Marvel’s THE AVENGERS Soars Past Expectations

On the heels of the longest teaser campaign in movie history, Marvel’s The Avengers has finally catapulted its way onto cinema screens.

The decisive verdict: in the succinct verbiage of Hulk, “SMASH!” 

Self-professed fanboy Joss Whedon was clearly the right writer/director geek for the job—not only in corralling (most of) the iconic members of Marvel’s superhero brigade, but in establishing an atmosphere of high fantasy that remains, miraculously, grounded in a recognizably realistic world.

My fears of a disconnect between the relative plausibility of Iron Man—a snarky billionaire weapons manufacturer clad in a flying metal suit—existing in the same realm as Thor—an intergalactic god from Asgard—were thankfully unfounded.

Whedon balances the disparate elements just right.

Which is not to say that portals to other dimensions and all-powerful gamma-ray energy cubes are the stuff of verisimilitude, but in Whedon’s hands, the thrilling fantastical components and the earthly moments of human gravitas comfortably coalesce.

An admitted comic-book novice, my familiarity with the individual players of The Avengers is based solely on their multiple solo movie adventures we’ve seen so far—The Incredible Hulk, Thor, Captain America and two Iron Man movies.

Each of these Marvel movies teases The Avengers, and the screenplay of Whedon’s long-anticipated assembly enhances each of the films—and their players’ backstories—enough to qualify as a logical sequel to them all.

But The Avengers is more than merely Captain America 2, Thor 2, Hulk 3 and Iron Man 3 all rolled up into one mammoth adventure.

It is that, unmistakably and unabashedly, but it’s also a Dirty Dozen-style commando flick that gets a lot of comic and dramatic mileage out of the reluctant team dynamic, with their clashing super-sized egos, their lethal personality quirks and their historical penchant for independence.

The enthusiastic cast is in fine form, most of whom gamely reprise their roles (the exception is newbie Mark Ruffalo, who steps in for Ed Norton as Bruce Banner/Hulk—and manages to steal quite a few of the movie’s many priceless crowd-pleasing moments).

Whedon wastes no time with laborious re-introductions, and an apocalyptic global menace is established early on: both Loki the villain and the mystical Tesseract—the otherworldly MacGuffin integral to his dastardly plot—were established last summer in both Thor and Captain America: The First Avenger. 

Hopefully you were paying attention, but even if the finer details of the previous Marvel movies elude you—or, Odin forbid, if you managed to evade them entirely—The Avengers stands firmly on its own merits.

Newcomers will get swept up in the story with little difficulty and devotees will relish the clever in-jokes and repeating gags.  The film’s 146 minutes zip by in a flash, carried along by snappily choreographed action set pieces, enriched by intriguing character development and funny banter, and propelled by sheer star power.

The special effects are stunning in their scope and execution (the 3-D enhancement is particularly immersive), and despite the non-stop bombast of the climactic showdown over Manhattan, the awesome CGI never upstages the characters. 

Without revealing any spoilers, there’s a tantalizing tease for a sequel (on which I’m already sold). And, yes, there’s another stay-past-the-end-credits stinger scene—and it’s priceless.