A multi-starrer of action heroes!

Rating: 8/10 (30 April 2012)

Following the success of 'Iron Man' (2008) Marvel Comics came up with the idea of putting all superheroes together in 'The Avengers'. A sequel to 'Iron Man' and films like 'Thor' also played their part in building excitement in the run up to the film's release.
Its biggest star, Robert Downey Jr reprises his role as Tony Stark/ Iron-Man and has Scarlett Johansson as Natalia Romanoff/ Black Widow who had a role in Iron Man 2 for company. There's Gwyneth Paltrow in a brief role as Pepper Potts.
Also from the Marvel Universe, there's Chris Hemsworth as Thor, Tom Hiddleston as his brother the villain Loki, Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury, director of SHIELD. Chris Evans as Steve Rogers / Captain America, Mark Ruffalo as Dr. Bruce Banner / Hulk and Jeremy Renner as Clint Barton / Hawkeye are the other first billed actors.
The story starts at a secret facility where scientists are researching on an unknown energy source, the 'Tesseract'. Then, things go awry and a portal is opened up allowing Norse God Loki to come through. And evil Loki plans to use the power source, team up with an alien race called the Chitauri and subjugate Earth!
With the world on the verge of falling apart, Nick Fury can only rely on his superheroes to save the world. But, getting these larger than life characters with massive egos to work together proves to be tougher than it seems. The rest of the story plays on the Good vs. Bad theme replete with action, stunts and cool gadgets.
The film's selling point is not its theme, but the way they go about telling the story. For one, it doesn't have heroes coming together spontaneously, making speeches about good and bad and then going all out battling the bad guy. Here, they are shown to have their own issues, and obviously issues with one another.
The altercation between characters gives us some really nice one-liners. One of my favorites was when Captain America asks Tony Stark/ Iron-man 'Big man, in a suit of armor, take that away, what are you?' to which Stark responds 'Uh, genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist' with his usual arrogance.
'The Avengers' is also a visual treat. Filmed on digital media, it was converted to 3D in post production and was digitally remastered to IMAX format. The special effects are state of the art and offer edge of the seat action. Although I watched it on a regular screen with 3D, it would definitely be worthwhile on IMAX.
Since it is based on a comic-book theme and Superhero theme, there are those who may choose to skip on the pretext that comics are just for kids. Ah, get over this idea and let 'The Avengers' overwhelm you with its action and fantasy!