Avengers Assemble!

At the Super Bowl about 16 months ago, the first trailer for "The Avengers" debuted.  This was before we had even seen "Captain America" or "Thor".  That's a lot of hype to live up to...and "The Avengers" lived up to that hype.

Marvel has done a wonderful thing here starting with "Iron Man" in 2008.  For the last 4 years and 5 movies, Marvel has been building toward this...the first big super hero team up movie.  And while I don't think "The Avengers" qualifies for "best movie ever" status, it is an exceptional film.  I do think Marvel has elevated the super hero movie with this film, and I expect it will be hard for others to keep pace in the short term.  I'll be really interested to see what Chris Nolan does with "The Dark Knight Rises" later this summer.  "The Avengers" is gonna be really hard to top.

This movie picks up about a year after "Thor" ended.  Loki (Tom Hiddleston) has allied himself with an evil alien race, and is planning to use these aliens to help him take over the earth.  Loki's grand plan is to rule the planet his half brother, Thor, loves so much.  Somebody has "family issues".  To secure the aid of the aliens, Loki must give them the Tesseract (see "Captain America"), which is currently on earth.  So, Loki begins a war, which S.H.I.E.L.D, led by Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) is powerless to wage.  But, Fury always has a plan.  He enlists the help of Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), Captain America (Chris Evans), The Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), Thor (Chris Hemmsworth), The Black Widow (Scarlette Johannson) and Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner).  But, these heroes have egos and agendas...can they co-exist in time to save the world?  I know the answer, and you'll find out if you go watch. 

Joss Whedon directed "The Avengers" and did a masterful job.  No one character dominates...in fact, Whedon does this movie so well that fans of each hero will be satisfied with the role their favorite hero plays.  Each character has his or her moment to shine, and the cast meshes very well.  Robert Downey Jr. and Mark Ruffalo seem to really mix well on screen.  I hope we will see another standalone Hulk movie with Ruffalo playing the part of Bruce Banner...he's perfect.

As with any great super hero movie, you need a great villain.  Tom Hiddleston provides that great villain as Loki.  For those that thought he wasn't evil enough in "Thor", he's one bad dude now.  Hiddleston is the perfect actor for this role, and he has great interactions with each character, but especially with Chris Hemmsworth (Thor).  You can really see that Thor wants his brother back, but Loki has truly grown to despise his brother, which makes for very good on screen dynamics.

As with all Joss Whedon directed movies and TV shows, "The Avengers" is very funny, but not in a ridiculous way.  In fact, the mix of humor, action and drama is just about right.  And the length of the movie is not overwhelming.  Though it's about 2 and a half hours, nobody was getting up to go to the bathroom...in fact, I didn't even check my watch.  Time flew by.

So, "The Avengers" is a 5 star movie.  I highly recommend it.  I think PG-13 is the right rating, but it could really be PG-11 or so.  There is nothing gratuitous, just a lot of fantasy action, and a few scary moments with The Hulk.  I'm gonna take David to see it later this weekend.