The Avengers FINALLY Assemble

Rating: 7/10 (16 May 2012)

"The Avengers", Rated "PG-13" for Adult Situations, Adult Language, Adult Humor, Mild Sexual Innuendo, Violence and Mild Gore. Running Time: 2hr&23mns.
My Take: *** (Out of ****) ---- On the IMDb Scale = 7/10
Over the last four years, movie-goers have known that The Avengers" was coming. It was inevitable. Since 2008, there have been "cookies" (short clips usually appearing after a film's closing credits) in certain Marvel Comics based movies. "Iron-Man" (2008), "The Incredible Hulk" (2008), "Iron-Man 2" (2010), "Thor" (2011) and "Captain America: The First Avenger" (2011). They served as the pre-cursors to this latest world-wide box-office phenomenon.
At the end of each movie, there was a cookie with Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), director and agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. (Strategic Hazard Intervention Espionage Logistics Directorate), who would eventually recruit these Marvel icons into the superhero team known simply as "The Avengers." This was truly a unique marketing strategy. It was essentially an ongoing "in-house" ad campaign and now it has finally paid off.
Presently, "The Avengers" has grossed over $381 million domestically and over $627 million overseas. Its total worldwide box-office take is over $1 billion and climbing. It is presently the 11th highest grossing film of all time. This is an astonishing feat and there is no end in sight.
"The Avengers" opens with the global threat posed by the rotten scoundrel Loki (Tom Hiddleston), a god-like being from the distant Ansgard at the other side of the universe. Loki plans to unleash his warmongering monster minions to storm planet Earth and enslave the human race. Loki seeks to use the tesseract, which is essentially a weapon of mass destruction of insurmountable power, to aid in his quest for global dominance.
S.H.I.E.L.D. Special Agent Nick Fury is not down with this. Neither is Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.), a.k.a. Iron-Man, the brilliant billionaire philanthropist in a high-tech super-suit of epic proportions; Natasha Romanoff/"The Black Widow" (Scarlett Johansson), an unparalleled martial arts expert; Steve Rogers/"Captain America" (Chris Evans), a genetically engineered super-soldier; Clint Barton/"Hawkeye" (Jeremy Renner) a hand-to-hand combat master; Thor (Chris Hemsworth), the god-like being, who is Loki's brother; and the elusive Dr. Bruce Banner/"The Incredible Hulk" (Mark Ruffalo), a scientist with a powerful alter-ego of, well, "incredible" size, strength and endurance.
There are several characters in this movie who demand their own signature moments of screen-time and individual back-stories (which were primarily covered in the other Marvel pictures). All these elements must tie into the crisis at hand with a neat little bow on top of it all. Also vying for screen-time is the flying fortress of S.H.I.E.L.D., an elaborate flying aircraft carrier. I've never seen anything quite like it before in the movies. Points awarded for originality and making me go "hmm" as I watched our heroes venture into action on that aerial "marvel." Fans will probably gobble "The Avengers" up with repeat viewings, strong word of mouth and what will likely be high volume DVD and Blu-ray sales. For them, the movie showcases in spades these superheroes uniting together in the same superhero film. Each superhero looks great and they certainly deliver the goods in terms of characterizations, use of super-powers and super-strength as they battle dark forces side-by-side.
"The Avengers" is a very busy film. This film really is a superhero smorgasbord. It's ambitious in its approach as a piece of pop culture cinema. How the film manages to balance all of its multiple components is a strong suit. A movie like this could have felt like an enormous hodgepodge collage. To the film's credit, all the pieces fit together rather nicely. Sure, there are some loose ends that go in different directions. That's okay. The pendulums are set in motion for other story arcs in subsequent movies to follow. "The Avengers" accomplishes this without becoming an incoherent mess. If filmgoers haven't seen the other films, and if they don't plan to see an Avengers' spin-off to see what else happens, that is fine. This picture is relatively self-contained. How many other films of this magnitude can pull that off? While I enjoyed it, I did feel this movie could not be more than what it is. From my perspective, it meets only the checkpoints. Here's what I mean: Do we see our Marvel heroes together? Yes. Do they bicker and fight each other at first? Yes. Do they overcome their sub-cultural differences to work in tandem against the Loki/WMD/alien invasion threat? Yes. Are there a few good jokes and a Stan Lee (the founder of Marvel Comics and co-creator of many of its characters) cameo thrown in for good measure? Well, funny you should ask . . .
This film adaption of "The Avengers" was directed by Joss Whedon, who is well-known in fantasy-television circles as the driving force behind "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" (1997-2003), "Angel" (1999-2004), "Firefly" (2002) and "Dollhouse" (2009-2010). Given his track record and reverence for the fantasy genre, he was a natural choice to head this film. Why he had not broken into big-screen comic book film adaptions earlier is hard to say. Though, a few years back, he did try to bring DC Comics' "Wonder Woman" to the screen in a failed attempt. He is clearly a story-teller who knows how to get his audience dialed-in and he gives them exactly what they want.
Though likable, I personally found "The Avengers" merely satisfying and nothing more. I know there are people who absolutely loved this film, while I only liked it at arms length. Perhaps that's due to my own tastes and sensibilities. Again, I felt this film only met checkpoints and it didn't do anything to exceed that. That's okay. This film will still be treasured by its fans, and I still managed to have fun with it too.