The Avengers

Rating: 9/10 (22 September 2013)

The Avengers delivers on being a great superhero movie with quality special effects and an entertaining plot while also making the audience laugh throughout the entire movie. The opening scene causes suspense with a very dark scene of Loki being given his scepter by his master. It also shows their creepy looking army and their goal of capturing the Tesseract, a cube of great power. The line of "What can the humans do but burn" foreshadows that they are going attack the humans. Loki uses his scepter and the power of the Tesseract to teleport from Asgard to Earth. He then steals the Tesseract from the humans. This causes the director of S.H.I.E.L.D., Nick Fury, to call together all of the world's superheroes. These heroes are Iron Man, the Hulk, Captain America, Hawkeye, Thor, and Black Widow and they try to stop Loki and his Chitauri army from taking over the world while also dealing with internal conflicts between heroes. The introduction of the Avengers is very well done because they show each one being recruited back into the Avengers. They do a great job of incorporating the backstories of each one by referencing their individual movies. The dialogue is used to explain each hero's background to the audience so it would appeal to everyone and not just hardcore comic and superhero fans. Flashbacks are used to explain some details of the past histories of the characters. Loki and Captain America both have flashbacks and Captain America's shows his past experience with the Tesserract. The special effects are used to make the sci-fi parts of the movie seem possible. The blue cube of the Tesseract is beautifully created with blue swirls inside of it. The transformation of Bruce Banner into the Hulk is very well done with him going mad and then slowly growing into the Hulk and the Hulk looks giant, ripped and very green when he is smashing everything. The futuristic looking ships and aircraft are made to look very complex by having very detailed electronic and mechanical parts and the helicarrier is a great example because it is an aircraft carrier that turns into a flying helicopter ship with four giant engines. The movie also includes plenty of comic relief. Phil Coulson is asking Captain America if he will sign his vintage collection of Captain America cards every time he sees him. There is a great moment when one of the workers on the helicarrier is playing galaga instead of working and Tony Stark calls him out for it. The constant references of modern things, like Stephen Hawking, made to Captain America are funny because he doesn't understand any of them. Some of the most memorable moments are comic relief moments with Captain America ordering Hulk to smash before the final battle and when Loki gives his little speech to the Hulk and then the Hulk picks him up and smashes him into the ground multiple times. The Avengers shows that superhero movies can also be funny.