The Incredible Hulk 2: Hulk Smashes Again!

Rating: 10/10 (8 May 2012)

I'm a comic book nerd. I grew up on Spiderman, X-Men, and anything and everything Stan Lee and Jack Kirby helped produce. I had seen every tie-in movie, in theaters, as soon as I had a chance. I remember watching Iron Man and everyone had told me to stay after the credits because there was a huge surprise waiting for me at the end. So began the most painful 4 years of my life.
In the 1960's, comic books were fun excursions into a world where magic, science, and wonder all coexisted. It was a world where it would be perfectly normal if a giant dragon, a man with the abilities of a spider, and a god straight out of Norse mythology all got into a fight to the death. I know a lot of people are going to disagree with me so I'm just going to go ahead and get to my point. The Avengers is the greatest superhero movie of all time.
"But what about The Dark Knight?" you may ask. The Dark Knight was a fantastic film in it's own regard, but that sense of wonder and mystery was replaced by realism and fear. Which is OK because you don't go to a batman movie expecting him to fight against a large supernatural force. But for me, the wonder and fantasy is what really defines a superhero story, whether it's a comic or a movie.
Anyway, The Avengers were assembled perfectly. This is truly a benchmark in the movie industry; successfully combining the universes of four different movies into one; creating the grandest spectacle i have ever seen on screen. If you haven't yet, I recommend seeing all the tie-in movies before seeing The Avengers, if not for the sake that they are all great movies by themselves then for the fact that The Avengers will be a lot more enjoyable if you are already familiar with the characters.
Joss Whedon has done a remarkable job of taking each of these characters, already having such strong personalities, and making them interact with each other. For me, the beauty of this movie wasn't the action scenes, it was the interactions between the characters. Whedon really understands these heroes.
And speaking of action scenes, let's talk about how AWESOME the action scenes were. I was afraid that the trailer had already shown all the great moments in the film but, thankfully, I was wrong. I was really wrong. There is a plethora of fights in this movie, both between the heroes and the villains, and between the heroes themselves. And every hero gets their moments in the limelight. Even Black Widow and Hawkeye, who I was worried might bog down the fights, were just as much of a part of the team as Thor and Iron Man were. But, let's be honest here, this is the Hulk's movie. Hulk had disappointed me in most of his previous movie outings, but not this time. Joss Whedon finally got the character right. You can see the fear behind Banner's eyes, the sense of hopelessness in his voice. He really is cursed, but must learn to use his curse for the greater good. And when he finally does change into the Hulk, Hulk smashes. Hulk smashes a lot.
The Avengers can't be passed over as a marketing scheme. It deserves every cent that it reeled in from it's opening weekend. This isn't just a great superhero movie, it's one of the greatest movies I have had the pleasure of seeing.