Movie Review: The Avengers

It all started with the film Iron Man, Marvel Studio’s set the map for the eventual team up film based on the comics. From there we had a second Iron Man, Thor, Hulk and Captain America films. Each were pretty good but really have all been created for this film. Well I can say very easily that this project is a success. This film has changed everything. Comic book movies will never be the same again. This is all thanks to writer and director Joss Whedon, who mixed comedy with action and has made a film that is frankly rather epic.

The plot is Loki(Villain from Thor) has connected with an alien race. They make a deal. If Loki can open a gateway to Earth through the use of an energy cube, they can dominate the universe, Loki will get to rule the Earth. SHIELD, a secret agency with the goal of defending mankind from super powered jerks, sets up a plan to team Super Heroes together to defend the planet. Nick Fury(Samuel L. Jackson) leads SHIELD and bring in several agents like Black Widow(Scarlett Johannson) and Hawkeye(Jeremy Renner) to bring in other heroes. Captain America(Chris Evans) is held up after the events of his own film. Iron Man(Robert Downey Jr.) is busy building his empire. Dr. Bruce Banner/Hulk(Mark Ruffalo) is hiding out to try and avoid hurting anyone.

What is hard to explain about this film is that the balance is perfect. Every actor and character gets their own good amount of screen time. Ego’s clash, heroes fight, while the villain sits back and enjoys the show. I would suggest seeing this film twice simply to listen to the funny dialogue the characters throw at each other.

A stand out here is Mark Ruffalo, his first swing at playing Banner really gives this film balance. All the other heroes pretty much enjoy their abilities. Banner does not. He essentially hates himself and Ruffalo does a fantastic job at bringing this across. Chris Evans also impressed me, a lot of it was the script, but as a fan of the character he is Captain America in my eyes.

Not surprising the strongest part of the film is the third act. When the alien invasion starts and the Avengers must team together and fight, it’s one of the most impressive action sequences to ever go on screen. The details and time that was put into this film is staggering. You’ll be jumping in your seat, you’ll cheer, you’ll shake your head and chuckle and then say: “No way!” or “awesome!”.

The only nitpicks here are some cardboard acting by some SHIELD agents and a score that can be forgotten instantly. These are so minor though I probably shouldn’t have brought them up. The film is the best comic book film to date simply because it has everything. Loki(Tom Hiddleston) eats up his scenes and is such a strong villain here. You won’t be able to help smile when he faces off with his brother Thor or tries to take down Captain America.

Do yourself a favor and see this movie on the big screen…

Rating: 10/10

Movie Review: Captain America: The First Avenger

We have a lot of super hero movies these days, I love them, sure some have serious problems(Fantastic Four, Ghost Rider, X-men 3, The upcoming The Amazing Spider-man). Most problems when it comes to these films is them changing too much and basically ruining what made the comics great. Well you don’t have to worry at all about that when it comes to Captain America. This film in my opinion is closest actual comic book movie. The Dark Knight was a classic, but Nolan changed a lot of the Batman world to make “realistic”. Captain America has made a beautiful balance of real and comic. Never really blinking when it comes to the story lines from the comic. Director Joe Johnston was frankly a perfect fit for this movie, just watch the Rocketeer and you can see he has an eye for making great period set films.

The movie is about a super thin, super tiny man named Steve Rogers watches as men sign up and go abroad to fight the war against the Nazi’s. He tries over and over to enlist and continues to get rejected. That all changes when he runs into a German scientist working for the American military who has “super soldier” experiment. Rogers goes through bootcamp and survives through being smart and frankly being brave. The film also makes it clear that Rogers is all about fighting for what is right, not about killing people, it’s about as he puts it “standing up to bullies”. He meets a beautiful British agent, played by the very impressive Haley Atwell and of course falls for her, yet somehow it works well because both her and Chris Evans are so charming you in a way fall for both of them. After basically proving himself Rogers is green lit for the super soldier program, it’s a success, his tiny body becomes huge and muscle bound(very impressive Chris Evans, this scene alone won over every female audience member). Sadly a bad guy blows up the lab and of course wiping out any possibility of duplicating the process. Rogers is the only super soldier alive, sort of, our villain Red Skull, played amazingly by Hugo Weaving was the first subject of the project, it didn’t exactly work perfectly.

The real story of the film is Rogers dealing with the fact that he essentially becomes a joke. He puts the costume on at first to sell war bonds. Going city to city with beautiful dancers. Captain America stars in films, on stage he punches Hitler in the face. Yet when he shows up to cheer up the troops he is made fun of, of course Rogers decides to go on a deadly mission, thus proving himself to the troops. Instead of selling war bonds he puts the costume on to rally the troops as the threat increases.

The threat being a group called Hydra, ran by a brilliant lunatic Red Skull. They were Nazi deep science division until they turned against them. Hydra’s goal isn’t winning WW2 but it’s to destroy the world so they can rebuild it. What I love about this is this is a comic book villain and a comic book threat. They didn’t dial it down or anything they went all out and it worked. Red Skull is very iconic villain and they played it right in every way possible.

The real great thing about this film is how well it sets up the next Avengers film. We have Tony Stark’s(Iron Man) dad as a character in the film. The ending also leads us some what towards an understanding of how and why Captain America becomes a part of the Avengers.

If there are any problems in this film, it’s that Captain America’s team, the Howling Commando’s just don’t get a lot of screen time. Bucky sort of does but frankly I wish there was a trilogy of Captain America films set in WW2, guess there is a chance that could still happen but probably not. It seems like Captain America will be stuck in the 21st Century for a little while.

Rating :9/10