I saw The Avengers during the midnight premiere and it was wild. It was more wild than the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows premiere. I can say that I was having high hopes for this film, but knew that it would not be as great as Dark Knight Rises. That thinking changed right after the film. Not even after the film, but more like in the middle of the film. Here's the scoop.
I'll go for the good before the bad, because even though this was a great, great, great, film, it still had its low moments. Let's talk about the acting. It was amazing and I have to say that Robert Downey, Jr. deserves an Oscar nom for his work. Downey wasn't the same ol' Iron Man we got in the first and second film. In this movie he is much more emotional. In one scene he has a freak out moment when all hell breaks loose and he knows that there might not be a way to come back from it. In another scene, I saw that he was scared of Loki and just played his bluff. Thor was great, Evans' Captain was always good. Jeremy Renner and Scarlett Johansson were also great in their positions. In what we got of Ruffalo's Banner and Hulk, I thought there could have been more character development, but we did learn a lot from his character.
Another great point in the film was Loki. He acted all tough and god-like, but it was all an act and when the time came he was just a bully who couldn't take on the task given to him. It was hilarious to watch him epically fail.
The final moments of the film was worth watching all of it. And the team works well. I must say (Spoiler) that when the team fought with each other, those moments made the film as well, especially Hulk and Thor. The film as a whole with all its characters and dialogue created one of the best films of the year and possibly the decade.
The length of the film was 2 1/2 hours, and that is okay, but there was not a lot really happening in the film. Right in the beginning all hell breaks loose for SHIELD and Loki comes to wreak havoc. There wasn't much exposition of what was going on and for the unknowing audience of the Marvel world, it might have been too much to take. It also felt like you had to see the other Avenger films (Captain America and Thor mainly) before watching The Avengers. The artifact in the film is called the Tesseract and you have seen it before in Thor, Captain America, and Iron Man 2. This device has a major role. Also, you might want to know who Loki is and why Thor is so pissed at him.
This film is not just a superhero film, and not an action adventure film, but a comedy action. Yes, this film has an absurd amount of comedy in it and why? Joss Whedon is the answer. In my review of Cabin in the Woods, I really did not say anything about how the comedy aspect weighs the horror aspect down, but it did and it ruined many scenes that could have been more than good. Avengers does exactly the same, expect for one beautifully crafted sketch regarding a SHIELD worker playing a video game and Tony Stark recognizing the worker and throwing him to the wolves. But the comedy was too much. Sadly, some of the sad scenes had too much comedy and the film felt like a full on comedy with superheroes.
I felt like the studio told Joss Whedon to "wrap it up" at the very end. The end was not like Transformers: Dark of the Moon, where it just ended, but it could have ended a bit better.
Where does it go from here? When you create a film like this where you bring together so many characters and create one of the largest franchises in history, does this film have to be separate? Christopher Nolan did separate story arcs with the Batman trilogy and will finally tie up this story arc that has spanned the three films, but The Avengers doesn't really need to be separate films within themselves, because of just that. Iron Man 3, Thor 2, Captain America 2, and possible new Hulk film will arrive in theaters in the next three years with Iron Man and Thor coming into play next year, but what happens now? I know that these people have their separate lives and their Avengers lives, but when you're in a tight spot can't you just call Captain or Hulk for help and the problem will be solved? I hope that these 2nd tier films will be just as good as the 1st tier.
B+
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