The Avengers does what it sets out to do: satisfy diehard fans while being an above average popcorn movie for the casual observer. Certainly, director Joss Whedon could have done a lot worse. He managed to weave together a motley crew of characters from several different preexisting films without convoluting matters, which was no small feat.
The script wisely uses the villains from Thor as enemy combatants from another world. Loki’s (Tom Hiddleston) desire to reign over Earth, accompanied by his sibling rivalry with Thor (Chris Hemsworth), fuels the plot. While a research facility experiments on a powerful energy source the Tesseract, a portal is activated bridging their two worlds. Throughout, there is a dissecting of the various heroes and their accompanying persona's and abilities. Before they’re able to unite, they must jockey for position to see who has the biggest hammer (spoiler: Thor does). The different worlds and sensibilities colliding is nerd comic book heaven.
There is an expository nature to the first half of the film, where one might find themselves waiting the whole time for The Hulk’s first appearance. When it happens, it’s not as exciting as one might expect. The transitions of his flare-ups from a calm to angry state are not quite fully realized and I’m still dumbfounded that the beast can fly (or leap with a single bound, whatever). Some of the dialogue is smart (one superhero cutting Loki down to size: “There are always men like you”; and Dr. Bruce Banner [Mark Ruffalo] observing, “I don’t get a suit of armor, I’m exposed like a nerve.”), ornate (“This is my bargain, you mewling quim”), as well as humorous.
There are various war references like 9/11; the silent, ignorant majority that gave rise to Adolf Hitler, as well as, in tandem, the need for people to have someone/thing good to believe in. Of course, it’s appropriate that the brink of world devastation set in the Marvel comic world should occur in none other than New York City. But, before we make the final stop in Manhattan, Loki finds himself shouting “kneel” in English to a town-square full of Stuttgart residents. I suppose that Whedon didn’t have Hiddleston learn a few words of German because why would Loki speak it, when he can drive home the point of collective human weakness with body language and the force of his presence? “In the end, you will always kneel.” How many jabs must modern Germany endure for ills of the past? Being a comic-book-based film, good/evil are black and white, so I suppose it’s an appropriate and easy target, but annoying no less.
The casting choices, while mostly naturally predetermined, offer a few new additions. Ruffalo as the introspective Banner provides an understated sensitivity. It has to be said that it’s a shame that, in less than a decade, there have been three different men to portray Marvel’s doctor-cum-green-behemoth. Playing little more than a plot-point is the inclusion of Clint Barton/Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner), as he provides no spark against the black leather suit of copper-headed Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson carefully measures out her lines with a drollness that hides her from looking like a fish out of water). Their character’s double-billing also begs the question as to why they exist for the purposes of this film, as the only heroes to appear out of “costume” ever are Iron Man's Tony Stark (Robert Downey, Jr.) and Banner. And, as Agent Maria Hill, if vanilla is what they were going for, they certainly got it with Cobie Smulders. Gwyneth Paltrow, in the limited capacity of her reprisal of Pepper Potts makes quite a sexy and sassy impression, though one wonders what her makeup artists were thinking when they did her face up and slapped that atrocious strawberry blonde wig on her head. Returning to the franchises are Captain American (Chris Evans and his ethereal deliveries), Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg), and Erik Selvig (Stellan Skarsgård). We even get a picture of Natalie Portman. Also notable is veteran actor Harry Dean Stanton making a cameo.
The sound effects throughout the film are superlative and the stunt work is precise. Some of the visual effects are jaw dropping, namely the Chitauri enemy ships that slither airborne through the New York City skyline like organic spine-themed spacecrafts. The centerpiece scene that unleashes them schools the entire Transformersfranchise on just how such larger-than-life mechanical objects should move and feel, if the objective is to give the audience a visual feast. Whedon also quite possibly answers the question on how Wonder Woman’s invisible jet would have worked had he ever gotten the opportunity to make a film based on the world’s most famous female superhero.
The film is reverent to its source material and dots most of its i’s and crosses just about every one of its t’s. The attention to detail is impressive. And there are plenty of little Easter eggs for those searching. As far entertaining action films go, this is recommended, but, should you so choose not to attend, you aren’t really missing any must-see event either.
0 comments:
Post a Comment