Movie Review: The Avengers (2012)
The Avengers was a lot of fun. while the story was your typical "Oh My God, we need to save the world!", hey, that's comics for you, and there's not much else that would warrant bringing together so many heroes together on one screen.
The inter-character chemistry was a lot of fun. One thing comic book fans love (at least, those I know), is the banter and battles that take place between the heroes when they aren't punching or blasting the bad guys. There's plenty of tension and some serious brawling that takes place between our heroes over the course of the movie, but when the chips are down, everyone "suits up" and gets into the fight that really matters.
Speaking of which - what a fight indeed. The climactic end battle reportedly comes in around 40 minutes, and turns most of mid-town Manhattan into blaster-scorched ruin. This is the sort of damage that a "super squad" should be doing to any major urban area when taking on a world-invading caliber of bad guys, and the movie doesn't disappoint. While each Avenger gets their time to shine, pulling off awesome fight moves and looking badass in their own ways, their ability to work together as a team is what comes across as most important. In big comic book battles, there are always team and partner combos that have an effect greater than the sum of their parts, and this movie handles that quite well.
Director Joss Whedon shows again that he understands what geeks want to see, and blends action, drama, and some light comedy together into a really solid franchise capstone. New Iron Man, Thor, and Captain America movies are reputedly being fast-tracked given the enormously positive response the studios have received about this film, and there's no doubt an Avengers 2 is in the works. While it is always possible we'll burn out on comic book movies at some point, last night's midnight turnout for The Avengers was solid evidence that time is a long ways away. I believe there were nine midnight screenings at the theater last night, and six of them had sold out by around 8 PM...
