Danielle Solzman
Marvel’s The Avengers is the team-up movie that we’ve been waiting for and it’s absolutely everything we wanted it to be.
Loki wants to rule Earth. There’s really no other way to put it. After promising to turn over the Tesseract to the Chitauri, they will provide him with an army. Oh Loki, don’t go making promises you can’t keep. It probably will not end well.
Back on Earth, Dr. Selvig (Stellan Skarsgård) is continuing his research at the Project Pegasus facility. Before you know it, Loki has both him and Clint Barton (Jeremy Renner) under some sort of mind control. While the Avengers Initiative had been discussed a few years earlier, it was placed on hold. They don’t really go into details as to why this is. This certainly doesn’t stop Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) or Maria Hill (Cobie Smulders) from putting the Avengers together. First, it’s putting in a call to Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson)–certainly one of the funniest bits in the film! Natasha is ordered to retrieve Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo). It takes some convincing after Banner’s previous troubles. Finally, Agent Coulson (Clark Gregg) gets Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) while Fury gets Steve Rogers (Chris Evans).
It’s not until the Avengers capture Loki that everything starts to fall apart. Mischief is Loki’s way so this naturally makes sense. The last thing anyone wants to see is Hulk running around on the Helicarrier but sure enough, it happens. Again, Loki wants them to be in disarray. What pushes everyone over the edge is the supposed death of Phil Coulson. As we know now, he’s not really dead for good. On the ground, everyone comes together to put a stop to Loki’s evil plan. Seeing them gathered in the circle (above photo) is just one of those moments that one can only sit there and take in.
It finally comes together after five films from four different franchises. If you’re going to do a team-up movie, you need to go big and make it count. There’s a reason why Marvel does what it does and they did not let me down in The Avengers. Loki was almost always expected to be the big bad. It’s just unfortunate that he had to take control of Clint Barton’s mind. After seeing Hawkeye on screen briefly during Thor, it feels sad to see him almost wasted here. I don’t mean wasted in a bad sense but more or less in the sense of letting him be a hero!
The visual effects here are phenomenal to say the least. It’s not just the character designs but the set pieces! It’s awe-inspiring to actually get to see the Helicarrier on screen. When you read the comics, you never know what will and will not be on screen. But to see it on screen? It’s really awesome.
It’s not just this. In seeing how S.H.I.E.LD. runs, we get our first look at the World Security Council, including Gideon Malick (Powers Boothe) and Hawley (Jenny Agutter).
If you’re familiar with Firefly, Serenity, Buffy, or Dollhouse, you know what Joss Whedon typically aims for. He’s working with a bigger beast here given how much lore there is to play with in Marvel history. Whatever happens in the film has to be coherent with what happens in past and future movies. As they say during Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., it’s all connected!
Marvel’s The Avengers gives us a jam-packed film full of action while leaving audiences wanting just a little bit more.
DIRECTOR/SCREENWRITER: Joss Whedon
CAST: Robert Downey Jr. Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Hemsworth, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner, Clark Gregg, Cobie Smulders, with Stellan Skarsgård, and Samuel L. Jackson
