by Joss Whedon, there’s no shortage of zingers, comebacks, and witty dialogue. But I think the best line in the entire movie comes when Agent Coulson stares down Loki. The moment becomes important for many reasons, and Clark Gregg has certainly created a likable fan favorite in seemingly minor character, Phil Coulson. But what he says to Loki is so apt and insightful that it really resonated and stuck with me long after the final credits had rolled.
Most Surreal Moment:
When we realized my dad wasn’t kidding when he first saw Cobie Smulders and asked innocently, “Is that Mrs. Peel?” (Runner Up: Moments later when—newly enlightened that it wasn’t that Avengers—he saw The Black Widow and asked, “Is that Wonder Woman?”)
Best Action Sequence:
The scene in the woods that comes just after the last missing member of the team drops in and surprises everyone is a huge highlight because it’s the part when the movie really starts to fire on all cylinders. Besides being action packed and amusing, this scene introduces what may be the true complication of the movie. Sure, Loki has to be stopped, but the real challenge the Avengers face is trying to put aside all of their egos, look past their differences, and come together as a team. This scene in the woods sets up the long stretch of the film that all the heroes spend together on the S.H.I.E.L.D. ship, a portion of the film that delivers consistent laughs, plentiful character clashes, and thought-provoking questions before culminating in one of the longest and most interesting action sequences in the entire film.
What really makes The Avengers work is that the action itself is interesting. You don’t get mindless explosions and mind-numbing, repetitive clashes. Instead, each action sequence comes about because of genuine (and believable) conflict among the characters. When the final sequence aboard the ship explodes into action, we don’t just get overwhelmed by a zany free-for-all. Instead, every character has something specific to do. We see the characters in pairs or small groups, all of them working through a physical problem while at the same time resolving internal issues important to their emotional growth. As the stakes get higher, and Loki prepares to unleash chaos on the world, the emotional stakes get higher, as well. That’s what comes of having a good script, a director who understands the script, a cast that really gels, and (I suspect) an editor who understands which bits are most essential to story development.
Best Scene:
Every scene seems well drawn. Each scene functions well on its own and along with others fits seamlessly into the overall narrative of the film. I would think that’s what all directors want from their scenes, but it’s so rarely what they give to us that maybe I’m wrong.
Personally, I really enjoyed the interrogation scene between The Black Widow and Loki. It’s especially engaging because non-comic book readers know so little about Natasha Romanoff that you’re not quite sure what to think, how to read what has happened.
Almost every scene is good, though. If a large group went together, I could imagine every person pointing to a different favorite scene.
Best Use of the Buddy System:
Having the players pair up, or interact in small groups was a really brilliant choice since they then serve as foils for one another and we learn so much more about each of them. The Hawk-Eye/Black Widow dynamic completely fascinated me. (I loved their fight scene, and I’d like to see a movie about their history together.) The Banner/Stark friendship was extremely interesting, as was the Steve Rogers/Tony Stark rivalry, and the way Thor’s interaction style subtly changed depending on his companion. (I mean, on the surface, Thor’s not a very subtle guy, but he actually had a surprisingly nuanced approach to interacting with the others.)
The Performances:
My stepson’s favorite Avenger is Captain America, and I must say that Chris Evans did a commendable job of making Steve Rogers completely straight-laced yet not at all boring or off-putting. Evans plays the Captain as a good guy who does what’s right and still somehow makes it look cool.
As Tony Stark, Robert Downey Jr. is always great, and his winningly snarky personality provides many of the funniest lines in the movie. Stark also experiences quite a bit of growth, however. In many ways, his personal storyline is one of the most dramatic, and of course, Downey is an excellent actor who handles the more serious moments perfectly as well. I find it interesting that though all the heroes have their own love interests, only Pepper Potts (perfectly played by Gwyneth Paltrow) showed up in The Avengers. I actually think Stark’s dynamic with Pepper reveals a critical degree of information about his character and also motivates Tony in crucial ways. It’s important to have her there, and she manages to be charming without distracting from plot advancement. From the Iron Man world, Paul Bettany is also here as the voice of Jarvis, one of those unobtrusive performances it’s easy to take for granted.
Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury finally gets some decent screen-time in this movie. Jackson is so good at being cool, and his Nick Fury comes across as strong, confident, and willing to balk authority to make the right decisions. It helps that he has some of the coolest lines in the movie, but he also delivers them just right. And when Fury tries to take out a fighter jet with a rocket launcher, you just know that Jackson is the right man for the job.
Scarlett Johansson has really grown on me since her early days. For some reason (though she’s undeniably talented), I never really got her appeal until recently. She definitely has the sort of confident screen presence that makes a character like The Black Widow work. Besides looking good in her suit, Johansson is very good at emoting and conveys thrilling levels of fear and horror in her gaze when called upon to look scared. She gives a fine and nuanced performance and so spellbound me as The Black Widow that I’d like to see a stand-alone feature about her past with Hawkeye.
Jeremy Renner really impressed me, too. He has one of those faces that seems alive with energy. Even though I think it was an unusual choice (on Whedon’s part) to take the character (who’s had so little exposure) in the direction that he did early on, I thought Renner played the part perfectly, definitely coming across as a sinister assassin, and somehow (magically, I guess) making us connect to his character and want to learn more about him with remarkably little screen time (particularly when compared to the kind of development the other heroes got).
I think Chris Hemsworth has put on four-hundred pounds of muscle since the last time he played Thor (though possibly the reason he looked so much buffer to me was that I last saw him in the long-delayed Cabin in the Woods). Hemsworth certainly looms large and menacing as the Thunder god from beyond the stars. It must be hard to deliver such earnest lines in such a stately manner with such a straight face, particularly with Robert
Downey Jr. expertly delivering such genuinely funny jokes at your expense. Pretty amazingly, however, though the thunder god takes himself very seriously, Hemsworth also has really fantastic comic timing and gets a couple of big laughs from the audience himself.
When Cobie Smulders got cast as Agent Maria Hill, I remember being curious about the character. Smulders I know from How I Met Your Mother, but I’ve never read Avengers comics and wasn’t familiar with Hill. I’ll have to keep my eyes peeled and hopefully I’ll be able to spot her, I thought as I waited for the movie to start.
Then she shows up immediately. Smulders has a really unusual part in this movie. She actually has tons of screentime, popping up all over the place, but she gets almost no development. Nick Fury doesn’t seem to need a lot of development. Who is he and what he’s about seems pretty obvious and almost in-your-face. But we really never learn anything about Hill. Smulders definitely lacks the screen presence of Scarlett Johansson, but she also has the most underwritten part. We really know nothing about her.
I’m curious about her role in future installments.
Clark Gregg is so wonderful as Agent Coulson. It’s impossible not to love him, and he has a very showy, crowd-pleasing moment. (Against my better judgment, I’m curious about his role in future installments, too.)
As someone who has found it easy since childhood to identify with the Incredible Hulk and who loved the movie with Edward Norton (probably more than it deserved), I went in really suspicious of Mark Ruffalo and had a really hard time warming up to him. Hulk has such a tremendously cool role in this film, though, and Banner comes across so well. He seems perfectly paired with Stark and like a genuinely interesting guy. On a second
viewing, approaching Ruffalo’s Banner from the point of view of someone already half won over, I actually thought he gave one of the best performances in the movie. His Banner seems a lot more like the guy I remember from the TV show, perfectly played by Bill Bixby. (And I loved his scene with Harry Dean Stanton. They were both fantastically funny.)
Tom Hiddleston is a charismatic guy and a great actor, but I think he’s at his best when he’s playing evil. I love him as Loki. He brings a genuine gravitas to the character and manages to make him creepy and weirdly charming without ever seeming over-the-top or hammy. It’s very hard to strut through an urban scene in that crazy cape and not seem a little over-the-top, but Hiddleston handles it. And he does conjure up some genuine menace in his snarling scene with The Black Widow.
I really loved Stellan Skarsgard in Thor, and he’s good here, too, but he has much less to do. Hopefully, he’ll be back in Thor2 because Selvig doesn’t have much room to shine here, as a supporting player in a moving already teeming with charismatic leads.
Alexis Denisof is completely unrecognizable as The Other, which is probably a good thing since I have a hard time taking him seriously as an evil space monster. I’m not knocking his acting skills or anything. He just really doesn’t seem like an evil space monster to me.
Two other members of the cast really got my attention. When I saw the credits, I thought, “Jenny Agutter was in that movie? When? Where!? That’s impossible! Where did they fit her in?” But then I realized that she must have been the most vocal female council member. And then there was that waitress Captain America saved. She’s really prominent in the preview. They really focus on her face, and I knew I’d seen her somewhere before. (As it turns out, though Ashley Johnson did play Chrissy Seaver on Growing Pains, I recognized her from a short-lived show called Moloney that my Grandma used to watch when I was in high school.) Why do they spend so much time on this person? Is she going to be a love interest in Captain America 2? She doesn’t seem quite glamorous enough for that. I heard that an early draft of the script focused more on Captain America’s re-entry into society and was cut. Maybe she had a big scene earlier in the film that didn’t make the final version? I don’t know why exactly, but you really notice her. This girl’s face is showcased for sure.
The Negatives:
Many of the complaints that I had after a first viewing were erased after the second time I saw the movie. (I think having a restless three-year-old climbing all over you diminishes your ability to take in important plot points.)
The one thing I still don’t understand is why they’re not all more suspicious of Loki when they first take him prisoner. I understand why Loki just sits there watching the tremendously entertaining battle in the woods, but why don’t they question it just a bit more?
Overall—despite my love of Tom Hiddleston who is a charismatic and skilled actor—I don’t think Loki makes a terribly menacing villain. It seems kind of like a given that they’re going to beat him if they ever get their act together. I’m not sure that this really is a true negative. Assuming that Avengers 2 featuring the guy from the first bonus scene in the credits is on its way, I’m sure we’ll get a lot more menace next time around.
Also while not criminally slow, the movie was slowest after the initial attack at the beginning. It took a while for the momentum to pick up again and the movie to find its stride.
Overall:
I loved The Avengers. It was very entertaining, which is the whole point of movies like this. I’ve already seen it twice in the theater and wouldn’t mind seeing it again. It’s the best popcorn movie I’ve seen in a long, long time, and kids seem to love it just as much as adults. Hopefully this movie is the herald of a fittingly awesome summer season.