The Avengers

Rating: 9/10 (2 May 2012)

Starring Robert Downey Jr., Samuel L. Jackson, Mark Ruffalo, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner, Chris Hemsworth and Chris Evans. Directed by Joss Whedon. 140 minutes. Opens midnight Thursday at major theaters. PG Agent Phil Coulson will love The Avengers. You surely will, too, if you recognize his name. Officious but lovable S.H.I.E.L.D. sleuth Phil is one of many Marvel Comics minions Joss Whedon summons to his energizing superhero adventure, making this first blockbuster of summer 2012 something of a geek drill. It helps if you go to the film having already seen the two Iron Man movies, plus Thor, The Incredible Hulk and Captain America: The First Avenger, all released between 2008-11 and leading up to this ensemble nerdgasm. But you don't have to sport a propeller beanie to enjoy The Avengers, and this may be the highest possible praise for what director Whedon and his co-writer Zak Penn have wrought. They've cannily crafted a saga guaranteed to pass muster with the Comic- Con cognoscenti, without forsaking regular popcorn munchers who just hope to see the planet get saved with maximum firepower and a few laughs. Whether you love or merely like The Avengers, it will likely all come down to the performances and not the perfunctory plot or the on-the-fly back story. You don't need to know Agent Phil's connection to the Marvel multi verse to appreciate Clark Gregg's expanded and surprisingly emotive take on him here, as a combination of fusspot and fan boy. And past knowledge of two iffy Hulk movies isn't required to marvel at the nuances that newcomer Mark Ruffalo brings to the green-skinned beast, even though "the other guy" within mild-mannered Dr. Bruce Banner isn't revealed until the 80-minute mark of this 140-minute bladder test.
Also new to the team and the evolving Avengers narrative are Scarlett Johansson as Natasha Romanoff, a.k.a. Black Widow, a lethal gymnast who demonstrates early on that a chair makes a dandy weapon, and Jeremy Renner as special agent Clint Barton, a.k.a. Hawkeye, whose arrows aren't quite the Robin Hood anachronism they appear to be. Robert Downey Jr. returns in fine scathing form as billionaire playboy Tony Stark, a.k.a. Iron Man, the ferrous phenomenon who shields everything except his sharp tongue. It's pretty much business as usual, meanwhile, for the two most dislocated Avengers: Chris Hemsworth's Thor, a Norse god fallen from the heavens; and Chris Evans' Steve Rogers, a.k.a. Captain America, a Second World War super soldier still shaking off decades of deep freeze and culture shock. They've all been brought together by eye-patched persuader Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), the director of S.H.I.E.L.D., a global version of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. "It's sort of a team," Stark glibly says of the Avengers, and "sort of" is the operative phrase for much of the movie.