MOVIE REVIEW: The Avengers

The Avengers (2012)
Starring: Robert Downey Jnr, Samuel L. Jackson, Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner, Tom Hiddleston, Mark Ruffalo.
Director: Joss Whedon

For months and months now I have swooned over the idea of this movie. Since seeing Thor, I drooled over the thought of more Loki action and last week I kind of worried myself into thinking that maybe I was building it up too much and would walk out very dissappointed. In the back of my mind I figured I wouldn't care how bad it is, I can spend the whole time salivating over Thor, Captain America and my bad man, Loki.

Today, I saw The Avengers and walked out wanting to sit down for another 2 hours and watch it all over again. It was THAT good.

For those that don't know him, director Joss Whedon, is probably most notable for the tv series of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. One of the things I loved about the Buffy universe were the quick quips, the one liners and the way Joss seemed to make us feel for the characters. In The Avengers, he does it all over again without a vampire in sight!

If you haven't seen the pre-cursor movies, Thor, Iron Man, Iron Man 2, and Captain America, it's probably a good idea to go out and do so. The Avengers is set in the Marvel Universe and it brings all of these heroes together in two hours of pure fun. Getting all the same actors together just makes it even more magical in my opinion.

My one criticism would be not knowing enough about Hawkeye and Black Widow. Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) or Natasha Romanov as some know her, has an interesting story, but we have to guess at her past as we haven't really been properly introduced. We got a taste of her in Iron Man 2, but not enough to know her story. The same with Hawkeye. Agent Clint Barton (Jeremy Renner) was glimpsed for about a minute with his bow trained on Thor in the movie Thor, but it was a tiny cameo and again, we know nothing about him.

I also felt Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) was slightly under-used, but he still did a great job and I love his intensity. Check out this clip below.

I have never seen any of The Hulk movies so I'm  not sure that seeing those before this would make any difference at all, especially since Mark Ruffalo didn't play Bruce Banner in either of the movies available. Mark does a fantastic job as Bruce, the shy scientist with major anger issues. He works very well with the rest of the cast.

Nice to see a little less blonding creme in Chris Hemsworths eyebrows and I love how he comes to his brothers defence throughout the movie even though Loki is clearly hell bent on revenge.

Ahhhh Loki. Tom Hiddleston was absolutely brilliant. He was so menacing and so full of hatred for humanity and his evil grin was so great. I can't wait to see more of him in Thor 2. My husband wouldn't let me steal the cardboard cut out of him from the cinema's...spoilsport. :(

We stayed until the end of the credits because movies like this have a reputation for putting little surprise bits at the very end of the credits. This one had the all important surprise about 1 minute into the credits so stick around, just not until the very end. I have to mention though, this was one hell of a huge team of people that put this together. There are a lot of special effects which would have kept a lot of computer graphics businesses very busy for a long time and they seem to have named every single one of them!

I can't really say much more about this movie without giving it away. I asked my kids today what their favourite parts were and the 7 year old daughter said "the bit where Thor was standing in the meadow with all the flowers looking for his hammer and then all the lightning afterwards. It looked so pretty." And my 12 year old son, "When Loki gets bashed by The Hulk." Probably normal reactions from kids their age.

 

A long time ago, before we had kids, my husband and I were comic book nerds. The end of this movie really did make me wish I was one all over again.