TIGAER-DESIGN.COM_.v5 – Digital Art by Christian Hecker

Comic fans around the world, for a long time thought, that a movie like this one would be impossible. And their concern is quite understandable. Marvel, for the past 5 or 6 years, slowly built up momentum for this movie. They did it with small little scenes in all the superhero movies. Most famous one probably the one after the credits in the first Iron Man movie. Where we get to see a Nick Fury character for the first time. Since then we had similar scenes in Hulk 2, Thor and Captain America.

Especially in Thor and Captain America we finally really knew where it all is heading. The Avengers movie. All of the movies were quite successful and managed it to appeal to a wide audience. Some more… some less. But altogether, quite a lot. So the inevitable, almost impossible had to happen! All of these heroes in oooone big show! I, honestly, had no big hopes. And I didn’t care too much too. I’m not a big comics guy. Even though I enjoy the movies they made. ‘Doubt’ was written all over that Avengers movie.

The name ‘Joss Whedon’ spawned hope though. Some say he’s one of the most overrated guys ever. Others think he is a god amongst men. He’s the guy that brought us Buffy – The Vampire Slayer, Angel and one beautiful season of Firefly. Somehow he knows how to create characters that work great together. His way of writing is able to create a very good chemistry between characters. The one point that spoke against Whedon was the fact that he never directed a really really big movie. Until now. Everyone had a good right to be sceptical. So ultimately Joss Whedon was a perfect and very risky choice.

And well, what’s to say? Joss Whedon literally must be a god amongst men. He managed to get that impossible project right. And he did it all, ALL, right. The Avengers is certainly the best comic movie out there. Right next to The Dark Knight. One thing The Avengers do different though, is the humour. That’s the one component that really makes The Avengers shine. These well dosed moments of refreshing humour. Sometimes very unexpected humour. Perfectly timed. Mixed with action that was quite amazing too. Well… all around great experience.

The actual story of the movie requires a little backstory from the Captain America and Thor movies. But it’s not entirely crucial to know these things. All characters get introduced properly. So that even newbies understand who is who. Ultimately it’s about a bad guy, Thors half-brother Loki (Tom Hiddleston), who wants to conquer Earth. But he needs a mystical energy source that was discovered in the Captain America movie. Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) and his buddies from the ‘Shield’ initiative try to fight that. But they alone surely aren’t enough. That’s why they try to recruit guys like Tony Stark/Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), Captain America (Chris Evans) and Bruce Banner/Hulk (Mark Ruffalo). Of course all these characters start out with problems. Especially when Thor (Chris Hemsworth) joins. That’s nice to watch because it also reveals all the little character moments. All of them have their strenghts and weaknesses. And the movie does it right to bring it all into the spotlight. It also gets it right, letting all the characters shine when they work together. Of course they understand, they have to work together, to beat the bad guys.

Loki’s motivation is of course revenge on Thor (for happenings in the Thor movie). Loki wants to attack Earth because Thor gave an oath to protect the planet on all costs. So the best way to hurt Thor would be to attack the beloved thing he tries to protect. So Loki formes an alliance with some evil alien race (that is not further introduced in the movie… possible hint to a second Avengers movie), to lead their army through a gate to Earth. And Loki manages it to open that gate. It’s nice to watch how Loki is following/unfolding his plan. And I admit… I like Loki. It’s a great character and Tom Hiddleston surely gets it perfectly right. Now all the superheroes forged an alliance to cross Loki’s plan.

The movie does a remarkable job, giving all these strong characters all the demanded screen time, all of them really deserve. And because of the fact all the characters are so distinctively different, it’s very easy to set them apart from another. Each one of them has a certain skill and look. Easy to recognize. Which leads to the action sequences. These are done so flawlessly fluid that all the Transformers movies could take a lesson from that. No shaky cam, no lightspeed cutting. All scenes are well choreographed and easy to read. A pleasure. Which leads me to the 3d. The 3d in the movie was really good. A seldom case where I enjoyed the effect. Even though I must admit, that it only works when you look at the screen areas the movie demands you to look at. So it’s hard to study elements of the pictures, other than the intended focussed spots. Nonetheless… the 3d worked fine. They used the right cameras to film it.

The VFX, once again, pretty much flawless. It’s always amazing to see how well they can integrate the live action footage into the cg. Only the Hulk still looks a little too CG. Nonethelss, fun to watch. Again it’s amazing how seamlessly they are now able to blend it all together. Especially in the final big fight in the city.

Pretty much everyone expected a catastrophe of a movie. I had no big expectations too. But they made it right. They did the impossible. Joss Whedon certainly plays a big role in that. But it’s surely not him alone. I guess everything fell into the right hands and places.

Oh and I still like the Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) character a lot. This short scene of her with Tony Stark is so fun to watch. Great chemistry between the two. But also in general… the chemistry between all the actors in this movie works so great. Another remarkable achievement that lead to an almost perfect movie.

So yeah… great movie… perfect entertainment. Go check it out! The first big one 2012.

8.5/10

Marvel’s The Avengers on IMDb

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 15th, 2012 at 10:12 and is filed under Movie Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.