The Avengers

Starring: Robert Downey Jr., Chris Hemsworth, Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Sam Jackson, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner, Tom Hiddleston, Clark Gregg, Cobie Smulders, Stellan Skarsgard, Paul Bettany

Directed by: Joss Whedon

Rating: An Adam Favorite

I'm not even going to bother listing my three areas (The Good, The Bad, The Ugly) on this review like I do with my other ones.  There's no point.  I honestly have maybe two things I can think of that I wasn't thrilled about, but they're minor things and aren't bad decisions, just creative choices.  I'll get to those for sure.  With that in mind, let's get down to it.  

First, CASTING, CASTING CASTING!  If you'll notice, my list of actors in this film is much longer than it usually is.  Well, you've got a lot of big names that came together to make this happen.  Each plays their part very well, just as many of them did in their respective films that lead up to this one.  Each actor played their part very well, I thought.  There are a couple of main points to go over here, though.  

One, Downey absolutely stole the show.  Iron Man really is the star of the film; he's set up to be.  The first and second Iron Man films made more money each than any of the other Marvel Avenger based movies, and each of those movies performed very well, too.  Just to give you an idea, Iron Man made $318,412,101 during it's run in theaters despite making less than one million during its opening weekend.  It's the fourth highest grossing Marvel Comics based film to date, falling in right be behind the Spider-Man trilogy, but we're not going to discuss that; it's a whole topic of its own.  The next film that ties in to The Avengers in line after Iron Man is Iron Man 2, making only about $6,000,000 less than its predecessor.  Thor comes in a not so close second at a $181,030,624.  You can even see that Iron Man is the star by looking at the promotional items for the The Avengers.  He's prominently pictured on EVERYTHING.  Check out this poster. 

Who's featured right in the center up front?

I just went through all that to prove WHY this character was the star: he makes money.  Now, let's get to the next part: why does he make money?  I'm sure there are lots of reasons that Iron Man has a bigger pull than any of the other Avengers.  He's high tech, and our culture is obsessed with technology.  He's a billionaire playboy, and we'd all love to be that.  He's smart, funny, charming, good looking...the list goes on...  My number one reason that the Iron Man films performed so well: Downey is Tony Start.  Downey does an awesome job portraying Stark.  He absolutely hits the nail on the head.  Don't get me wrong, each actor here portrays his character well, but wow!  Downey just does great.  He plays the role effortlessly.

Stepping out of the praising Iron Man/Downey phase, there's the other end of the spectrum.  I don't feel like she did a poor job of playing the role, because even when you're the weakest of a cast this strong, you're still doing really well, but I feel like Johansson could've was the weakest link.  I never noticed it in her minor appearances in the other films, but here, with a prolonged appearance, she just didn't have the same effect the others did.  I get that Black Widow isn't a god or a super soldier or a super soldier gone horribly wrong; she's supposed to be powerful beyond her appearance.  It just didn't play that well for me.  

I also have to address the issue of Ruffalo replacing Edward Norton as Bruce Banner.  If you didn't know, in The Incredible Hulk, Banner was portrayed by Norton.  Due to some differences he had with the director there and his apparently hard-to-work-with personality, he was replaced by Ruffalo.  I haven't done a lot of research on the topic; those statements are based solely on internet rumors.  Regardless of the reason, he was replaced, and in my opinion, it was for the better.  There's a lot of comedy in this movie - all of the lead ups as well except the Hulk film, and where they did try to pull off humor it only felt stiff, with of course Downey's cameo as Stark - that Norton just doesn't fit with.  He's not a comedic actor.  I'm not sure Ruffalo would've been my first choice for a replacement, but he definitely held his own.  

Lastly in the area of casting, I feel the need to mention some more minor roles that were excellent.  Maria Hill is a big character in the Marvel Universe.  She takes over as Director of SHIELD at one point.  Smulders was a great choice for this role.  I haven't even had a passing thought about her being in the movie, so, I had no casting ideas of my own to setup any high expectations.  The only other thing I've ever seen her in is "How I Met Your Mother", and I like her on that show a lot.  Stan Lee had his cameo of course.  I love that they keep that going.  Agent Coulson (Gregg) was great, as he has been in the past.  I can't imagine a better voice to portray Jarvis than Bettany.  My absolute favorite moment was a cameo appearance by character actor Harry Dean Stanton.  I usually don't link to actor's profiles, but there's a good chance you won't know who he is unless you see him.  He plays a security guard that encounters Bruce Banner/The Hulk.  Watching all these awesome casting choices play against each other was the most fun I've had in a long time at the movies.  

Another area I was thoroughly impressed with was CGI and 3D.  There was no moment in the movie where I questioned either of the two.  I'm not a big fan of 3D, and you even have the choice of seeing the movie in 2D.  I wouldn't recommend it.  The 3D coupled with the insane amount of detail that went into all of the graphics here is amazing.  I hate to keep going back to the same character, but Iron Man's armor looked incredible.  Also, there was no moment I doubted that Hulk was actually there acting with the rest of the team, not just Ruffalo in motion capture suite CGed over.  Most movies with excessive CG have at least a few points where something falters a little or you think "hmmm...that' didn't look so great", but, maybe it was because I was so engaged in the film or maybe it's because it just looked that good, I didn't notice any in this one.  

The clip below shows just how much touch up and detail work they did with the Iron Man suit.  This doesn't even compare in the slightest to how good it looked in the theater, but you get the idea.  I wasn't able to find a good clip of Hulk, but I assure you, it looked spectacular.  

Iron Man & Thor don't get on so well at first.

Whedon was a big force in this one, obviously, being director and writing the screenplay, and I feel like I really need to mention his influence and direction.  He wrote a great screenplay that didn't directly follow any  Avengers' comic story I've ever read.  He seemed to let the actors continue developing their characters the same way they had in the other films, as opposed to trying to send them in his own creative direction.  Most importantly though, he didn't step on any continuity.  

Continuity is a BIG issue with fanboys, but I don't see the big deal.  Obviously, the movies can't follow the last fifty or sixty years of comic book continuity.  The vast majority of your audience isn't going to know it.  I'll give the same argument here that I did about "The Walking Dead": why would I want to watch something that exactly the same as something I've already read?  I wouldn't is the the answer.  I am a huge fan of the fact that the Marvel films have built their own universe instead of copying one of the others.  It does take from other universes, absolutely.  The most glaring thing here being Jackson portraying Fury.  He was purposely drawn to look like Jackson in Marvel's Ultimate Universe.  The movies have stayed pretty true to the character's back stories, though.  I'm happy with that, too.  

The last thing I'm going to talk about is humor.  The comedy HAS to be here.  We're not going to the theater to watch Schindler's List or Sophie's Choice.  We're going to watch something that is fun!  We want to have fun!  We've gotten plenty of that in all of the lead up films; I've already covered this topic above concerning The Incredible Hulk.  There are so many moments in this movie that get genuine, good laughter. Whether it be Stark's snarky remarks or members of the team ribbing each other during fights, we have to have those comic moments in this movie.  It's what makes it fun.  I'm even OK with the somewhat overly animated scene where Loki gets taken down.  You'll know what I mean when you see it, and I don't want to hear any complaining about spoilers.  Is there anyone that thought Loki was going to be defeated?   

There were a couple moments where characters - particularly Black Widow - had a couple of flat lines that didn't really have the same effect that most of the humor did, but you can't win them all.  Her response to Iron Man's line in the trailer below, "I'm bringing the party to you guys", didn't really work for me.  The only real issue I had with the movie's plot was concerning Hulk's anger issues.  

At one point, Banner turns to the Hulk, after going over a year without incident, and loses it completely!  He flips out and tries to crush Black Widow.  Then, not ten or 15 minutes later in the movie, we see him make the transition on command and have complete control over the Hulk's actions.  Now, Hulk has evolved significantly in the comics.  During Planet Hulk he learned to be a more intelligent, planning Hulk which allowed him to return to Earth an essentially crush everyone else in the Marvel Universe during World War Hulk.  My problem is with how fast things seemed to change in the movie.  We could assume that when provoked to make the transition, Banner's anger gets beyond his control and drives the Hulk to be more than he can handle.  Banner even makes a statement that kind of suggests this, I guess.  Maybe I shouldn't read so much into it, and it didn't really bother me all that much, but at the same time, it is the one thing that stuck out to me.  

Overall, I highly recommend a trip to the theater to check this one out soon.  I even suggest forking out the extra cash to see the 3D version of the movie.  DO NOT wait for DVD here.  I'm even going to go see this again before it's out of theaters, and I've NEVER seen a movie in theaters more than once.  Also, please completely ignore all the haters that are comparing this to Transformers: Dark Side of the Moon, because, one, that wasn't a bad movie either, and two, it's not the same!  These people don't know what they're talking about and just want to find a way to discredit the movie.  The Avengers stands as a great continuation of the Marvel Movie franchise.  IMDB has both a second Thor film and a third in the Iron Man series slated for potential release next year.  I'm sure we haven't seen the last of the team as a whole just yet either.