Marvel's The Avengers

MARVEL'S THE AVENGERS

Everything a Marvel comics movie should be.

Tony, Cap, and me catching a movie. Photo by Heather, also seeing The Avengers.

2012, Action/Adventure, Rated PG-13

Distributed by Walt Disney Pictures

          Many have asked that I review this film. I personally see it as pointless. You've all probably seen it. What is there to say? It's an excellent movie. It's totally awesome. It's everything a  Marvel comic book movie should be. Although, I do have some thoughts...

          When I say Marvel comic book movie, I mean MARVEL comic book movie. The Marvel universe is incredibly rich and deep and interrelated. Every character pretty much knows every other character. It's never this one isolated incident where a boy turns into a web-swinging mutant who saves New York from criminals and creepy-crawlies. I'll pick on Spider-man with Toby Maguire. It's a great movie, mind-blowing at the time, but it really doesn't do justice to the comic books at all. He didn't sprout up out of nowhere: he's just another superhero in the Marvel universe. Anyway, my point is, they finally did it right. It was very smart of Marvel to release the origin stories before The Avengers. That is what allowed it to be so intense, epic, interesting, to watch all these freaks from different places and times whom we'd met individually, come together for a common goal. I hope all Marvel movies from here on out combine character story lines. There's over seventy years-worth of stories in the Marvel universe. I say dig in.

          It was a hoot watching all those super-egos bash while the film played out. Joss Whedon does an excellent job directing a light-hearted, but in-your-face-action-packed experience that he also co-wrote. I don't think anyone else could have made The Avengers so cheeky but so badass at the same time. Everything came together literally and figuratively for this film. All the  actors do their parts to make it exciting but also funny and genuine. With so many characters, so many things going on at once, everyone shares the burden of living up to very high expectations by delivering their best performances. No one faulted, and no one stood out. Even field. It was perfect.

          Okay, if I have to mention one negative aspect, it was the variation between environments in which the romp sessions unfolded. There are essentially two stages for major combat. The flying thing and the city at the end. There are a few shorter action scenes before these that are excellent, but maybe a little more variation would have been nice.  I just hope the sequels get more creative. I feel like a lot of these epic blockbuster movies have climaxes in cities that get destroyed.

          I'm not going to say go see it because you probably already have. I mean, see it if you haven't, but Battleship is just as exciting and the digital effects are honestly better. The Avengers is awesome, but you don't need me to tell you that.

          Side note: If you haven't seen the origin stories (other than The Incredible Hulk), you should see them before you catch The Avengers. Especially Iron Man.The film is definitely tailored to anyone, but it'll be better if you know the characters. There's two plus hours of characterization on each of them before this film begins.