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. 

Recent Movies

Another Double Movie Review...and fittingly, the first movie is...

"The Double":  This is a movie that Nuke described as a "twist-a-thriller".  I like that description, so I'm gonna steal it, but give credit, so it's not really stealing.  "The Double" is similar to "Salt" in a lot of ways, except instead of Angelina Jolie, it has Richard Gere and Topher Grace.  I'll leave it to you to decide which is better.  Honestly, I think the two movies would be great in a double feature.

I really liked this movie.  I don't think Richard Gere is getting too old to play these roles, which was one of the comments Nuke made.  What I really liked about "The Double" is we get a twist in the beginning, another twist at the end, and a satisfying ending. 

I wish I could tell you more about the plot, but it's hard without giving things away.  If you like "twist-a-thrillers", I suggest you give "The Double" a shot.  I liked it enough to go 4 stars on my rating!

"The Eagle":  I have to admit, I was semi-disappointed by "The Eagle".  From reading the latest Percy Jackson books by Rick Riordan, I was very excited about this movie, which mixed in the Roman Eagle.  I thought we'd get an action packed, thrill a minute, sword fighting, axe wielding action flick.  Instead, we got a largely dull film, punctuated by a few really good action scenes.

Channing Tatum is fairly wooden as the lead actor, which I think contributed to some of the dullness.  Despite this, I think the Eagle had a lot of promise until the end when the last battle sorta fizzled in my mind.  I'll give this one 2 stars and recommend you stay away.

Why Don't These Super Heroes Have Movies?

I am very excited about the upcoming "Avengers" movie.  In fact, I may be excited enough to go to the midnight showing.  I can't really decide if the midnight showing is for 30 something married dads though...but I digress.

Over the last 15 years, we've had tons of super hero movies.  Everyone from Spider-Man to the X-Men, from Daredevil to Elektra, from Superman to Batman has had a super hero movie made.  Well, that's not true...not everyone has.  Here are some of my favorite super heroes who have yet to grace the big screen, but should be considered very soon. 

Author's Note:  Come to think of it, Marvel will make a movie about any character they have (Ghost Rider, The Punisher, etc.), so this list is going to focus on the DC Universe.

-Captain Marvel - ok...maybe a story about a 10 year old boy who says "Shazam!" and turns into Superman's equal is a bit awkward, but come on, we had to sit through 3 Blade films and soon to be 2 Ghost Rider films!

-Wonder Woman - She had a run on a TV series...but it's time for a movie.  Yeah, the costume is a bit out of date, and the invisible plane is sort of hokey, but she is the queen of the DC universe.

-Aquaman - Ok, so he's not that powerful out of the ocean, but who didn't love the underwater scenes with Jar Jar Binks in "The Phantom Menace"???  This could work...couldn't it?

-Green Arrow - It's gotta be better than "Green Lantern", doesn't it?

-Martian Manhunter - This is one I'd really like to see...the others are sorta tongue in cheek.  Martian Manhunter is one bad mama jama...this would seriously be a cool movie.

Ok, if we actually got Martian Manhunter, Wonder Woman and Aquaman movies, to go along with the lame Green Lantern movie, The Dark Knight series and the new Superman film, we could easily roll into a Justice League movie!  That would be most excellent.  Hey, if they can pull it off with "Avengers", why not the Justice League???  It would be superb!