Movie Review - "The Avengers" (2012) ****

     As I stated in my previous review, the one for Thor, I'm not the biggest comic book movie fan but as long as the acting and story are entertaining, I can go along for the ride. Well, I came along for The Avengers ride...and I had one helluva good time!! I'm not willing to put it above the Michael Keaton Batman films or The Dark Knight, but it's pretty close. The Avengers mixes great action, surprisingly good acting across the board, and a strong script that mixes in a lot of comedy, to form an ideal example of what a summer movie should be. It's one thing to be loud and special effects heavy, but if you don't care about the characters involved what good is the story and why is it worth watching? I'm looking at you Transformers. I feel too often during recent years that is what the summer movie season has turned into. And perhaps it will continue, I sort of dread thinking about what Battleship may be like, opening in just a couple of weeks. But for 2012, at least we are off to a strong start thanks to Joss Whedon, director and writer of The Avengers. Hopefully the trend will continue, I miss going to the movies in the summer.

     I don't know that a typical plot summary is a good idea this time around. First off, just as I stated in my Thor review, I personally don't understand a lot of the things I saw on screen. If I did, this would probably flirt with a 5-star rating. I don't completely understand things like the Tesseract, or the S.H.I.E.L.D. agency. I'm not knowledgeable of the background of most of these characters and there is dialogue in the movie that went straight over my head. But really all of that is of secondary importance. What's important is that Loki (Tom Hiddleston), the villain from Thor, has returned this time around with the help of an alien race called the Chitauri, and he plans to take over Earth in exchange for the Tesseract. Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), director of SHIELD, recognizes the global threat occuring and initiates the Avenger initiative, a uniting of several of the worlds top heroes. Iron Man/Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.), Capt. America/Steve Rogers (Chris Evans), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Hulk/Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) and Black Widow/Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johannson) are eventually joined by Hawkeye/Clint Barton (Jeremy Renner) to take on Loki and his minions and save the Earth from destruction. The group does not know how to function as a team in the early going and find themselves fighting with each other more often than the enemy, which is part of Loki's plan. But when Loki takes out a SHIELD agent who was close to the team, it unites the Avengers into a formidable fighting unit, leading to an ultimate showdown with Loki and the Chitauri.

     I believe the thing that shocked me the most about this movie is how each character is really given time to develop on screen. I give Joss Whedon a ton of credit for this because it would be very easy to focus on 2 or 3 of the Avengers and have the others, especially Hawkeye and Black Widow who have not received their own films (yet), pushed off to the side in secondary roles. But that's not the case here. While Downey's Iron Man seems to get maybe a hair more screen time than the others, it's not noticeable. I did not like the original Iron Man film, I thought it was not good at all. But I absolutely loved Downey here in the role and it makes me wonder if I need to go back and revisit that movie, especialy since I have the whole picture now. Downey is a whiz at the one-liners and he spouts them out non-stop here but it never gets old. You can definitely see Whedon's influence in the comedy. Downey shines but all of the other actors, especially the main roles, more than hold their own. I think I personally fell in love with Scarlett Johannson as Black Widow. I had to make myself close my mouth because I was drooling all over my popcorn. (You Scarlett, are beautiful!!) I'm a huge Jeremy Renner fan and once again he is strong here as Hawkeye, spending half the movie on the dark side before teaming up with his rightful group. Mark Ruffalo as The Hulk/Bruce Banner is casting genius. I can go on and on, but I like to keep these reviews to a certain length. In closing, The Avengers is a fantastic film, worthy of the money and success it has already obtained. I may not understand everything I saw, but it was sure fun experiencing it.