Movie Review: THE AVENGERS will assemble and they will amass large profits for Marvel/Disney

The masses will assemble. Hands down, the movie of the summer will be Marvel’s THE AVENGERS. The promotion has been absolutely bananas and the anticipation for this superhero flick coupled with the hype will have it breaking records come May 4th.

At its core, this is a summer movie. There’s explosions, and fighting, and shooting. But THE AVENGERS is more than just a summer movie. There’s a good balance between the action, the dialogue, and the humor almost to the point where it feels formulaic in its well-crafted balance.

There’s a lot riding on this film for Marvel as they plant the flag in Disney’s turf, establishing a franchise that will have legs to carry it well into the future. The appeal of these characters and their intertwined stories will almost guarantee more movies for the group of superheroes.



In typical Joss Whedon fashion, the story has great laughs at exactly the right places. The humor here is smart and on point. Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) returns with his usual brand of bad-assery, smart-assery, and general kick-assery much to the chagrin of traditional Captain America (Chris Evans.)

The most intriguing character in the film is perhaps Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) who we meet early in the film. She establishes a femme fatale that you want to see on screen at all times; a surprising feat considering that my general opinion on the character before watching the film was that she was merely the token hot chick. As one of the two Avengers to not yet have a feature film, hers is one that I definitely want to see come to life.



The other character to not yet have a big stand-alone film is Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) whose superhero status is downsized in this film to the point of him being more of a special agent for the SHIELD group.

Mark Ruffalo’s HULK has some great humorous moments in his smashy smashy green mode but as Bruce Banner I found him un-interestingly sulky and dull. Thankfully (or perhaps to blame) he seems to have the least amount of screen-time and importance in the story.

That leaves us with Chris Hemsworth’s THOR who did not quite compel me watch the stand-alone film. What’s important with Thor, however, is that his brother Loki (Tom Hiddleston) is the key character here as he is the film’s villain; hell-bent on enslaving the human race.



With Loki on the loose, we find Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) at the beginning of the film working his hardest to assemble the Avengers and trying to keep them working together instead of against each other.

For those wondering about the Stan Lee cameo, it’s quite noticeable this time around, it’s a speaking role, in fact. He is a grumpy old man seen on the news poo-pooing the idea of a band of superheroes working together to save the world. It gets a good laugh.



And as far as sticking around for the credits for a tasty morsel? Yep. Spoiler alert for you: After the initial end-credit sequence animation we find ourselves back at the villain’s lair. A certain deathly dark face with piercing blue eyes that comic-book fans might recognize is seen as he vows that the humans of planet earth will meet their doom. No more special treats beyond this sequence, the remaining end-credits round out the experience.

With Marvel's THE AVENGERS, Joss Whedon has crafted a story that really will an enjoyable time for all; from the casual movie-goer who has maybe only seen some or none of the other stand-alone films to the uber-geek that’s seen them all including their hours of DVD bonus features. Your life will not be changed but you will not be disappointed with THE AVENGERS once it hits theaters on May 4th.