Directed by: Joss Whedon
Starring: Robert Downey Jr., Mark Ruffalo, Tom Hiddleston, Scarlett Johansson, Samuel L. Jackson
Rated: R
143 minutes
Mark Ruffalo stars in “The Avengers.” (Courtesy photo)
Well, the good news is that the summer lineup of action movies has gotten off to a good start this year. The bad news is that it’s probably all downhill from here.
I can only describe Joss Whedon’s “The Avengers” as a big movie, an enormous movie, a spare-no-expense-and-hold-no-punches gigantic movie. The common convention in Hollywood is that there’s no such thing as a movie that’s too big, and it’s movies like “The Avengers” that confirm that sentiment.
While working on experiments on an otherworldly cube of energy called the Tesseract, the secret military organization SHIELD gets robbed by none other than Loki (Tom Hiddleston, “War Horse”), a demigod-supervillain from Asgard (the same realm Thor comes from). SHIELD frantically assembles a team of superheroes and assassins to retrieve the Tesseract and defeat Loki. The team, known as the Avengers, includes, among others, the egotistical Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr., reprising the role again), the quick-thinking Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson, “Lost in Translation”), and the volatile Bruce Banner, a.k.a. the Incredible Hulk (Mark Ruffalo, “The Kids Are All Right”).
Robert Downey Jr. (Courtesy photo)
Loki’s plot for total world domination begins with various attempts to create discord among the Avengers. He succeeds, toying with them maliciously. Even when the Avengers capture Loki and hold him in a containment cell, he still has power over them mentally. It’s not clear what he’s aiming at specifically, but it seems to involve Dr. Banner…
When things inevitably go awry, Loki takes off toward New York, where he has waiting for him a trigger that will open up a giant portal to Asgard. In doing so, he unleashes a full-blown attack by an Asgardian army upon the human race, starting in midtown Manhattan. And so, it’s up to the Avengers to get their act together, close the portal, and defeat Loki.
Goodness gracious.
It’s an ambitious story, to say the least. Luckily, Joss Whedon, the man behind TV shows like “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” “Firefly,” and “Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog,” as well as the recent hit movie “The Cabin in the Woods,” is more than ambitious enough and clever enough to make a movie like “The Avengers” work. There’s a complexity to the script that makes this more than just a pretty-people-blow-things-up movie (although it is certainly filled with pretty people making things blow up in aesthetically pleasing ways). Even if it still isn’t a sophisticated script, it accomplishes what it needs to and, perhaps more importantly, gives every character a distinct voice.
Scarlott Johansson. (Courtesy photo)
Led by Downey, the all-star cast carries the movie like a real team, with no real main character to speak of. I say “led by Downey” merely because his Tony Stark/Iron Man is the most narcissistic of the characters, but this movie is just as much his as it is Scarlett Johansson’s, or Chris Hemsworth’s (“Thor”), or Samuel L. Jackson’s (“Pulp Fiction”), or anyone else’s in this unbelievably impressive cast. The cast is an accomplishment in and of itself; among them, there are five former Oscar nominees.
Not that that necessarily translates to stellar performances here. It’s true, “The Avengers” might not have some of the best acting the world has ever seen, but at the same time, nobody in this movie is bad. The highlights are Johansson, whose Black Widow is a hardened assassin with a troubled past that very nearly cracks her, and Ruffalo, who struggles to contain himself, putting on what is clearly a façade of contentment until he can’t take it anymore. Downey’s Iron Man is entertaining as always, but in the same easy, effortless way that Johnny Depp’s Jack Sparrow entertains us in “Pirates of the Caribbean.”
Samuel L. Jackson. (Courtesy photo)
The main message to take away from “The Avengers” is that we shouldn’t worry about action movies losing quality as we get into an age of dominant special effects. Or, at least, I’ve worried that things like clever writing and coherent storylines might get lost in favor of making explosions look cooler – and it’s true, there might be a lot of schlock to sift through. But there will always be someone who knows how to do these movies right. And if that means we’ll get something as big as “The Avengers” every few years…
Goodness gracious.
Danny Eisenberg is a 2010 graduate of the Bromfield School and is currently a student at the University of Pennsylvania.
