After waiting for quite some time, it was finally time to assemble! “Avengers”, the first movie combining a bunch of Marvel’s biggest super heroes into one was finally released (for once I won’t complain about German release dates because we actually get to see it a whole week earlier than in the USA). I love well made action movies and after last years extremely high quality output of “X-Men: First Class”, “Thor” & “Captain America” my expectations were rather high, going into this movie and to use one more marvel-term: it totally SMASHED my expectations. It was funny – actually I can’t remember laughing so hard in a movie since watching “Hangover”. The action was splendid but I wouldn’t have expected anything less from Joss Whedon and you didn’t have the feeling that any of the many characters should have gotten more screen time – it was all very well-balanced. I am currently contemplating how many more times I can watch this movie before turning into a total geek but anybody who has seen it knows, that for the Hulk alone it is worth the ticket price!
If you have seen previous Marvel movies like “Iron Man” or “Thor” you are vaguely aware of this super-secret law-enforcement government department S.H.I.E.L.D. led by Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson). Fury has been working on this Avengers-initiative which means combining a bunch of super heroes into one team in order to protect the world. With the return of Loki (Tom Hiddleston reprising his amazing performance from “Thor”) who threatens the world, Fury finally has a reason to put this initiative into place but he didn’t expect the reluctance of those super heroes working together. Of course Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) proved before that he doesn’t play well with others and he clashes with out-of-time Captain America (Chris Evans). Thor not only doesn’t want to belong to any earth-bound government, he also has this little family issue with Loki being his beloved brother but he finds a good sparring partner in the Hulk – or rather “The other guy” as Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) calls his alter ego. Finally you have super spies Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) and Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) who have issues of their own that Loki gleefully explores and uses for his own super-plan.
Yes this movie is full of superlatives and for some it might come as a surprise that the best part is that it doesn’t take itself very seriously. There are so many slapstick moments that for those alone it is worth rewatching it. Like when Tony Stark (ie. Iron Man) refers to a fight with Loki as reindeer games or both Thor and Cap are at a loss for words, when Stark and Banner discuss some nuclear physics regarding gamma radiation you just have to laugh out loud. But the best jokes belong to the Hulk and I won’t go into spoiling any of them here – you HAVE to watch it! And while the Hulk gets the coolest moments, the coolest lines are shared between Iron Man and Agent Coulson.
With more than 140min running time it might seem long but because Whedon tries to give every character some room for development and eventually shining it seems quite alright. Also there is a great balance between banter, action and rather earnest discussions about saving the world and so on. Contrary to what the trailer wanted me to believe, Samuel L. Jackson for once is actually really cool, rather than just pretending to be cool (unconvincingly) in so many movies before. Really all the actors are able to show their range and it really seems like they had a lot of fun while shooting the movie. And yes it has been said before and I don’t care if I just repeat it – Joss Whedon really knows how to let women stand their men in action flicks. Of course most of the heroes are strong men (and I like that) but I really appreciated to give the girls more to do than just look pretty or being the ones that need saving. It is actually the Black Widow that saves Hawkeye and later on much more and it is Agent Hill (Cobie Smulders or Robin from HIMYM) that is in command when Nick Fury has meeting to attend to.
So if you want to watch a really good movie, that makes you giggle like a little child and warms you up from the inside, just because it is done with so much love from everybody involved – go and watch “Avengers”!
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