MOVIE REVIEW: The Avengers

Plot: When Loki, brother of Thor is sent to Earth by an unknown alien race to steal the powerful tesseract (the cosmic cube from 2011's Captain America), Earth's mightiest heroes must assemble to stop him from bringing along an alien invasion that wants to enslave mankind.

Five years ago, Marvel Studios set out to do something unprecedented. Their plan was to release five solo films, each starring a member of The Avengers and then bring them all together for one epic film. Speculation immediately began on whether such an endeavour could work. Could that many charachters, that many movie stars all share the same stage and it still translate well on-screen?

The answer to that my friends is yes, and it's all thanks to one man. When it was reported that Joss Whedon would be in the director's chair for The Avengers there was a split reaction from fans. Some thought he didn't have the big screen experience to pull off such a feat. His work had mainly been televison, and had directed only one other film prior, so I could understand people's cause for concern. I on the other hand thought it was a home run hire. You see, Whedon knows his way around the Marvel universe much better than directors Jon Favreau (Iron Man, Iron Man 2), Louis Leterrier (The Incredible Hulk), Kenneth Branagh (Thor) or Joe Johnston (Captain America) could ever hope to. Whedon had written several comic book series for Marvel prior to this. He is a fan first, writer/director second and that was why it was a genius hire.

What I was most worried about going into the film, turned out to be what impressed me most about it. With six main members of The Avengers team; Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, Hulk, Hawkeye and Black Widow, three S.H.I.E.L.D members; Nick Fury, Agent Phil Coulson and Maria Hill along with Loki and his alien army, I was really worried how well this would balance out. Thankfully, Whedon gives every character an even spread. The film isn't focused on one particular character more than another. Even better, almost every key character has their own defining moment in the film. Everyone gets to be the hero, everyone gets their own moment of applause from the audience (my theater broke out in applause on six different occasions).

The pace of the film is great. While there is plenty of action to go around, it isn't a Transformers, two-and-a-half hour explosion-fest. There is plenty of story and character development complimented with well directed NOT over the top action sequences. One thing that has bothered me about every single one of the stand-alone Avengers films is that they all have very anti-climatic endings. The final battle delivers. It's not drawn out, but it isn't a five minute fight with an easy "get out of jail free" solution to the problem either. When it was over, my appetite had been filled perfectly.

Although there is a very level playing field, one character is by far the show stealer. The Hulk films have been by least favorite so far, which is why I was surprised when he in fact is the one that steals the show. I think Whedon has found this character's niche. Maybe the Hulk doesn't need his own film. Maybe having him be apart of an ensemble is just the thing the character needs. Although the actual Hulk doesn't show until the later part of the film, once he shows, he delivers big. Every scene he's in brought a grin to my face. He is heroic, he is funny and he is scary. However, that doesn't stop Tony Stark from being a very close runner-up. He steals every scene he's in, having one-liner after another. What's even better is the chemistry between Bruce Banner/Hulk and Tony Stark. Tony wants nothing more than to experience the big green rage monster first hand. He even tries enticing him a time or two, only let down when he doesn't get the rage reaction he wanted. And although he didn't have a large role, Agent Coulson really connected with the audience as well. I really enjoyed that he was a fanboy of Captain America. He's starstruck when he's around him, nervous about asking for an autograph. He believes in the Avengers Initiative and has a very nice heroic moment of his own.

All of these positive character traits leads me to one of my disappointments of the film and that is Captain America. Captain America is the leader of The Avengers. No question about it, always has and always will be. He is selfless, follows orders and makes the right choices. While Cap' certainly has some great moments in the film, I kept waiting for that one moment where he steps up and takes the lead. There was flashes of it, but it never comes. Maybe they are waiting for the sequel to really have him step up, but I was just a tad bit disappointed with how he played out. That isn't a huge problem and some may not even care, but as for me that was something that stood out.

There is only one other thing I have to nit-pick about and that is the villains. Tom Hiddleston as Loki did fantastic, no complaints there. But what I didn't enjoy was that if felt like The Avengers were never really in immediate danger. We all knew they would win in the end, but I still like to be on the edge of my seat a little. Loki as great as he is with deception and evil, I never felt like he was truly someone who was going to start offing people. There is one scene where you think he is going to just start slaughtering people but it goes away quickly. I would have liked to have seen a little more villainy in the story.

So what will this film do for the superhero genre? Hopefully forever change it. This should get the attention of Fox who holds the rights to X-Men and Fantastic Four, Sony who has the rights to Spider-Man and most importantly Warner Brothers who owns every DC character there is. Wolverine and Spider-Man are actually member of The Avengers in the comics. This should get them motivated to share profit and put an entertaining film on the screen. How cool would it be if Spider-Man swooped in out of nowhere to help out, or if you see a character's legs walking down the street and all of a sudden his arm drops and three claws come out? The fans would go balistic! And maybe this will finally convince Warner Brothers to get their charaters together. Aside from Nolan's Batman films, those movies are miles behind Marvel.

This movie is a game changer. I have next to no complaints and I absolutely cannot wait until 2015 so I can see The Avengers 2.

Final Verdict: 9/10