Marvel's The Avengers: A One-Year Retrospective

In 2005, Marvel Studios, the film branch of comic books juggernaut, Marvel Comics, announced that they would be making their first independently-financed feature film after several years of successful adaptations of their character produced by major film studios.  The first Marvel Studios independent production was IRON MAN and was released in May 2008.  The film was a financial and critical success, but Marvel had something far bigger in mind.  They weren't making a superhero movie franchise; they were planning a full-blown cinematic translation of their various conjoined comic book series.  They called it the Marvel Cinematic Universe, where multiple major characters with their own series would be interlocked so that they could make appearances in each others films.  The tentative finishing line for this experiment was set for three years later, in 2011, but later pushed back a year to 2012.  Including IRON MAN, Marvel produced five films crafted to lead into THE AVENGERS.  Obviously, this kind of business practice invites cynicism, considering that all five of those films can easily be accused of just being big-budget commercials or necessary stand-betweens, but all five were successes at the box office and in the reviews.

Badass Incarnate as himself.

Now, all of those lead-in films were entertaining enough, although, at times a bit manufactured, but when Marvel pulled those characters altogether into this epic crossover feature, it was one of the greatest blockbusters of all time.  Naturally, with a film as successful as THE AVENGERS, there's always an offensive, because not everybody will love, or even like, a film, and a large-scale success provokes attempts to balance the scales in opinion.  As such, there's been a good deal of talk about THE AVENGERS being entertaining, but not perfect, or emphasizing of the film's "flaws".  And that's fine; after all, there are always unpopular opinions, and they need to be heard or the majority gets too comfortable with themselves, but it's also good and fine to be part of the voice for the majority.  For THE AVENGERS, I am a voice in the majority, and at the more enthusiastic side at that.
It's tempting to call THE AVENGERS the "best superhero movie ever made," but THE DARK KNIGHT (2008) has at least as strong a claim to that title and also edges out THE AVENGERS for best-reviewed comic book/graphic novel adaptation (with AVENGERS a very close second), but in spite of whichever one is best, I'm inclined to say that THE AVENGERS is still the most entertaining.  Comparing the quality of films tends to break down in that area of whether it's more important to be admirable, bold and relevant, or entertaining and fun.  Regardless, I think I can safely say that THE AVENGERS is the most entertaining and fun superhero movie to date.

Hiddleston as "Reindeer Games"

In terms of what a summer blockbuster should be, I believe THE AVENGERS is "perfect"; it runs like clockwork from start to finish, only easing the pace just enough to catch your breath before it takes it away again.  I must confess, I was a little disappointed to hear that Loki, played by Tom Hiddleston, would be the villain, after being the primary antagonist in THOR.  In THOR, Hiddleston was a fine actor and the Loki character was surprisingly sympathetic, but I felt like he lacked the sense of menace that an Avengers-worthy threat would necessitate, but with Buffy the Vampire Slayer-creator Joss Whedon as scribe and director, such concerns were immediately remedied.  Loki is a marvelous villain, with a spectacular entrance in the first sequence of the film that gets the ball rolling from the get-go, wielding a glowing scepter topped with a deadly blade, he disposes dozens of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents in a matter of seconds and steals the primary MacGuffin, the Tesseract, a less silly name than "the Cosmic Cube" as it was sometimes known in the comics.  Anyway, Loki is a balls-to-the-wall antagonist, spouting over-the-top, grandiose monologues about human nature and self-importance while waging an interplanetary war that on one occasion involves carving out a man's eyeball.
I have a particular fondness for the 40 or so minutes in the film, after the prologue action sequence and the title card, when the film navigates the globe to find the various future Avengers in their own stories, finding Agent Natasha Romanoff, aka the Black Widow, in Russia on a mission investigating illegal exports, Bruce Banner, aka the Hulk, treating fever patients in Calcutta, Steve Rogers, aka Captain America, reawakened in New York from 70 years entombed in Arctic ice, and Tony Stark, aka Iron Man, also in New York, innovating in the field of clean energy.  These globe-trotting introductions give the story a widely-scoped, James Bond-esque atmosphere, each establishing the characters from the start.

The thing about a big ensemble-cast movie like this one is that there's an ever-present risk of disorder as the story struggles to keep some sort of focal point while having the position of main character split between five or six characters.  Whedon's solution to overcoming that was initially to make Captain America/Steve Rogers (played by Chris Evans) as the focal point, giving a lot of attention to his "man out of time" status having recently between discovered in a WWII-era wreck.  When shooting was completed though, the rough cut reportedly clocked in at over three hours long and had to cut down.  Much of what was trimmed involved Captain America's scenes that were not directly related to the Avengers' team-involved events, and the finished cut runs at 143 minutes, about average for a big budget summer film.  It's hard to pinpoint though what exactly makes it work so well in lieu of a main character; there are certain characters who seem to get slightly more attention; obviously Loki, being the primary antagonist, but also, fan favorite, Iron Man/Tony Stark (played by Robert Downey, Jr.) and Black Widow/Natasha Romanoff (played by Scarlett Johansson), the latter largely thanks to Whedon's well-known proclivity for strong feminist characters.  I suppose it works things out through a continuing tease of each character being a main character; this film is unmatched in it's aptitude for giving each of it's stellar cast their due spotlight, whereas many films of that sort are prone to underplaying some characters and letting others overshadow.
There are two aspects most prominently represented in THE AVENGERS, and those are action and humor.  Primarily due to the success of the relentlessly somber THE DARK KNIGHT, there has been an undue surplus of dark and gritty big summer movies, sometimes at the expense of the fun stuff, but THE AVENGERS takes it fast, furious and very funny.  As can be seen on the additional feature included on the Blu-Ray, in the 3 hours+ rough cut, there was at one point a somewhat grittier atmosphere to the movie, where Agent Maria Hill (played by Cobie Smulders) was being debriefed as a framing story, with an emphasis on death and destruction-related aftermath of the climactic battle, but the finished cut has a very strong emphasis on escapist fun.  Much is made of the personality conflicts between characters, and Whedon's goofy/twisted sense of humor is pervasive.  In terms of action, the movie delivers in full, including a spectacular 45 minutes-long battle royale in New York City that plays like a superhero war movie.  Granted, this kind of stuff can be easily identified as "nerdgasm"-inducing frivolities, but it's incredibly thrilling and involving mass audiences of all sorts.  I certainly can't bring myself to read through a comic book, not since I was a child, nor do I find other comic book-related media interesting, that is, outside of those movies which are good movies, and THE AVENGERS is superb.

The action scenes are perfectly orchestrated and all the more impressive when you consider how much is happening at the same time but coherently.  It's like a hall of fame of great action sequence varieties, including a car chase with gun fire, a classical music-accented heist joined with a stylishly traditional superhero-supervillain fight, a comedically-charged superhero on superhero showcase, a suspenseful monster movie-esque scene, Bourne-esque martial arts brawling and a no-holds-barred sci-fi war movie battle royale.  In most cases, this kind of relentless action would grow tiresome, but very few of the action scenes in the film are purely action scenes; most of them are directly involved with character development and relationships, such as the tech-smart Iron Man and old-fashioned Captain America struggle to work out their differences in order to repair an aircraft under attack.  The action is also highly inventive and plays off the characters' physicalities and personality traits, for instance, the forest showdown between Iron Man, Thor and Captain America, where the extent of their powers is played out heavily, and with a good deal of humor so as to not become solely a nerd-expo.  The 45 minutes-long climactic battle is simply packed with badass-itude moments, especially an incredible prolonged tracking shot that takes the viewer from Avenger to Avenger
across the battle as they interlink in their offensive.

It's plenty worth noting too that Joss Whedon's use of Scarlett Johansson as the Black Widow is an example of unparalleled quality in a feminist portrayal within a major mainstream film.  Today's film industry has taken a bizarre turn in terms of gender politics where nearly all movies that attract mass female demographics downright unfriendly to the female gender in their portrayals; a prominent example is the hugely-successful Twilight series of film adaptations.  Some try to justify this as women simply being forced to settled for the shit that the corporations shovel out, but the source materials, the screenplays for each TWILIGHT movie were written by women, and the first was directed by a woman, although to clarify; I don't mean to impune the talents of women filmmakers, after all, Kathryn Bigelow, Kimberly Peirce and Brenda Chapman have all made excellent work.  My intention is to debunk the theory that those sexist films are the result of a sexist industry.  But meanwhile, most action movies, even the notoriously female-objectifying James Bond series, have made significant efforts to depicting strong women characterizations.  Johansson's Black Widow manages to be an ass-kicking and delightfully witty character, and all while avoiding the most common pitfall of "feminist" depictions.  Whedon maintains the distinct femininity of the character, writing her with warm and temperate personality and feminine demeanor instead of playing out the "honorary boy" characterization which causes many movies to stumble, where what is basically a male character has a feminine name and cast with an actress.  That was a bit like the way Black Widow written in IRON MAN 2 in 2010, except in a very glossy, hyper-sexualised way.  In THE AVENGERS, she's still sexy, but in a sophisticated manner in which she maintains distinctly feminine character attributes while still kicking ass. 

The only Hulk people really like (because Mark Ruffalo)

THE AVENGERS isn't as weighty and "relevant" as, say, THE DARK KNIGHT, but that work to its advantage where a DARK KNIGHT tone simply wouldn't work.  THE AVENGERS is not frothy or forgettable; it does possess adept level of substance, but in a buoyant and fun manner.  It can easily be compared to STAR WARS, as an incomparable piece of thrilling fun and spectacle with a lead foot on the gas pedal from beginning to end; the kind from which you exit the theater pulsating with gleeful energy and argue with your fellow patrons over which scene was the most awesome, while also quoting the funniest lines and imagining what the sequel, still years away, will have in store.  It is a piece of perfection in commercial filmmaking.

MARVEL'S THE AVENGERS (May 4, 2012)
4 out of 4 stars
Directed by Joss Whedon
Starring: Robert Downey, Jr., Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, Chris Hemsworth, Tom Hiddleston, Mark Ruffalo, Samuel L. Jackson, Jeremey Renner
PG-13 for intense sequences of sci-fi violence and action throughout, and a mild drug reference.