The Avengers

This is it. The film that culminated all of the previous films in the Marvel Universe and the biggest crossover of superheroes in a high budget film known to man.

Its no surprise that The Avengers was a landmark in film history. I can't say it was the first time something like this had ever happened, but it was definitely the first time its happened with this big of a budget and this big of a lead up and build up coming into it.

The Avengers is the crossroads where all the heroes that we've met in previous films finally come together:

Iron Man
The Incredible Hulk
Iron Man 2
Thor
Captain America: The First Avenger

Honestly, its felt like a long time has passed since the release of the Avengers, when in reality, its only been about 3 years. But damn has it been an active 3 years.

Iron Man 3 (I will review it, just not before Avengers: Age of Ultron)
Thor: The Dark World
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Guardians of the Galaxy

So there was a lot to build up to The Avengers, and there has been a crap load that came from it. That's not even mentioning the TV shows like Agents of SHIELD, and Daredevil.

This movie has been a powerhouse for a while.

Is it as good as we remember it?

The Avengers marks the return of Loki (played by Tom Hiddleston), the evil doing, power hungry, step brother of Thor from his standalone film as he infiltrated SHIELD and steals the tesseract, the artifact found at the end of Captain America: The First Avenger.

Loki corrupts the minds of Erik Selvig (played by Stellan Skarsgard) and Hawkeye (played by Jeremy Renner) and escapes, leaving the carnage of the tesseract in his wake.

It is at this moment that Director Nick Fury (played by Samuel L Jackson) of SHIELD, decides it is time to assemble a response team to track down Loki, save the people he's possessed, and take back the tesseract before Loki unleashes his new army to conquer Earth.

The plot for the film, is incredibly simple. Loki has evil power. Avengers assemble but don't like each other very much. Loki unleashed evil power. Avengers put aside their differences after the evil power is used to kill* their friend. Loki loses.

You of course know you're Avengers line up for this film as you've seen them at least once in some capacity between Iron Man and this film.

You start of course with Tony Stark (played again by Robert Downey Jr.). While I say the plot is simple, it does have a couple moments that test Tony Stark as a character individually. He's challenged on his commitment to being a superhero rather than a self centered, sociopath with an iron suit. This is actually something that is expanded upon in Iron Man 3 and I really like that a story arc was planted here and kept going throughout the franchise. This is actually where Marvel hits its stride because not only do events carry over to other films but the ways these events affect our characters do as well. I mean, what else can you say. Its Robert Downey Jr playing the iconic role he was born to play.

Then there's Captain America. And you know how I said in my Captain America review that people really didn't start liking Cap until The Winter Soldier. Well looking back, I really don't think its because of The First Avenger, I think its more because of this movie.

I don't think he's necessarily bad in this film, he's just not that interesting. He's the boyscout, he's the guy frozen in time. Captain America is just not quite as cool as Iron Man, or Thor, or The Hulk. He's just kind of in the background. And to believe that this guy is suppose to be the leader of the team, I just don't really buy it in this first film.

Again, I feel like the character is actually done really well in his first movie, but they really save a lot of the development of Steve Rogers till The Winter Soldier. And when I say save, I mean the entire thing. He goes from the lamest Avenger to the best one in a span of a movie and its actually really fascinating. But in this movie he's just kind of annoying.

I think its mainly because he just doesn't do anything as cool as the other Avengers. During the big battle, he's with Hawkeye and Black Widow who, don't get me wrong are cool, but are the second string Avengers. And that's what Cap felt like in this movie. A second string next to the Hulk, the god, and the Iron Man.

I'll make mention of these two real quick. They're pretty interchangeable. Don't get me wrong, Black Widow (played by Scarlett Johanasson) got really cool in Winter Soldier, but she wasn't incredibly interesting when it came around to this movie. And Hawkeye... well...

Its just such a bummer. I mean I don't feel bad for Jeremy Renner, the guy is in about three franchises right now and while he's not the star of any of them, he's still be nominated for multiple Oscars, yada yada yada. But his existence in the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been the saddest existence ever. His part is so minuscule in Thor that its not even worth mentioning, and in this film he's under Loki's spell for half the movie so we don't see him as a huge part of the team.

No wonder he was on Jimmy Fallon singing this hilariously true song.

So yeah, these two are like the chocolate chips and sprinkles you put on an already sugar filled cake. They're not incredibly needed but they're kind of cool and its fun to speculate about their role in the greater Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Going back to heavy hitters. Lets go to Thor.

While I wouldn't say that Thor is the most important part of this film, he does have a huge part to play because of the personal sting of the conflict.

Despite everything that happened in Thor, Loki is still his brother and he feels its his responsibility to get him back to Asgard, back to his family, but also to face trial for what he's done.

And I'll say it, Thor kicks ass in this film. Yeah we got to see it in his own movie but its fun seeing Thor be awesome in a team environment. You would think that a character like Thor who is basically a god would destroy every one of the Avengers with a quick stroke of Mjinor, but no, there actually is room for him to be a team player and the other Avengers actually do hold their own against the god of Thunder.

The too tempting element of this film that they gave into, and rightfully so, was since this was the first time these characters are on screen together, obviously they need to fight. Again, you would think that Thor would be able to take down all the Avengers very quickly. But even against someone like Captain America, he gets knocked down a few pegs.

And that's the great part about this film is that it had this perfect combination of these characters butting heads and then coming together to stop Loki.

Like Iron Man, Thor has arcs in this movie that carry over to his next film and a lot of that has to do with Loki. I think one of the best parts of the film is where he's one on one with Loki talking about the events of the last film. Its short and its more flushed out in The Dark World, but there is a relationship between these two that I really like. That's why I always say the Thor movies surprise me. I never think I'm going to enjoy them but then they come around and give me something like the relationship between Thor and Loki and I fall to the whims of Marvel. Those crafty bastards.

And then of course, you can't talk about the first Avengers film without talking about Mark Ruffalo as The Hulk.

Having seen this movie about a billion times, and the fact that The Incredible Hulk came out seven years ago, even though he's only been in one movie (plus an end credit scene in Iron Man 3) people now associate Mark Ruffalo with the Hulk more than they ever did with Edward Norton.

And that's partly because of the impact Ruffalo made with the character in this film. I almost wondering why this didn't happen before. Ruffalo just seems to enjoy the character a lot more than Norton did and its just something I'm excited to see in Age of Ultron (going in about an hour btw)

Looking back at The Incredible Hulk, I do like Edward Norton as Bruce Banner, don't get me wrong, but this movie was so iconic and the transition was so seamless that Ruffalo has just picked up the ball and ran with it.

The other part to talk about when it comes to the heroes is SHIELD, mainly Nick Fury (played by Samuel L Jackson) Agent Coulson (played by Clark Gregg) and Maria Hill (played by Cobie Smolders).

I have a whole post I want to write about SHIELD and a lot of the thoughts I have on the performances of these three will be in that post, but the short answer is, I loved all of them. Nick Fury is always a gem. Coulson shines in this movie, probably more than he has or ever will in the Marvel Universe. And I love Cobie. I think the three of them create a great element of SHIELD in this film. Again, criticisms of them will mainly be state in another post.

Because what's better than an all star cast? A fantastic villain of course.

While Loki still remains on top of the list of Marvel's villains, surpassed only by Wilson Fisk in Daredevil. I must say that Loki's plan isn't exactly the greatest plan in the world.

In short, Loki is a little bit of a loser.

He's borrowing power from an evil alien race, even though that never turns out great for anybody to be indebted to evil forces. His plan is basically this: get materials for the sustainability of the tesseract. While that's happening, get captured and antagonize the very people who were gathered to stop you. Unleash the Hulk, make people even angrier when you kill their friend, and then unleash a horde to take over the Earth those people who were always going to try and stop you but are now super pissed off at you live on. Great plan genius.

So why is Loki revered as such a great villain?

Well I think a lot of the credit goes to Tom Hiddleston. The guy is an incredibly talented actor and he's got that perfect British evil that people just eat up in action flicks.

But more than that, Loki is a bit of a tragic figure.

Even if you haven't seen Thor, you can figure out pretty quickly that Loki is not pure evil. He's more a mischievous evil.

There's a great line from Community where Annie is falling for this guy who says all these intricate things that sounds stupid but the way he says them makes it sound really cool. And in her girlish flirty voice, all she says is, "you're complicated" and she's puddy in his hands. I feel like that's Loki.

Loki has these phenomenal lines throughout the film. Lines like, I am Loki of Asgard, and I am Burdened with Glorious Purpose! He's evil but not evil enough that his dashing charms go to total waste.

And while his plan does have a couple holes in it, he's still a complicated and conniving bad guy. Again, I think Wilson Fisk is as complicated as you get with bad guys in the Marvel Universe, but Loki is definitely up there as a villain with some personality, charm, and some motivation beyond he wants to take over the world.

Is the Avengers Shakespeare? No. But its expecting that you've seen the past movies, you know the characters, and you know why they're coming together and their background.

And if you don't, it doesn't really matter because the focus is on a lot of the action and not so much the story. Its your classic comic book story, bad guy has an evil plot, good guys come to save the day.

While that not may sound interesting, its all about the execution and how its handled that decides whether or not The Avengers is a crappy film, or the 3rd highest grossing box office film ever.

Take a movie like Taken for example.

Taken has a very simple plot. Bad guys take Liam Neeson's daughter, Liam Neeson goes and kills the guys who took his daughter and saves her. There's no plot twists, no surprises, its just your basic Mario plot line.

Is it incredibly complicated, well no. But its an adrenaline filled rush of a movie with lots of cool action and Liam Neeson taking you on a journey.

Jump back to the Avengers. You've got a pretty simple formula again, but this time you have a god, a cocky billionaire playboy philanthropist in an Iron Suit, a guy who turns into a 6 foot tall green rage monster, and a man from World War 2 with super strength.

And then you've got scenes like this.

And this

And to top it all off, you have the humor and wit of Joss Whedon at the helm of this film.

Now I get a little annoyed when people speak so highly of Joss Whedon its like they think he's the second coming of Jesus Christ.

But the fact of the matter is, I think he's incredibly talented. His humor and wit are what made this movie incredibly entertaining.

And I'm not even going to bring him down in this review. Joss Whedon was the perfect choice to helm such a huge order of a movie. I've heard that directing these films have just broken this man, that he's tired, and its physically exhausting. Its probably the reason he isn't doing Infinity Wars.

But I have to give Whedon a round of applause. Because for as thin of a plot this movie has. As many holes are in that plot. He still manages to make me smile every time I watch this movie. While I may not have the reaction I had when I first saw the movie, I still get excited every time the battle of New York starts up. There is a reason Marvel has flown so high, and it is because of this man and what he did with The Avengers. I've said multiple times in my reviews of the movies from Phase one in that they are good, definitely better than the superhero films that happened prior to them. But Joss Whedon brough the superhero genre to the next level with The Avengers. Suddenly better than what has happened in the past is no longer good enough. People like me won't settle for something like The Incredible Hulk anymore. These Marvel films need to be Avengers or Captain America caliber films. Thank You Joss Whedon, your direction has inspired movies for a generation.

Overall, The Avengers isa  great film. Yes its not an Oscar worthy film as far as story or dialogue, but its smart. Its fun. Its action packed. And it was the gasoline on a flame that was already going alright prior to its release. Phase one films would have been good for a little bit but its because of this film that those films are cherished... even though I would argue, they're not that good.

But hey you have to start somewhere.

As I finish this, I am on my way out to Avenger: Age of Ultron. What to expect? Well, you can read my review of the trailers for my thoughts on that. But in short, I have high expectations for this film. Some people think that Marvel is too big to fail. I am kind of in that boat as well, but I will go into this film with high expectations and hope to be blown away once again by a franchise that just keeps getting better and better.

But what did you think of The Avengers? Comment and Discuss below! Also follow me on Twitter @cmhaugen24 to get updates on movie news and reviews. Also stay tuned because I'll be putting up my Age of Ultron review and my thoughts on SHIELD in the next couple days.

I'll leave you with this. Here's a Cracked video because I need to get going but can you spot the difference between Marvel and DC? Is it getting hard to keep track of the story in Marvel? You decide. Enjoy!