The Avengers may not be a great movie, but it is a remarkable one. Faced with a cast of disparate characters who shouldn't necessarily make sense in the same movie, let alone the same shot, the constrictions and pressures of a multi-billion dollar franchise, the need to balance a contained and satisfying movie with the emotional arcs of four different film series, and a sea of hype that began building in 2008 in a scene that could have, for all intents and purposes, been a throwaway, The Avengers could have easily been a failure, a mediocrity, or an incoherent mess. It is none of those. It is the most satisfying Marvel movie since the original Iron Man and one of the most entertaining features to hit theaters in a long time.
Building off the groundwork of Iron Man, Iron Man 2, Thor, and Captain America (while also attempting another reboot of The Incredible Hulk after two failed tries), The Avengers finds those heroes joined together by a dire threat to humanity's very existence. Masterminded by Thor's exiled brother Loki and involving a nasty alien invasion, the galactic stakes leave the mysterious S.H.I.E.L.D. organization with no choice but to assemble a team of all the superheroes they've been keeping tabs on over the years. Some, like Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) and Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.), come out of an interest in science; others, like Captain America (Chris Evans), Thor (Chris Hemsworth) and superspy Natasha Romanov (Scarlett Johansson), come out of a sense of duty. But can the team overcome their own unstable dynamics, petty squabbles, and personal insecurities in order to save the planet?
Well, duh. But that doesn't mean it isn't a lot of fun to watch. A lot of credit goes to writer and director Joss Whedon, who manages to blend Iron Man's postmodern snarky detachment, Captain America's hokey 1940s adventure-serial Americana, Thor's Shakespearean grandeur, and the slick demands of modern blockbuster filmmaking into a single coherent piece. It is the kind of movie where Thor and Loki can declaim about their complicated familial background in one breath, and then Tony Stark can derisively dismiss them both as “Shakespeare in the Park” in the next. Whedon's screenplay is funny when it needs to be, cheesy in the right places, and remarkably efficient at serving all of the characters. His direction, though less masterful and stylish than other, more auteurist blockbusters, is assured and focused. He knows when to get out of his own way, a common criticism of Whedon's work, and when to let The Avengers stop bickering and start avenging.
The movie is freed from the pressures of origin stories that make most first installments such a bore. We already know all the characters and their general deal so the fun is seeing them combine and clash. The film's standout is Ruffalo, and if the movie had just done what it did with Bruce Banner it would be a success. Ruffalo plays Banner with a laid-back resignation, a slow but ever-boiling tension, and a surprising measure of tenderness. It is the most right Banner (and The Hulk, when he finally shows up) has ever appeared on-screen and the movie's greatest achievement is making Banner as compelling as “the other guy,” instead of a sad dude waiting to lose his temper. He bonds nicely with Downey Jr. (well enough that I found myself wishing for an entire movie of Iron Man and The Hulk, even if that sounds like an obnoxious FM morning talk show), who is in top form as always. Downey Jr. is funny, and he seems somewhat energized by being able to flit and snark around the margins instead of being forced to carry the entire weight of the movie.
As a soldier out of place and time, Chris Evans brings a fair amount of weight to Captain America, even if the character is occasionally stuck having to play the wet blanket straight man. Thor fares better, even if he is given the least to do (which is surprising, given how well his god-amongst-humans schtick plays into Whedon's wheelhouse). But if Banner is the movie's best element, then Black Widow is it's biggest surprise. In Iron Man 2, Scarlett Johansson was adrift in a sea of exposition and table-setting that never added to up to much of a character; in Whedon's hands, however, her character is much savvier, and more awesome, than she seemed at first.
On the side of evil, Loki is an excellent manipulator and, in the Whedon tradition, becomes yet another example of villains who warp understandable impulses to dangerous and illogical conclusions by focusing on the weaknesses and failings of humanity. In that light, the quirky tapestry weaved by the various personalities of The Avengers starts to make sense. Their individual defects make for compelling viewing in their own movies, but together they form an orchestra of humanity, of our best and worst impulses, our flaws and strengths, and only by combining into one can they defeat such an existential threat. Furthermore, by making the the threat intergalactic, it not only gives the movie an appropriately epic scope, but it opens up a fun new dimension of possibilities for these movies (one that has long existed in comic books but that their cinematic adaptations of all flavors have been hesitant to pick up).
This isn't to say The Avengers is perfect. At 2 hours and 24 minutes, it is more than a little flabby, weighted down by the service needed to be done to every character and a couple of action scenes that run a little longer than they needed to (although the epic conclusion is just straight-up awesome). And while Whedon treats the characters with depth and empathy, they end up treading rather narrow and familiar emotional ground. The aliens, though a cool plot device, never become much more than that, fueling conflict and theme while, perhaps, holding back for later movies.
The Avengers doesn't have anything nearly as weighty on its mind as Nolan's Batman movies, but it seems unfair that every superhero movie has to genuflect to The Dark Knight. The great thing about superhero comics is the range of stories they can tell, from Watchmen to All-Star Superman and from the Dark Phoenix Saga to The Avengers. The scope of the movie is unmatched in Hollywood blockbusters and the threat to humanity feels big enough to transcend the smaller stories told in previous Marvel movies. By drawing a line from the original Avengers comics of the 1960s and 1970s, through the self-aware genre hijinks of Sunnydale High School, ad up to the epic grandeur of modern blockbuster filmmaking, Joss Whedon has made a movie that distills all these different flavors of genre and geek into a single beverage and he does it without condescension, commentary, or needlessly junking it up (well, except for the fact that is probably 15 or 20 minutes too long). Honestly, given the size and nature of the obstacles in the way of this movie even happening, I would have been happy with a mediocre-to-okay film. Instead, The Avengers is much better than that, it's a genuinely fun and engaging piece of entertainment and an honest achievement for everyone involved.
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