Review By Mike DeVivo
After more than 5 years of world Building Marvel’s The Avengers comes out today. Before watching the film I spent the last few days re watching Iron Man , Incredible Hulk, Iron Man 2 , Thor , and Captain America . Iron Man aside I felt at some point each of the other films had some glaring issues. My excitement for the film out weighed my concern however and I was looking forward to seeing what Joss Whedon had in store. After all the early screenings and overwhelming positive feedback I was sent into frenzy mode waiting to see this film. So is it any good?The answer is a resounding yes! More on that later , for now let me take you through the film without getting into major Spoilers.
Loki has returned by way of the Tesseract that was found while looking for Captain America. He obliterates S.H.I.E.L.D Headquarters and with the help of some unexpected allies gets away with the Tesseract in hand. His plan is to open up a portal using the Tesseract so that he can unleash an Army upon Earth leaving him to Rule.
Fury out of Desperation decides to move forward with The Avengers Initiative. That is the basic core of the Movie. Joss Whedon focuses more so on character moments over Story which works well for most of The Avengers. He does pay close attention to detail even using all the past films as building blocks to progress the story. Standouts include Black Widow played by Scarlet Johannsen and Mark Ruffalo as Bruce Banner/Hulk. In fact movie goers have seen a group of Heroes who band together to save the world from certain disaster tons of times before . The plot isn’t what makes this movie so enjoyable its the characterization, writing , and acting that make this movie shine and turn it into Marvel’s crowning jewel along with their first film Iron Man. No one phones this movie in. You can tell of the actors enjoyed working on the project together and it shows in how much fun the movie is.
The action set pieces and Special effects are damn near perfect in execution. There were more than a few moments where the crowd in unison were clapping and cheering together which brought a smile to my face. The Chitauri in the film look great and I love the look of the Hulk in this Film. The last 30 min of this film had me grinning from ear to ear. Each Avenger has more than their share of awesome moments in the film.
There are a few minor complaints I’m going to point out. First I feel like Steve Rogers’ story never really progresses at all. It would have been nice to see possibly Sharon Carter inserted as Steve’s love interest to try to show another side of Steve Rogers. There are some small moments with Tony that could have been fleshed out and I know that Joss had mentioned that he cut at least 30-40 min off the film. Also a minor complaint but they never explain how Thor makes it back to Earth. After watching the films that’s a glaring issue that should be addressed considering how great Joss was with all the other plot lines from the past films and his attention to detail. Again these are minor nit picks about a movie that was nothing short of amazing
I’m honestly quite amazed at how well marvel was able to pull this off. There’s an intent and confidence in the writing that really shows off Whedon’s strengths as a director. Some people may feel like he hijack’s the movie a bit but I couldn’t imagine anyone else capable of delivering such a high quality product. Whedon and company remember that movies like this should have strong characterization first and most importantly showed that a Superhero Movie doesn’t have to just be “Dark” or “Hard Edged” to be good. I honestly cant wait to see this again myself. Oh and the mid credits scene sent me into sensory overload! This is a blue print for how to pull off a Summer Blockbuster in an intelligent and successful way. Run out and see this it will put a smile on your face regardless of what mood you’re in.
Review Score: 9.5/10
Mike DeVivo
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