The Avengers

The Avengers is the first of the eagerly awaited super-hero movies coming out this year and the list is ‘Marvel’lous with The Amazing Spiderman, The Dark Knight Rises, Man of Steel to follow in the next 12 months; I am surely not counting John Carter (from Disney) & Nicholas Cage’s Ghost Rider in this list!

Coming from the Marvel Studios after the successful individual superhero flicks Ironman2, Captain America & Thor; the Avengers was where the efforts of more than 3 years from the studio was to come to realization. To successfully introduce the Avengers team to the worldwide audience who never read the comics, the movies on ‘Captain America’ & ‘Thor’ were made after the hugely successful ‘Iron Man’, which did reasonably well and paved the way for one of the most awaited movies of this year.

With a dream cast of actors and characters/superheroes, the movie starts with Loki (Tom Hiddleston) attacking a remote S.H.I.E.L.D facility by entering through a portal created by the Tesseract (remember Captain America). He takes the Tesseract along with Dr. Selvig and the Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) who he hypnotizes so that they work for him to create a portal using the Tesseract which will allow an alien race, Chitauri, to attack the Earth. The S.H.I.E.L.D director Nick Fury (Samuel L Jackson) then calls upon the 3 superheroes (Iron Man, Capt. America & Bruce Banner)& super spy Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) to stop Loki. The first half is spent getting the heroes together onto the S.H.I.E.L.D helicarrier and capturing Loki. And the rest of the movie is expectedly about how they stop Loki and the Chitauri race to save the Earth. In between we have Loki’s brother God of Thunder, Thor joining the party.

It is clear from the outset (as in all other superhero movies) that the victors will be our heroes and what we have to see is how they stop the megalomaniac villains and save the planet. However, the best thing about the Avengers is the rib-tickling chemistry between the superheroes & in fact the villain, few of the scenes are amazingly hilarious, something that we sorely missed in some of the recent flicks. What the director and co-writer, Joss Whedon, has done brilliantly here is that unlike the trend set by first ‘Spiderman 2’ and then ‘Batman Begins’ where the heroes have their internal struggles to take care of first and then the villain, Avengers is more about the old fashioned Good vs Evil and how the superheroes come together putting aside their difference to save the Earth.

The combination of old fashioned (Capt America) with the futuristic (Iron Man) on one hand and gods/myths (Thor) with science (Hulk) on the other is truly awesome. Their personality clashes also make for a great show, with Capt America as the dedicated team player/soldier & able leader, Iron Man as the solo, witty, self centric playboy and the out of control Hulk; that Thor has to fight out against his own brother also creates another riveting angle.

Samuel L Jackson gets his longest role after brief appearances in Iron Man2 & Capt. America as the S.H.I.E.L.D director Nick Fury and he does a fine job, though there is no ‘meat’ in his role. Others get the best action and the dialogues. Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow is perfect, Thor played by Chris Hemsworth has a powerful screen presence, Jeremy Renner as Hawkeye gets ample scope to show his talent, Chris Evans as Capt. America is sincere and Mark Ruffalo as Bruce Banner is closest to the CGI created Hulk ever (though Edward Norton in The Incredible Hulk was brilliant and somehow must be cursing himself for missing this). Tom Hiddleston as Loki is brilliant and one can easily see the madness in his eyes and his calmness. However, the wittiest dialogues are with Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark/Iron Man who pulls them off effortlessly. Clark Gregg and Stellan Skarsgard reprise their roles as S.H.I.E.L.D agent Phil Coulson and Dr. Selvig respectively. Cobie Smulders (Robin Scherbatsky from How I met your mother) as S.H.I.E.L.D agent Maria Hill is surprisingly good though imagining Robin as a S.H.I.E.L.D agent was a tad difficult.

Director Joss Whedon has done a fantastic job of creating a franchise that’s both high on action and entertainment. There is not a single moment where the tempo drops and you feel lost. There is enough of background provided about each character so as to familiarize the new audience; in fact, after a long time I saw a movie where the audience were actually shouting, applauding every other dialogue and scene and I am sure most of the audience were not aware of the Marvel world but that’s how engrossing the movie and characters were. The 3D effects were also up to the mark considering that it was converted to 3D post-production.

It’s certainly a must watch for all ages and worth every minute; where else would you get so many superheroes together. Some hardcore comic fans may not like the trivial jokes and climax action scenes where Hulk picks on Thor & Loki which had the audience in splits but one has to remember that superheroes were created to bring hope & entertainment and this movie gets the entertainment part full onJ.

Just hoping that the next Avengers would have the likes of Spiderman, Wolverine added to this awesome list…J

My Rating – 8.5/10
(Script - 8/10; Direction – 9/10; Performance – 8/10; Entertainment – 9/10; Music – NA)

Starring: Robert Downey Jr. (Iron Man), Samuel L Jackson (Pulp Fiction), Chris Evans(Captain. America, Fantastic 4), Chris Hemsworth (Thor), Mark Ruffalo (The Shutter Islan), Scarelett Johansson (Vicky Christina Barcelon), Jeremy Renner (The Hurt Locker), Cobie Smulders (The Long Weekend)

Director: Joss Whedon (Buffy the Vampire Slayer (series))

Producer: Marvel Studios (Iron Man)

Writer: Joss Whedon (The cabin in the woods), Zak Penn (X-men – The Last Stand)

Music: Alan Silvestri (Capt. America)