Marvel's Approach To "The Avengers" Is A Great Payoff, But There's Still A Lot Left To Be Desired.

Rating: 7/10 (1 November 2014)

And so, here we are with "The Avengers". Back in the 1990's Marvel was filing for bankruptcy leading Stan "The Man" Lee, to sell the film rights to many of their characters. The only rights they have left is "The Avengers", and explains why they've had to dig into their more obscure past to turn other franchises into movie productions (Namely 2014's fantastic "Guardians of the Galaxy"). Still, I love the approach they took towards building their big team movie. By establishing this ensemble cast in their own features starting with "Iron Man" (2008), the following five years lead to a bunch of movies that have many highs and lows leading us all to this point. The results are a success, but also far from flawless.
Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), director of the peacekeeping organisation S.H.I.E.L.D., recruits Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), Captain America (Chris Evans), Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner), Black Widow (Scarlet Johansson), the Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) and Thor (Chris Hemsworth). To form a team that must stop Thor's brother Loki (Tom Hiddleston) from subjugating Earth, and a much larger looming threat.
Knowing that Joss Whedon was going to be writing and directing this, I could already see what directions this movie was going in. Whedon has a rare quirk in his writing that really allows characters to bounce off each other effortlessly, but the directing in some areas always feels stiff to me. I look back to his previous outings as a director, and could easily say that "The Avengers" have the exact same chemistry as the characters of Whedon's "Firefly". Still it feels like he has mastered the way he likes to approach his material, and there's enough to carry its lengthy 2 hour 20 minute running time.
Every actor does solid work, and the "culmination" of these characters from their respected features feels effortless. I want to give Mark Ruffalo and the FX crew particular praise for finally bringing out the Hulk's familiar traits that have felt absent for so long, but I also wish that the character had felt more uncontrollable like in its comic book counterpart (Where they trick him into fighting specific people). I also find myself very underwhelmed when using Loki as a villain. Tom Hiddleston is a fine performer and the role has garnered him hundreds of many fans, but by the third act he's rarely a threat anymore and even then the payoff feels like I said: "underwhelming". Saying that, many villains appear throughout the movie that are sure to please the die-hard fans, and promise that the situations will escalate in the inevitable future sequels.
Final Verdict: When all is said and done, the dialogue and chemistry works, the scenarios range from great to average and enough substance is here to promise more to come from Marvel's "Phase 2" of movies (And the upcoming sequel "Age of Ultron"). It's a Hollywood blockbuster for all ages, and a damn fine one at that. 7.5/10.