This was it. This was what it was all building toward. The Avengers was going to come out, and cinema would cease to exist because it would be so epic. Or it would fail spectacularly because it had too many characters and was going to be a bloated mess. Obviously, history tells us a different story in that there were even grander stories on the way that would include even more characters and world-changing events, but a cinematic event like this hadn’t happened before.

Pros

Tight dialogue, great direction, and solid acting do a lot to help make each character stand out
Decent pacing with the mystery of Loki’s intent keeps the plot moving
Action scenes are shot well to showcase each character’s abilities in the fight
Comedic moments that are not the cringeworthy quality that Marvel movies are known for these days
Hulk smash

Cons

Hawkeye’s hacking arrow is stupid
Alien invaders are too easily dispatched
A few visual effects do not hold up completely

Plot & Thoughts

Loki (Tom Hiddleston) has returned and stolen the Tesseract. He’s also used a magical scepter to brainwash people to follow him, including the talented Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner). Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) is trying to track down the Tesseract and figure out whatever plans Loki has, but he can’t do it with just his agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. He needs to assemble a new team with heroes to lead the way. Unfortunately, the team consists of individuals with large egos and conflicting goals. Captain America (Chris Evans) is struggling to lead the team as a person who has fallen out of the 1940s. Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) is a lone wolf who considers himself the smartest person in the room at all times and is too stubborn to cooperate. Thor (Chris Hemsworth) is a god who feels that the issues of the team are somewhat beneath him in comparison to those of an Asgardian. Meanwhile, Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) has tracked down Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo), who is constantly worried about letting the Hulk out and wants to be left alone, but his intellect is needed to help figure out what Loki intends to do with the Tesseract. The team of heroes must learn to work together to stop Loki’s schemes before the world is engulfed in an existential threat and destroyed.

I, like many others, was skeptical if this movie was going to work out when it was being released. I had seen almost all of the Marvel movies at that time, and I wondered if a movie of this scale could be pulled off. After all, each of these heroes (aside from Black Widow and Hawkeye) had been protagonists in their own movie with arcs specific to each character. How were they going to be able to have a superhero movie work with so many, many characters? Turns out, it did just fine and quickly established Marvel Studios as the new movie juggernaut. With Joss Whedon at the helm, The Avengers beautifully came together like a puzzle that had been scattered and assembled.

Whedon had plenty of experience with characters who experienced trauma and how they handle moments based on their emotions and professionalism with shows like Buffy: The Vampire Slayer and Firefly, and he brings his experience to The Avengers to make a compelling story with wildly different characters interacting with one another. He’s able to balance the drama with the comedy without compromising any of the characters in the process. The scene in which Black Widow is being interrogated is a great example of how the writing can completely turn the emotion of the scene immediately in a fun way. She seems like the one who is in trouble, being tied up and held over a deep pit, then she gets a phone call, and the scene becomes funny for a moment before bouncing back into seriousness. She complains that she is in the middle of a mission, and the idiots interrogating her are spilling secrets to her. It’s only after she’s told that Clint (Hawkeye), her best friend, has gone missing that she easily escapes the situation and leaves. It’s a good balance of fun and drama.

Likewise, my favorite scene goes in a tonally different direction for the same character, while still doing a back and forth of who is in control of the moment. The Avengers have captured Loki and are holding him captive when Black Widow goes to interrogate him. She starts out in control of the conversation before Loki takes charge and starts his villainous speech about how her mind-controlled best friend is going to rip out her heart, and Loki will only kill him after Clint has realized what he’s done. It’s a great moment because the direction gets the camera angles to make Loki seem large and intimidating, Hiddleston nails the lines with villainous intensity, Johansson genuinely looks shocked and terrified by his threats, and the music swells to make it seem like Loki has won the moment. That is, until Black Widow calmly gets up and leaves after acknowledging that she knows what “the play” is, demonstrating that she was still in interrogation mode even while she was being verbally assaulted. A small scene between her and Hawkeye later indicates that she was not completely unharmed by Loki’s threats, which only further enhances her character as a vulnerable human who is capable of incredible feats.

What made The Avengers so successful and paved the way for the MCU to become the biggest film franchise in the world was how it was able to take various established characters and put them together into a plot that showcased all their personalities and dynamics with one another with meaningful interactions that further built upon the world and the characters. For example, the fact that Steve Rogers worked closely with Tony Stark’s father in the previous film already creates an interesting dynamic. The fact that Howard Stark revered Steve Rogers makes it more interesting because Tony is an egotist who felt like he could never live up to his father’s expectations, which makes him slightly antagonistic towards Rogers for being something like a rival or the favorite sibling. The movie never overtly calls him Tony’s rival, but the acting and dialogue establish the complexity of this relationship early on. When they’re finally able to work together, which is the central theme of the movie, it’s a meaningful change in their relationship and establishes the Avengers as the powerhouse team capable of saving the world.

Obviously, this is still an action movie, and when the action is taking place, it’s a sight to behold. Most of the effects still hold up pretty well, even if the post-credits Thanos looks a little rubbery in comparison to his later rendition. The action involving Hulk looks much better than it did in The Incredible Hulk, with the first real instance in which we get to see some “Hulk Smash” destruction against the alien invaders. Still, I had issues with the action and the situations in how convenient certain things were. Hawkeye’s abilities and arrows, for instance, were a little too impressive for me to buy, as he was practically able to dismantle S.H.I.E.L.D.’s helicarrier defenses so deftly and single-handedly. I would have thought that Tony Stark would have struggled with such a feat for a little bit, but all he needed was an arrow that could expand into three separate computer ports, I guess. I also thought that it was a little too convenient that the aliens just stopped fighting when the portal was closed, because I guess they were all part robot and needed constant communication with their mothership to keep living. Nothing had been established that the creatures were not autonomous, but whatever, the movie needed to wrap up.

TL;DR

The Avengers was a proof of concept that Marvel needed to succeed, and it did. It was a big risk at the time, but it paid off substantially, creating the biggest film franchise for the next decade. Looking back on it years later, it still holds up exceptionally well with some great writing and direction, solid acting, consistent characters, and fun action set-pieces.

Dagon Dogs Posts