One of The Best Comic Book Movies Ever!

Rating: 9/10 (28 April 2012)

A culmination of several movie franchises, THE AVENGERS certainly delivers. There could have been many ways that the studios could have screwed this movie up but they chose the right director: Joss Whedon (former helmer of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Firefly on TV as well as an actual comic book writer for Marvel Comics). Whedon knows his stuff and he creates what is probably the most compatible comic book movie ever; the whole film reads as if it was an actual Marvel comic book!
Whedon subtly melds the disparate elements from multiple other comic book movies and effortlessly creates an epic storyline that makes sense. The tesseract (known to comic fans as the cosmic cube) that was the focal plot point of CAPTAIN America: THE FIRST AVENGER (2011) has been recovered and being studied closely by the government when Loki (Tom Hiddleston), the villain of the previous THOR (2011) movie appears and takes control of it. In response, Col. Nick Fury (Samuel L Jackson, in his usual badass self) decides to form a small but lethal response team: Iron Man, Captain America, Hulk, Black Widow, Hawkeye and Thor. If they can get along and work together then they might have a chance to save the world.
Being the top billed character because of box-office receipts, Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) gets the best lines and almost steals the entire show. His wisecracks upends the traditional leader of the Avengers, Captain America (Chris Evans, playing the straight man to everyone else) and puts the latter character in a disadvantage- the movie's lone weakness is that Cap doesn't get to do much other than act as a foil to the larger than life Tony Stark. Thor (Chris Helmsworth) does shine in the few scenes in which he is at front and center while both Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) and Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) give much needed humanity since they are the only members of the team that don't have superpowers. But the one character that makes the most impact of his limited screen time is Mark Ruffalo, who plays the volatile Hulk- Ruffalo plays Bruce Banner as a smoldering Stanley Kowalski, always seemingly in control yet has a temper like nitroglycerine- his Banner is different from the brooding Eric Bana of 2003's HULK or the timid Edward Norton of THE INCREDIBLE HULK (2008); you don't get to see much of Ruffalo compared to the others but his character is the most intriguing of all. Hiddleston is adequate as the pouty, scheming Loki but you can't help but believe that he is simply outgunned with all these powerhouses surrounding him.
The movie is almost perfect but does fail to take chances with their characters. Evan's Captain America is a direct copy from the mainstream comic book but you wished he might have been given more of an edge, like the Ultimate Marvel incarnation of Captain America: a slightly racist do-gooder who prefers to smash heads when someone doesn't measure up to his 1930's morality. If only the movie had been longer there might have been more insight into his character but with this film running over 2 ½ hours it might have been a systematic one.
In the end though, there is something for everyone in this movie, from the constant action scenes to the quiet ones that add humanity to what would otherwise be cardboard clichés. Highly recommended!