The Avengers

The wait is finally over for Marvel's mega-king-size-gigantic comic book blockbuster. The Avengers is an incredible ride, full of action, humor, and over the top sequences. It is a fun sci-fi action film, and definitely worth a viewing.

Beginning with Jon Favreau's Iron Man in 2008, Marvel has been teasing us with the Avenger's team up with a slew of super hero summer flicks. The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man 2, Captain America, and most notably Thor have all led to The Avengers via post credit extra scenes and Samuel L. Jackson cameo's. I give it up to Marvel's marketing strategists. Sticking to the Avengers idea from the start has paid off, and it really shows here.

The villain from Thor, Loki, returns as the main bad guy. Loki (Tom Hiddleston, looking exactly like Tim Lincecum) has come to earth to steal the Tesseract, a small cube capable of sustainable clean energy and is slightly reminiscent of the all spark in Transformers. Just like in Transformers, the Tesseract is really just an object to get our heroes to join together and stop Loki. The team is assembled by Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), leader of S.H.I.E.L.D., to recover the Tesaract, but mostly to get the action started. The team consists of Iron Man (Robert Downey, Jr.), Captain America (Chris Evans), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), The Incredible Hulk (Mark Ruffalo, replacing Edward Norton), Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), and Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner). The team must band together, or Loki has threatened to bring an alien army to take over the earth to fill the hole in his heart left by his daddy issues.

The characters are quite fun. Each one brings a unique talent to the team, and their interactions are playful and humorous. Mark Ruffalo does a fine job filling in for Edward Norton, who played Bruce Banner/The Hulk in 2008's The Incredible Hulk. Ruffalo comes off as a very likeable guy on screen, which is the perfect comparison to the enormous green monster he becomes as The Hulk. The Hulk comes off as the most powerful Avenger, which was something I did not expect, considering that the demi-god from space Thor is there as well. The Hulk is basically a one monster wrecking crew, destroying everything in his path. Imagine having invincibility and unlimited ammo on Goldeneye for N64. This was a blast to watch on screen, even if there was not much tension.

One character who seemed underutilized was Jeremy Renner's Hawkeye. Of the six heroes, Hawkeye had by far the least amount of back story portrayed in the former movies, only making a brief cameo in Thor. Hawkeye gets almost no character exposition for the first 2/3 of this movie, leaving a pretty slim connection for the audience. As much as I loved Renner in The Town and The Hurt Locker, I was disappointed with how little his character was emphasized.

Meanwhile, Thor, Iron Man, and Captain America were all excellent. All three play well off of each other, having such diverse backgrounds. Pretty much any movie with Robert Downey Jr. being sarcastic is going to be entertaining, and the Avengers oozes with it.

When seeing The Avengers, the thing I want the most is great action. There is absolutely no lacking in action in this movie. But action without a connection or any sort of care for the characters (ahem, Transformers), falls flat. Being a person who has seen every movie that has led up to it, it was joyous to watch all of these superheroes exist in the same universe, play off each others strengths, all the while having incredibly witty banter that any great action flick MUST have. I had a major nerd happiness moment at Iron Man's Lord of the Rings reference.

I'm very glad to see such a mainstream film be so sci-fi. The Avengers blends aliens, gods, and superheroes in a magnificent way. Somehow, director Joss Whedon gets you to buy into the fact that all three of these can exist in the same universe and be cool.

One final note: For any other Pulp Fiction fan, it's going to be a jarring experience to watch Samuel L. keep his language tame. His character finally breaks out in the third act, but as in any other Sam Jackson movie, I wanted him to start (mis)quoting Ezekiel right before he capped someone.

The Avengers is an incredibly fun summer action movie. The story is nothing to think twice about, but the execution is where it excels. Two and a half hours will fly by, in an experience definitely worth seeing on the big screen.

VERDICT: See it in theaters!

4/5