You don’t need to have watched the Marvel movies from 2008 to enjoy The Avengers, though it would help.
A crash course for those who slept through it: Nick Fury, director of the extremely well-funded organization SHIELD, assembles a crack team of superheroes to defend Earth from an invasion enabled by Loki, a godlike being from another dimension. What SHIELD stands for is not important.
There’s Tony Stark, a.k.a. Iron Man, a playboy billionaire engineer with a pimped out metal suit and fiery wit. Captain America, the frozen super soldier from WWII, and Thor, brother of Loki. They do not get along. None of this does anything to sooth the nerves of Dr. Bruce Banner, or his large, green alter-ego.
New to the team is Agent Clint Barton, a.k.a. Hawkeye. I’m still not sure what his power is, but he’s got a pretty wicked bow, a quiver of greatly specialized arrows, and highly improbable aiming skills. Agent Natasha Romanov, a.k.a. Black Widow, expands on her brief cameo in Iron Man 2 as an agent skilled in the use of guile and deception.
Clearly one cannot just toss together a team of uniquely talented individuals and expect them to work smoothly together. Much property damage and human tragedy occurs before the Avengers get anywhere close to being able to protect the Earth.
I went into the theatre with high hopes, given the impressive continuity as established by previous Marvel movies, the action scenes, or muscular forearms and spandex uniforms. The cherry on top was that Avengers was directed and written by Joss Whedon. Therefore, I expected snark.
And I got snark. Not only that, but the writing was excellent. All the main and supporting characters were fully fleshed out, most notably Scarlett Johanssen’s rendition of Black Widow, whom I was afraid would be reduced to fanservice. I needn’t worry. Her character had unexpected emotional depth, especially in her friendship with Hawkeye, rather than being exploited for cheap romantic thrills. And did you notice that the main ship has a rather gender-diverse crew?
Also notable is Clark Gregg as Agent Coulson and Mark Ruffalo as Bruce Banner. Who knew that Coulson was a fanboy beneath the suit and collected Captain America trading cards? Meanwhile, Banner doesn’t turn into “the big guy” until halfway through the movie and only does it twice, but under markedly different circumstances. His slow transformation throughout the film is brilliant.
But the problem with ensemble movies is that it seems nobody gets their full share of screen time and character development dialogue. Even The Avengers, at 140 minutes, hardly gets close to satisfying my need for caustic asides and insults between the heroes. At the conclusion of the movie, there was a fair bit of fighting and explosions in downtown Manhattan. I like fighting and explosions, but not as much as witty banter.
I also think that they should have revamped the main villain a bit too. Some might disagree but I always found Loki rather oily and unimposing, especially with the double-horned helmet, which I suspect is symbolic. Furthermore, if the Hulk has no trouble making Loki-shaped holes in the floor to great comedic effect, it’s hard to take the guy seriously afterwards.
But if my only complaint was that my favourite characters didn’t get enough clever dialogue and that the heroes are so much more awesome than the villain, then The Avengers is the well-executed and well-deserved payoff to four years of Marvel screen adaptations. They’re currently working on a sequel. I’m excited.
Pro tip: there are TWO distinct Easter egg scenes after the credits roll. It ain’t over until the fat lady sings, or, in this case, the skinny man eats.
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