The Avengers

The Avengers:

... A Bunch Of SuperHeroes Sitting Around Eating

Shwarma Together...

When Marvel Studios stated years ago, they would be making an Avengers film, the world looked on in awe, they wondered could it be possible, could they honestly be able to jam that many big name heroes into one film with enough screen time to properly give each one's fanbase love? Would they have a villain worthy of them as a whole, instead of one bad ass bad guy who fights only one of them normally? So many questions, so many moments of wondering, so many exclamation points put into online speculation statements. Marvel was smart about this, telling us it was on the horizon, and that all their films between then and now, would all be leading up to this common goal, normally with afew carefully placed small scenes with in each film itself, and a stinger scene at the end of each film's credits that connects it to the film to the one that shall be next in line, thus bridging them all together, like an epilogue scene between storylines and such, its really pretty brilliant when you think about it, and stands as one of the many reasons I'm glad Marvel Studios took over as much of its film properties as they have... now they just need Spiderman, The X-Men and the Fantastic Four back to make it fully what it can be, anyway, I degress, lets get into why we're all here shall we? You know it, you love it, hardcore comic book nerdporn...

The film starts pretty much where Thor and Captain America: The First Avenger left off, with Nick Fury arriving at a top secret SHIELD research facility where they are studying the small cube like relic that we last saw in the hands of The Red Skull before losing it to the ocean in Captain America, they call it "The Tesseract" but to us comic book people, it is ofcourse, The Cosmic Cube, the source of all knowledge and power in the universe, i guess they called it The Tesseract because "The Cosmic Cube" sounds kind of silly to non-long time comic book readers. Somehow, with their tinkering, SHIELD opens up a portal through space, and out steps exiled Norse God Loki, as if he was controlling those who were working on the project to bring it right to him. He walks through, he takes the cube, and walks off, using his super mad jedi mind control skills on several members of SHIELD along the way, including Clint "Hawkeye" Barton, for those of you who don't know who Hawkeye is, he was the bow and arrow carrying SHIELD agent in Thor, and if you haven't seen Thor, then seriously what are you doing watching this film to begin with? This attack prompts Fury to inact The Avengers Initiative, the plan he's been popping up talking to various characters about in the movies leading to this one. 

Next we see the team coming together, being brought in from all over the world, and eventually they're joined by Thor, who's come to collect Loki, and after the obligatory fight scenes and sarcastic shit talking that comes along with films of this nature and their format, they all come together against their common enemy, Loki and his army of aliens known as The Chitauri, with whom its revealed he traded the cosmic cube to a being known as The Other for. The Chitauri are infact the "ultimates" version of marvel mainstay villains The Skrulls, they're shapechanging green beings who, well, shapechange, they're pretty formidable and are seen as some of the most powerful warriors in the universe, the climatic battle between The Avengers and the invading hordes is probably the best fight scene in the last 10 years as far as I'm concerned, and possibly the greatest superhero movie scene ever filmed in general with out a doubt. Oh sure, most of this film is basically fightporn, but no one really cares, its just pure out and out special effects awesome, and really thats all you're here for, you aren't expecting anything thats going to sweep awards season were you? Its a basic origin story of a team of superheroes, oh sure it might seem kind of plotless to some, but its a movie based on one of the greatest comic books ever, thats all that matters, well that and that they won't drop the ball like DC will do with the Justice League movie, well and all their non-batman movies, but again, i digress off point.

What my major point of astonishment about this film is, and this is a purely a writing mechanic's thing, the fact that with such a big cast, and really, make no mistake they crammed alot more characters into this film then you think, and with a cast this large, you have to give each character abit of spotlight, simply because, well, every character, even down to the supporting characters, have fans who wanna see them have a moment, sure its silly, but thats just how it works, and amazingly, The Avengers give every single one of them their moment to shine, even secondaries like SHIELD's Marissa Hill and Phil Coulson, even The Other, who is an original character created for this film, gets his moment to shine, its incredible really, specially when you have such big hitters as this film does, you gotta pander alittle to each character's fans; Thor has to swing his mighty hammer, Captain America has to swing his mighty shield so that all who appose the shield must yield, Iron Man must douchebag about, The Hulk needs to smash, Hawkeye must prove using antiquated weapons is still kind of cool, Black Widow has to be insanely hot, Nick Fury has to want these motherfucking chitauri off his motherfucking helicarrier, ect.. Anyway my point is its amazing they could work it all in, because logically, it would have ended up as horrible as the fight scenes in the pre-First Class X-Men movies, which if you remember, were just an awful awful mess.. I commend them for this, it is so very hard to do.

So the big question, is The Avengers worth seeing? Honestly? With out a shadow of a doubt, there is no question in my mind that the only answer is HELL YES. This movie is everything you want in a comic book movie, as well as everything you want in a summer blockbuster, its big, its over the top, its loud, its explosions and dudes in spandex fighting and Scarlett Johanson-y, and the best part is, it isn't gonna say its sorry for it! Its just laid out flat like that, this is a film about a team of superpowered beings, beating the hell out of a trickster god and his army of shapechanging aliens who in the regular continuity are ballchinians, its just so simple of a story, and so amazingly good even though it shouldn't be by all logical accounts. But thats the biggest joy with comic book movies, you have a good guy, sometimes with powers, sometimes with tech, you see their story begin, and then its basically alot of punching and fighting and catchphrase saying, and we don't care, because they're so awesome in their simplicity and grandeur at the same time. Its truly why I love these types of film so much. 

Plus, I love that the next set of marvel movies will focus on the Infinity Gauntlet, one of the greatest things in all of marvel history... Bring on round two!!!!... and ofcourse, how can you go wrong when your trailers before the movie are for The Dark Knight Rises and The Amazing Spiderman? Seriously, epic from previews to the very end.

But if you aren't sold yet, here is the trailer.....

----

BC