The Avengers

Brought to you by popular demand, I finally got around to reviewing the most-hyped movie of the year, Marvel's The Avengers. I don't think anybody was going to think this wasn't a Marvel movie, but in the roughly 6.7 million commercials that promoted this movie daily, insisted on saying Marvel as much as possible. But that's beside the point. The Avengers, the culmination of five separate movies, is the first of its kind — a major superhero team-up. How did Marvel deliver pull off this blockbuster that was hyped and promoted for years and years? Well, let's see ...

Perhaps the biggest question the movie needed to address was who was going to be the villain. If you're going to team up the near-invincible heroes from five separate movies, then you were going to need a pretty major threat for them to fight. Obviously an alien invasion is really the only way to go, but it give it some meaning it would have to feature a singular, recognized villain as well, preferably a returning villain either working with or controlling the army. Let's review our options. Iron Man (the most popular character and default leader) "accidentally" killed his two villains, Obadiah Stane and Ivan Vanko, and neither one of them really would have worked too well in this scenario anyway. The Hulk did fight the Abomination, who lived, and the Leader was "born" in that movie, but to use either one of them would have required too much backstory and explaining, I think. The Leader probably could have worked here, but since we never really saw him officially become the Leader, they really would have had to completely go through his origin story, which would have taken too long. Captain America had the Red Skull, who apparently got beamed up to Asgard, or something like that. Having him somehow take control of an alien army and waging war on Earth would have made perfect sense (and would have been awesome), but it would have taken too long to explain. Remember, this was already a pretty long movie with a lot of stars who needed an equal amount of screen time and background information, so less-complex characters was necessary. That still doesn't mean I'm completely happy the Red Skull was overlooked.

Ultimately, there was one and only one choice for this movie's villain. Thor's mischievous brother, Loki. He didn't get much of a backstory, here, but he really didn't need it. We know he left Asgard, somehow found this alien army, and teamed up with them to wage war on Earth. That's all we needed to know and it worked. But the best reason to use Loki was because he, played by Tom Hiddleston, is freaking awesome. It also helps that he's an indestructible god so you can smack him around as much as you want when he gets to you with his mind games. One of my favorite Loki lines was "An ant has no quarrel with a boot." That's a very Loki thing to say, and a very Marvel thing to say, as well, which is a good thing. Loki in all his mischievous ways will raise the score to a 6.

I almost took a point off for the Black Widow's terrible Russian. I didn't notice it the first time I saw this movie, but now I can't help realizing how awful it is. I mean, I could speak better Russian. Come on, Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson), make an effort to actually sound like the Russian you're supposed to be. Luckily, Agent Coulson bailed her out by making the scene fun with his his casual bouncing and bobbing to the sound of Widow taking out the bad guys. However, be warned, Black Widow. You are on thin ice.

I suppose now is a good time as any to address the elephant, er, Hulk in the room, that being Edward Norton not returning to his role as Bruce Banner and the Hulk. Now, I really don't have anything against Mark Ruffalo, he was perfectly adequate in his role. But Norton made Banner a captivating tragic character in The Incredible Hulk, which is easily one of the top two Hulk movies of all time. All kidding aside, I really was quite upset to hear Norton wouldn't be in this movie. From what I understand, he wanted the part, but the producers didn't want him because he was "difficult to work with." I'm sorry, but for something this big, I say put aside your differences and make this really the best movie ever with perfect continuity through all six movies. Oh well, what are you going to do about it? Wait, I know! I'm going to take away a point! I know it's harsh, but I have to. Don't worry, a little nitpicking here won't affect the final score ... or will it?

Now, I love Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury as much as the next guy, but I have to say that they just made him too darn nice in this movie. In the comics, Nick Fury is an extremely shady and untrustworthy character. His first priority is always the protection of his nation, but he doesn't care what it takes to reach his goals. He is willing to offend everyone, break every rule, even suffer extreme casualties as long as he feels it's for the greater good. He has backup plans upon backup plans and everybody really only works with him reluctantly and as a last resort. None of those things were true here. They tried a little of it by having him try to develop tesseract weapons, but it seemed really half-hearted and ultimately didn't play that big of a role in the movie. Sorry, Samuel L., but I have to take off a point for you. It's not your fault, it's just the writers liking Nick Fury too much to try to make him the complex, unlikable character he normally is.

Now it's time to get back to adding points. With the enormous time constraints this movie had, most of the heroes didn't get to see their girlfriends at all. Thor is very briefly shown a picture of Jane Foster and told she was safe. In a deleted scene, Captain America found the phone number of the now-90-year-old Peggy Carter, but he could bring himself to call her. And poor Hulky never once had Betty Ross' name even mentioned. But luckily, there was just enough time to show the best girlfriend, Pepper Potts. Her scene was brief, but charming; mostly because of Tony's "His first name is Agent" and "Why is he Phil?" Thanks to their great chemistry, the score is back up to an average 5.

One great thing about this movie is we really got to see Captain America adjusting to life in the 2000s for the first time. Not only did a lot of references slip past him, but he had to deal with new, impossible technology and the awkward situation of having people hero-worship you, and Agent Coulson was the perfect person to fill this role. This little moments made me smile, so I added another point.

But while I'm talking about Captain America, I need to discuss the wardrobe malfunction. Coulson said they made some "modifications" to the original suit, but what he meant to say was they made it worse and completely stupid in every possible way. I don't know why they didn't use the same suit from the first movie or have confidence in his chain mail look from the comics. Instead, they ended up with something incredibly fake-looking, which only got worse when I realized his helmet wasn't a helmet at all, but actually a hoodie. Who thought that would be a good idea? Honestly! Now, I previously threatened to take a point off every time this stupid costume came on screen, but I am feeling unusually charitable today, so I will only deduct one point for this most egregious flaw.

Now, this movie did a really good job of quickly explaining almost everything, but a few things slipped through the cracks, notably the arrival of Thor. The only explanation we got was Loki briefly mentioning something about Odin using "dark energy" to send him to Earth. I'm sorry, but I need something more than that. After being told it would be nearly impossible to return to Earth, I think we deserved a better solution to this problem. My suggestion: have the Red Skull escape Asgard and create/discover a way to return to Earth, which Thor uses to follow him. I know this would have taken a lot of time to set up and show, but I would have preferred it to the vague reference to "dark energy." The score is down to a 4 for Loki's mischievous and rather lazy explanation.

As much as we like to see our favorite heroes team up, we love to see them fight each other, which this movie did not ignore at all. It's just really a fun way to gauge how strong everybody is and see how their powers work with each other. In their first fight, we saw that Iron Man can absorb Thor's lightning, Thor can crush Iron Man's suit with his bare hand, and Captain America's shield can withstand a blow from the mighty Mjolner. I will add a point for this fight.

While I'm at it, I'm going to add another point for the surprising amount of humor in this movie. It was never over-the-top or distracting, but genuinely funny and allowed everyone at least one moment. From Captain America excitedly catching the flying monkey reference to Thor trying to describe an Asgardian beast to Tony Stark being Tony Stark, this movie was full of some great laughs.

But the laughter stops there, as I take the score back down to a 5. Who's to blame? None other than the Black Widow. Didn't I say she was on thin ice? I totally lost all respect for her during the stupid interrogation scene she had with Loki. This was supposed to give us some heart-warming background to her and show off her great spy skills by gleaning important information from a super villain. OK, first of all, I don't care one bit about her "red ledger." Now, heading into this movie, Marvel had the Big Four with Cap, Iron, Hulk and Thor, but they tried really hard to make it the Big Six with Widow and Hawkeye, when they really didn't need to. Instead of spending time explaining how Thor came to Earth, they chose to try to get us emotionally connected to Black Widow by alluding to her "tortured" past and "secret" love life with Hawkeye. I'm sorry, but it just didn't do it for me. My second main complaint with the Loki scene was the "shocking" information that Loki wanted the Hulk. Uh, wasn't that rather obviously implied when Loki was put in the Hulk's cage and he said, "This cage wasn't built for me"? And this cleverly-acquired bit of intel never really played a part in the story, anyway, so what was the whole point of that? Sorry Black Widow, but you are the weakest link. You can't speak Russian to save your life, I don't care about your background, and you never really do anything interesting all movie. "Ooh, look at me, I can jump off Captain America's shield!"

Let's get back to something good before I get too upset. The second fight between our heroes was the Hulk vs. Thor. This was a great one because of one wonderful little detail. After taking a big punch from the Hulk, Thor slowly pulls himself up, summons his hammer, and smiles. Yeah, you know Thor would enjoy this fight. And we do too. I also really liked watching the Hulk attack that jet and catch the pilot's ejector seat. That was pretty cool. We're back up to a 6.

I'll add another point for the overall attack scene on the S.H.I.E.L.D. helicarrier. When we first saw it, I knew it was going to be destroyed, and it practically was. But what really impressed me was how they were able to find something for everybody to do and keep things diverse and interesting. Another one of my favorite highlights from this was Captain America jumping and swatting down a grenade while his theme music played in the background. I think Captain America is my favorite Avenger — even if his costume does suck.

The best part about the helicarrier fight was how it ended — with the death of everybody's favorite character, Agent Phil Coulson. Some people didn't want him to die (and still believe he might be alive somewhere), but I really liked the fact that he died. Not only was it a meaningful death that provided motivation to our heroes, but it was kind of a necessary step for Marvel to take. Quite frankly, Coulson had become too popular, and it could have turned into a cheesy, stupid situation had they caved in to his popularity and expanded his role into something he's not. It happens all the time in comics. Luckily, we were spared that, and Coulson got to go out a hero by taking on Loki himself and dying with a classic Coulson one-liner: "Oh, that's what that does." For his deadpan bravery, I'll raise the score to an 8.

There was one part about the helicarrier fight that I didn't like that much, and I'm not sure who's to blame for it. It's the part where Black Widow hits Hawkeye in the head and he rather quickly wakes up from Loki's spell. So, that's all it took? A blow to the head? But Loki took over people by touching their heart, which implied to me that he was taking over their souls. But for some reason, this didn't work on Iron Man, presumably because he had an artificial heart. But does he not have a soul? But then again, all it took to break the spell was knocking someone in the head, so what does touching someone's heart have to do with it at all? The more I think about it the more confused and upset I get, so I'll do what I always do in these situations — take a point off!

I'm going to take another point off for an overused, unnecessary cliche. When Iron Man's getting ready to confront Loki, he tells Jarvis to prepare the Mark VII, which Jarvis immediately warns is not fully tested and unready for combat. Dang it, Jarvis! I'm sick and tired of you telling Tony not to use his new suit when we all know full well that it's going to work just fine. Just once, Jarvis, would you trust your master on this one? He's not going to tell you to prepare a suit if it's not ready. Or, maybe we could have it the other way around, by Jarvis warning Tony and having the suit completely unable to function because Jarvis was right for once. But instead, we got treated to the usual: "No, sir, you can't use that, yet" and then showing Tony use it perfectly. This one line made me mad enough to drop the score to a 6. Get with the program, Jarvis. If Tony Stark can create new technology in a cave, he can make a suit that puts itself on him as he falls from a building.

Now this point is actually a rare instance where I changed my mind. Initially, I was upset with Bruce Banner's line of always being angry. I prefer the out-of-control Hulk that nobody can stop, even with special Hulk-busting armor. But this movie wasn't really the time or place for that. (Hopefully they'll get to that in these movies.) I dropped my anger about this newfound control of the Hulk for two reasons. The first, was me remembering the end of The Incredible Hulk, where we see Banner begin to control the beast. So I guess it stands to reason that between that movie and this one, he more or less gained complete control of the Hulk. Not my favorite situation for the character, but a plausible one all the same. The second reason was that he said this line at a really cool moment in the movie. Punching that giant snake thing and having the Avengers, well, assemble fully for the first time was pretty cool. So instead of taking a point off for this, I'm actually going to add a point.

As much as I hate Black Widow, I have to say that I like what they did with Hawkeye here. When you think about it, he really has a stupid power. Wow, you're good at archery. But they made it interesting with his high-tech quiver and "trick" arrows and all his no-look shots. I also appreciated how they gave him a finite amount of arrows so we saw him collecting arrows during slow parts in the battle and it became kind of intense when he ran out. For this pleasant surprise, I'll bring the score back up to an 8.

The score will rise to a 9 for this one reason: HULK SMASH LOKI! As Stan Lee would say, 'nuff said!

I didn't like the nuclear bomb thing at the end. Or more specifically, I didn't like how it was the secret council that ordered Fury to launch the nuke. The Fury I know would be suggesting to the council to launch a nuke and then doing it anyway after they and Maria Hill protest. I almost took off a point for this, but seeing Nick Fury pull out that bazooka was pretty cool, so we'll stay put.

The closing TV montage was really nice. We saw people mourning the casualties and offering different opinions on the Avengers. It even had a little bit of emotion to it, which will enable me to give this movie a score of 10 without resorting to cheap bonus points. Oh, and did somebody say Stan Lee? "Superheroes in New York? Give me a break!"

Final score: 10