If you had any question about when the summer movie season
begins, seeing most of your favorite summer movie icons assembled in one film
should assuage your confusion.
We’ve been waiting since 2008 for The Avengers to assemble,
and under the direction (and script) of fan favorite Joss Whedon, they’ve done
just that. Iron Man (Robert Downey, Jr.),
The Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Captain America (Chris Evans),
Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), and Hawkeye (Jeremy
Renner) – the gang’s all here. (Even
Clark Gregg, who manages to make Agent Coulson even more likeable, as he has
with each successive appearance of this great character.)
And when The Avengers assemble... it’s amazing.
Taking little threads from each of the existing Marvel
Cinematic Universe films, The Avengers
finds the team gathering for the first time after Thor’s brother Loki (Tom
Hiddleston) steals a weapon of unimaginable power from S.H.I.E.L.D.
headquarters.
That’s it. That’s the
premise. But without spoiling any of the
film’s delightful surprises, it’s a deceptively simple plot which allows plenty
of room for character interactions. So
while the story won’t surprise anyone, the relationships will; we’ve been
fantasizing about a time when Iron Man and Thor would meet Captain America, and
here we get to put them all in the same room and see what’s shaking.
Joss Whedon’s greatest strength here is in balancing an
enormous cast of characters, something he does far better here than he ever did
on the abbreviated Firefly. Pulling double duty on scripting and directing,
Whedon never loses focus on any of the heroes – even the unpowered Black Widow
and Hawkeye, who highlight how out of their league they are in a key emotional
scene. Rather, each gets a moment to
shine, a line or action that’ll elicit applause or hooted cheers from an audience
which is already glad to be there.
Even better, these are the same characters we’ve already met in other films – excepting, of
course, Ruffalo’s Hulk, a vast improvement over lackluster predecessors. By “same,” I mean that Whedon has kept their
voices intact; Iron Man still possesses the same narcissistic wit, Thor seems
to have walked straight off a Shakespearean stage, and Captain America hasn’t
lost any of his 1940s flair despite being more than 70 years out of his time
(better yet, we’re not asked to laugh at him for it).
What makes The
Avengers a hit is that it’s a successful whole built on successful parts. Marvel has made a string of delightful films
in the lead-up to The Avengers, and
if even one of those had fallen flat, this whole enterprise would have been fruitless. If Thor
had floundered or if Iron Man had
missed the mark, we’d be stuck with a dud in a team of winners. Instead, what we have is grade-A comic book
movie.
And I say “comic book movie” with no derision in my voice. Where The Dark Knight took comics and applied filmic realism to spectacular effect, The Avengers translates perfectly to film the experience of reading a comic book. Flashy colors, exorbitant explosions, clever angles, and costumes that ought to look out of place but don’t (I’m looking at you, Loki) – these are what we’d expect on the newsstands, not in a post-Nolan world. But it works here.
It works because the movie is so infectiously fun that it
quickly sweeps the audience into its world and recruits us into the
superteam. The Avengers isn’t a team of
demigods like the Justice League (an updated Greek pantheon in Grant Morrison’s
1997-2000 comics run), it’s a cluster of (mostly) human characters with human
foibles. Tony Stark’s attempts to
provoke Bruce Banner into changing into the Hulk isn’t something you’d ever see
Batman doing to Superman, but here it’s perfectly in line with what a group of
misfits do when they’re assembled in a tight space.
It’s also extremely entertaining to watch. Whedon singles out each character’s defining
traits and pits them against each other; take Downey’s playful lack of
sincerity and Ruffalo’s tortured repression, and you’ve got sparks. Blast Nick Fury’s dedication to the task
against Thor’s sense of cosmic perspective, and you’ll be chuckling right
alongside Thor.
Honestly, I can’t sell short just how fun this movie is. See it with a full house, if you can. But see it.
It’s the kind of film that makes my cheeks numb from smiling all the
time. Well, not all the time. There’s a moment – true believers will know
it – when the film hits a surprisingly heartfelt beat, but it sweetens, not
sours, the film. I’m already eagerly
awaiting the DVD – and a second showing before that.
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