The Avengers was phenomenal. It was amazing. It was deliriously wicked. It was the perfect blend of mind-blowing action and heart-tugging giddiness. I could wear out the Thesaurus with the ways in which The Avengers movie lived up to everything I had hoped, and shined in ways I could not have imagined. We comic book geeks have been waiting for this movie our entire lives (and more specifically, since 2008), and Marvel Comics and director Joss Whedon have delivered a superhero extravaganza!

The new kings and queen of Hollywood

The Avengers is not only now the definitive superhero movie, it has raised the bar for all Hollywood blockbusters that will ever be made from this day forth.

Rating: 5/5: Great!

With The Avengers, this grand, long-gestating experiment by the Marvel movie people has come to glorious fruition. I always had faith that they could pull it off. Iron Man in 2008 was a brilliant film, and when Samuel L. Jackson appeared at the very end and teased ‘The Avengers Initiative’, I knew there was hope.  Then The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man 2, Thor and Captain America: The First Avenger, all came along over the past few years, each one exciting and highly entertaining. I’m a fan of all of these films. But could Marvel really pull off The Avengers? Could they not only bring all of these major characters together into one film, but have it make sense and live up to the overwhelming hype?

I should be ashamed for even including those questions in my review. The answer is so incredibly ‘HELLS YES!!’ that I’m almost afraid of having my Internet License revoked.

Every Avenger gets a moment (or more) to shine. The humor is legitimately funny and delightful. The fights and action scenes are clear and exciting, with no blurring or over-editing. The Avengers are people first, action stars second; with a lot of character-based drama. Loki as the villain is far better here than he was in Thor, and easily carries the antagonist role. The climax was sufficiently chilling and climactic.

And the Hulk absolutely steals the show, smashing his way into our hearts. I could not be more pleased with this movie.

Some **SPOILERS** to follow.

From the very first moment that we knew an Avengers movie was coming, the one thing I knew it had to pull off was putting the main characters first. Ahead of the action, ahead of the explosions, ahead of the villain, I wanted the individual heroes and their interactions to be the focus of the movie. I was not disappointed. To be sure, there is action and there are a lot of explosions, but the best parts of the movie were the smaller, character-based scenes. Tony Stark and Bruce Banner bonding over science. Tony Stark and Captain America bristling over the meaning of heroism. Thor and Loki arguing about destiny and brotherhood. The Avengers putting aside their egos to come together as a team. And everybody, at every moment, worried about the Hulk.

I got exactly what I wanted. Those moments were brimming with energy and wit. The dialogue and banter (both Whedon trademarks) were as entertaining as any fight scene. I especially liked the scene on the helicarrier once everyone had gathered, where the Avengers confront Fury about his secrets, and everyone in the room is at least half-focused on not angering Banner.

There once was a time when superhero movies would rise or fall based on their villain. Would any of the Batman movies have been as good if we didn’t have Jack Nicholson or Heath Ledger absolutely killing as the Joker (pun intended)? But of course the villain was important, back when the hero didn’t have anyone else to talk to except the villain. The Avengers, however, is a new breed of superhero movie. Now the heroes are meeting other heroes, and all of them have already proven that they can carry their own movies. Now the heroes have to deal with egos and personalities that rival their own. Clearly Joss Whedon recognized this, and he gave us a superhero team brimming with internal conflict and…

I’m sorry, I need to stop here. I can’t put it off any longer. I want to talk about the Hulk. Because he truly was Incredible!

Why thank you

Bruce Banner and the Hulk were the characters I was most looking forward to in this movie, and enough cannot be said about the brilliance and nuance of Mark Ruffalo’s portrayal. I was very sad that Edward Norton was not going to return to the franchise after his excellent performance in 2008’s The Incredible Hulk. But Ruffalo’s Banner was miles ahead of anything Norton gave us, and leagues beyond Eric Bana from 2003’s Hulk. Ruffalo’s Banner was wormy, he was nervous, he was friendly to a point. And when he finally got to step up and reveal his ‘secret’ for keeping the Hulk in check – you all know the scene – I was absolutely floored.

And then the Hulk, wow! Why wasn’t this Hulk the one starring in those first two movies?

I loved the tension that the Hulk brought to the team when he was just Bruce Banner, where everybody was worried about him Hulking out and wrecking everything. Then I loved his heroism once the final battle began. People in the theater cheered when the Hulk just started laying waste to those alien assholes. And when he took down that Leviathan single-handedly? Come on! How could your blood not be pumping for a scene like that? It was extreme action, but rooted in exciting character growth. Plus Hulk had some of the absolute best physical comedy in the movie. His ‘battle’ with Loki was so good it was poetic. And ‘the punch’! Brilliant!

Hulk smash so much plane!

That Ruffalo was able to hold his own against the likes of Robert Downey Jr. is a testament to how well this movie was directed and put together. Each of the Avengers had their own clear and distinct personalities, and all of them were given time to shine.

Honestly, the characters were the best part of this movie. None of the Avengers were short-changed when it came to screen time or characterization, at least as far as I’m concerned. They brought the four main characters wholesale from their own movies and took away nothing to have them star in The Avengers. Thor was still noble and battle ready. I loved his scenes with Loki, and his desire to try and see some good in his brother even with this great evil around him. Captain America was heroic and strong-willed, even if he had to bend the rules. Chris Evans was fantastic and easily rose to the challenges of being the leader. I liked how at first he struggled with whether or not to just follow orders, then gradually decided to be his own man. Plus some of his action scenes and stunts were far more spectacular than in his own movie. I loved it when he punched that grenade!

Though if I have one complaint about the movie, it’s that Captain America’s costume was a little dorky. I loved his costume in Captain America: The First Avenger, but giving it a modern upgrade made it look worse. They should have kept the helmet instead of giving him a more traditional hood/mask.

One of these men is dressed more sharply than the other

It should go without saying that Robert Downey Jr. was born to play the character of Tony Stark. He had all the best lines, and he sold them with the same flair and ego that made the Iron Man movies such big hits. It was great to see him bouncing off the other characters, both heroes and villains. But most amazing of all is that they were able to take the Tony from the first two movies and actually have him grow as a character during The Avengers. It would have been so easy to just have Downey Jr. skate by on his charm and one-liners, and none of us would have complained. But instead, they had Tony actually grow as a hero from his experiences with Captain America. And that scene between Cap and Tony after the big death (shocker, I know!) was surprisingly moving.

We had two whole movies with Tony Stark as Iron Man, but Whedon and his team were still able to find some new emotional depths for the character. His grief in that scene was wonderfully real, and made me think back to the first two Iron Man films and reexamine his whole character.

And I think it was absolutely vital that it was Tony at the end who witnessed what was still waiting for the Avengers out in space. They may have blown up the aliens’ spaceship, but Tony, the man who lives on the cutting edge of tomorrow, took this journey beyond the threshold of the Earth and got a glimpse of what lies beyond the veil. I was reminded of that scene in The Matrix Revolutions when Trinity flies above the clouds and sees the sun. That moment for Iron Man felt just as powerful to me.

Though Iron Man was not the only one with powerful scenes.

The key to any good superhero team is a redhead

While the four main characters were indeed great, the movie did not skimp when it came to the secondary, supporting characters either. In fact, Whedon clearly went out of his way to beef up the role of Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow. She had a lot of great moments, and was absolutely the best fighter of the whole bunch. I can remember being extremely impressed with her fight choreography in Iron Man 2, and The Avengers has much of the same. You think you’ve seen all there is to see when it comes to hand-to-hand fights in the movies, but then Black Widow starts scuffling and she shows you something new each time. Not to mention the important role she played in the climax, proving that ‘big guns’ are not always the best solution to a problem. She more than held her own as the lone female of the group. Maria Hill doesn’t count.

I suppose if anyone got shorted, it was Hawkeye. He spent the first half of the movie as a mind-controlled bad guy. But Hawkeye was expected to get a smaller role than guys like Iron Man and Captain America. Hawkeye should consider himself lucky to even make it into this movie. Even still, I thought he more than made up for himself in the big fight in New York City. He may not have had any moments of real character depth, but he totally kicked ass on the streets of New York. From being the absolute best marksman in the world to saving little kids from a bus, Hawkeye had a few good moments to justify his place on the team.

And just like that, a million little boys and girls signed up for archery classes

I don’t have much to say about Nick Fury and his agents of SHIELD – other than ‘sadness’ and ‘rocket launcher’. They served their purpose, and Samuel L. Jackson gave a great performance. Though I was actually a little surprised that the Avengers became an independent group by the end. I thought for sure that they would remain a branch of SHIELD. Also, damn good job, Agent Phil Coulson. Actor Clark Gregg definitely made that character something far more than he was ever intended.

Quick side note: considering how dangerous the helicarrier became when its engines stalled, was there any reason it had to be flying? Other than looking cool? Couldn’t they have accomplished what they needed to accomplish while floating?

Anyway, this review is probably getting long, but it’s my blog and I’m under no length constraints. And I’m having fun! So let’s continue, shall we?

All the ladies swoon for the bad boys

I was very, very pleased with Loki as the main villain. He was one of the few concerns I had with the film going in. I wasn’t all that impressed with actor Tom Hiddleston and Loki in the Thor movie, so I wasn’t sure why Marvel thought he should be the only villain in The Avengers movie. I get that Loki was the villain in the comic book Avengers #1 back in the 1960s, but that hardly mattered when it came to the big budget flick. They could have used any villain they wanted, so why pick the lackluster villain from Thor? Why not give us someone new?

Turns out I was entirely wrong. Loki was a great villain! And Hiddleston’s performance was much better this time around! I suppose the restrictions of Thor being an origin story forced Hiddleston to hold back, with Loki more of a trickster than an actual villain. Well this time around, Loki is free to cut loose. His early speeches about the dangers of freedom seem to kind of fade away by mid-film, but all of his other violent speeches more than make up for that. I especially liked the vicious description of how Loki would have Black Widow killed. And his scenes with Thor were pretty powerful. You could really get the sense that maybe Loki realized how much trouble he’d gotten himself into by signing up with the bigger bad guys, and that maybe he wasn’t entirely comfortable with what they wanted. So that gave Loki a dab of pathos, making him better rounded as a character.

KNEEL BEFORE LOKI!!

Thanks to all of those great characters, we got one hell of an awesome movie. The plot is not all that impressive, I suppose, but it did not need to be. I wasn’t looking for Shakespeare or anything too heady. They just needed a threat that was larger and more epic than anything the characters had faced individually, and the movie definitely delivered The world’s first alien invasion was a perfect and logical choice. That they were able to wring so much excitement out of it is another testament to Whedon’s skill. Consider the giant cityscape climax of Transformers 3, which lasted even longer but didn’t make half as much sense. In The Avengers, you knew who each character was, you knew where they were in relation to one another, and you knew exactly what had to happen for the day to be saved. That Whedon was able to maintain that clarity for the entire third act is a marvel. That he did so for the entire movie is a force of art.

At the end of the film, I found myself content. The day was saved, the heroes had won and the credits rolled. I recall that at the end of X-Men: First Class last year, I immediately wanted to see the sequel. I wanted to see the continuing adventures of that group of mutant heroes. I wanted right away to see what happened next. Not so for The Avengers. And I’m not sure if that’s a knock against the movie. I don’t think it is. The ending was so good, the climax so succinct, that I’m not salivating for the next installment. I’m content to wait.

Like Iron Man said, they earned their day off.

The Avengers is the absolute best superhero movie we comic book geeks could have ever hoped for. It was made with such skill, and with such reverence for the beloved source material, that it deflects all complaints. Considering the kinds of insane changes that Hollywood and studio executives might try and impose, taking into account all the poorly made comic book movies we’ve seen, we should all thank our lucky stars that The Avengers came out as perfectly as it did.

In the end, a bunch of people who love comics and love these characters as much as we do got together and made the ultimate superhero movie. And they did so with the kind of care and continuity that you don’t often see in Hollywood; that you really only find in the comics. What more could we possibly ask for?

And the really great thing is, they’re just getting started.

Can’t you all just picture a little number 2 at the end there?