93% Marvel's The Avengers

The Avengers is one of the wittiest, action packed and most satisfying installments in the entire Superhero genre. BUT it will not convert anyone with an aversion of big budget super hero movies to the dark side, it has all the elements you hate. But these elements, pulled off by ringmaster Joss Weedon has never been so well deftly executed.The movie succeeds for these three reasons, in this order: A) Performances: Starting with established beloved Iron Man character made iconic by Robert Downey Jr., and aptly giving him a dominant amount of screen time. Then, finally finding a successful Hulk/Bruce Banner in low key and wistful Mark Ruffalo - after 2 weaker Hulk outings (Eric Bana, Edward Norton). Then, casting a charismatic and hateful villain, Loki from Thor, played by Tom Hiddleston. Everyone else, from Samuel Jackson as Nick Fury, Scarlet Johannsen as Black Widow, Chris Hemsworth as Thor and Chris Evans as Captain America are fine, but more than that, they all have something to play as characters and fit into an intricate story, bringing me to:B) Writing: With so many main characters, the bane of such films is that several of them are just meat puppets and are given little to do but wear the uniform and look cool. Here, each and every Avenger has a character with an clear obstacle to play and interesting conflict with each other. The wit is fresh and full of fantastic and natual sounding quips and gags. C) Terrific action sequences: The action sequences are coherent and exciting, I particuarly enjoyed the Johannsen ass kicking scenes. In most recent action films, including Hunger Games, action scenes are incoherent sequences full of jump cuts. The excitement is purely rhythmic, but the action is full of bad continuity and nonsense. Here, if you care about such things, you will find state of the art logical and well staged action, shot in the traditional style.On the down side: A) The overarching plot of Thor's brother Loki trying to destroy earth just because he can, is not interesting. Nor are the armies of robotic silver surfers that descend from heaven to wreak havoc. (Loki's performance is great, though) As an excuse to get these heroes together, this seems lame, the least inspired choice made by Weedon. The film is so strong in every other areas that it doesn't ruin the film. The tension between him and his brother Thor is a good character element, though. B) The locations are not very imaginative. The whole film is confined to the familiar areas of Manhattan, which seems uninspired to me.C) 3D adds nothing, as usual, it won't matter on the video release. I'm not sure if this one was short in 3D, or bumped up from 2D. It looked like the latter. This is disappointing, considering the strength of every other aspect of this movie.This film is worth your money and every buttered calorie of the popcorn you will be crunching. (If you like this sort of thing.)

June 2, 2012

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