Home Entertainment We review The Avengers – A super-powered Hulk smash of a blockbuster!

We review The Avengers – A super-powered Hulk smash of a blockbuster!

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There is film that exists in my head. It’s been there ever since Samuel L Jackson first strolled into Tony Stark’s swanky lounge back in 2008 and uttered the words “Avengers Initiative”. Those simple eight syllables sent my geekabellum (that’s a real part of the brain, I swear it on the name of Jack Kirby) into overdrive, and my imagination began concocting this fanboy dream film where my all my favourite heroes would band together, banter abounding, to smash their collective high-tech, godly, superpowered and jolly green giant fists right into evil’s leering face.

Unfettered by the limits of budget, studio mandate and in some imaginary scenes, even physics, it was pristine nerdy perfection, the ultimate geek accomplishment, the very pinnacle of fanboy dreams!

And last night Joss Whedon’s Avengers just blew it out of the water. Damn you Whedon, why’d you have to be so awesome?


 The culmination of four years worth of cinematic adventures, The Avengers could so easily have gone so very wrong. Iron Man 1 & 2, The Incredible Hulk, Thor and Captain America: The First Avenger added all their respective cards to this rapidly growing and insanely ambitious tower of Marvel, with the comic book publisher choosing Supreme Geek Overlord Joss Whedon himself to cap it all off. And with the threat of this teetering skyscraper of a tower crashing down looming ever large, Whedon calmly and capably steps up and pulls off the nearly impossible.

Balancing an all star cast of heroes consisting of Tony Stark/Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr), a human barrage of genius intellect, charisma and witticism; Steve Rogers/Captain America (Chris Evans), a time-displaced and star-spangled cultural throwback; Thor (Chris Hemsworth), a pompous demi-god turned hero; Dr Bruce Banner/Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), a modern day Jekyll and Hyde that can crack planets with his bare hands; Natasha Romanov/Black Widow (Scarlet Johansson), a master assassin and spy with a blood soaked past;  and Clint Barton/Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner), a bordering-on-supernatural archer that shares Black Widow’s history, it would have been so easy for Whedon to have any one of these characters – the foundation of any truly good story – be completely lost in all the marvelous (see what I did there?) CGI mayhem and destruction on display here.

Throw into the mix Loki (Tom Hiddleston), the preening, monologuing, scenery-chewing half-brother of Thor, freshly returned from his involuntary exile between the worlds with a mysterious alien army at his back and machinations on the Tesseract – an otherworldly cube of limitless power last seen in Captain America – as a means of world domination, and you can see how even Whedon’s famed ensemble cast juggling skills would be be stretched to breaking point. At least I assumed they would, because he sure as hell made this look effortless.

While Downey Jr and surprisingly Ruffalo – with his magnificently soft-spoken and witty portrayal of Banner – threaten to steal every scene they are in, Whedon manages to give every single character their own moments to shine. Even mere mortals like SHIELD director Nick Fury (Samuel L Jackson), tasked with bringing together and controlling these traditionally solitary heroes; Maria Hill (Cobie Smulders), his more than physically capable second in command; and Agent Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg), undoubtedly the backbone of the entire Marvel movie universe and – in a Whedon masterstroke – secretly the key to success of this entire endeavour, all get the chance to show exactly why they’re worthy of hanging out with these costumed gods.

Whedon’s script, touching on themes of individuality, heroism and duty, and dripping with his trademark wit and razor-sharp dialogue, combines functional exposition with intense and elaborate action to move at a blistering pace, (dipping just once around the 90 minute mark to allow us to catch our breath) leaving the film’s 2 hour 22 minutes running time as a complete non-issue. He also manages to carve out his own story, while at the same time paying tribute to the classic comic book team-up tropes. Everything from geek-argument hero vs hero battles, to subtle nods at character’s allegiance switching histories, he handles it all adroitly.

And then there’s the Hulk.

Although he certainly makes his presence felt earlier on in the film, by the time the film’s final hour-long climactic battle in the streets of Manhattan  – the epic scale of which has rarely been matched before – finally draws to a close, there is simply no doubt left as to who is the biggest, baddest and greenest on the block. Resulting in some of not only the coolest and most memorable but also the most hilarious scenes I have ever been privileged enough to witness, he is simply the giant, jade, rage-fueled star of this show.

The film is not 100% perfect though. There appears to be a bit of a narrative disconnect between Loki’s fate at the end of Thor and his appearance here, also the alien army – despite all the pre-release brouhaha made about their identity by fans (myself included) – is treated as completely throwaway cannon fodder, while the usually reliable Alan Silvestri’s score is about as unmemorable as they come.

But these are really the nittiest of picks in the overall scheme of things. It may not be as matured and layered as Dark Knight, but What Marvel and Joss Whedon have produced is a film so absurdly and universally enjoyable, that it will be the new yardstick by which all future comic book extravaganzas will be measured.

I am hard pressed to describe how they can possibly make a better movie after this, but judging by that devilishly geekgasmic post-credits scene though, they sure as hell are going to try. Until such time though, I will have a new geekily perfect film to dream about tonight.

Hulk smash, indeed.

Last Updated: April 27, 2012

15 Comments

  1. Sonny Bonds

    April 27, 2012 at 18:46

    Robert Downey Jr is the boss in this movie. I loved his performance. I don’t like Mark Ruffalo but he did good. Maybe it’s the awesome Hulk scenes that made him look good.
    Good entertaining movie.

    Reply

  2. Darryn_Bonthuys

    April 27, 2012 at 20:35

    Dammit Joss Whedon, I owe you an apology for doubting you. A few cracks here and there, but otherwise a fine, and most importantly, fun film.

    Bozhe Moi!

    Reply

  3. Tracy Benson

    April 27, 2012 at 22:25

    Ok you have convinced me, tickets have been booked for Monday. 

    Reply

  4. T-wholf

    April 30, 2012 at 12:15

    Awsom movie…. the movie was watched as if my imagination was pumped full of steriods… great movie, the balance was perfect and the movie was like watching like watching a comic as opposed to a movie made about a comic… Highly recommend!!

    Reply

  5. Koko

    April 30, 2012 at 12:50

    watched it at Rosebank zone prestige cinema….lounging in leather chairs watching the 3D avengers, elevated it just a notch above epic!

    Reply

  6. Wtf101

    April 30, 2012 at 13:07

    I think Joss Whedon has to be one of the most hated men amongst his peers in Hollywood at the moment.
    This guy perfected the Super Hero Movie with this one.  Incredible action sequences, witty dialogue, great story.  And come on, how talented must a guy be to get this balancing act just perfect.

    Oh, and also for giving us a damn good Hulk too. 

    Puny god!

    Gonna see this one at least once more in the cinema.  Then gonna get this on Blu-Ray, DVD, VHS, Betamax, Viewmaster…

     

    Reply

    • CaptainNemo42

      April 30, 2012 at 17:53

      Was thinking the exact same thing. At least once more in Cinema! And then the Blu-Ray to go with my collection.

      Reply

  7. Abigail Holden

    April 30, 2012 at 16:15

    Loved this movie, and even managed to find a decent cinema showing it in 2D. Win!

    Reply

  8. Lardus du Plessis

    April 30, 2012 at 22:06

    Already seen it twice in cinemas. Hulk and “goldilocks” chilling then BAM haha and “Puny God”. My two favourite moments in the movie.

    Reply

  9. James Francis

    August 27, 2012 at 11:01

    I finally got t see this and – yes – it is very good. But it has one problem: the sequel will be a nightmare. There is no character development at all, bar the minor issues that are resolved to eventually form the team. This is not a problem in itself, but it makes Avengers a one-shot, not the kick-start for a series. Going forward the next film risks being dragged down by heavy dialogue and painful plot points.

    I don’t agree that Whedon reinvents the genre here. He got lucky in a sense by having the first proper superhero-team-up movie. The script also keeps thing really simple – easy when you have a good ensemble and not much other than an action vehicle to fill. Sure, his direction is tight, but I saw nothing here that J.J.Abrams couldn’t have done either. It’s certainly nothing on the level of Christopher Nolan.

    So, yeah, good movie. Great director? I think that point is oversold. My money says the Avengers sequel will fall quite short of general expectations. The sophomore album is always the hardest one.

    Reply

    • Kervyn Cloete

      August 27, 2012 at 12:37

      The strongest thing Whedon brought to this was his script, in that it had that typical tone of witty levity combined with breakneck excitement.

      More importantly though, the way he allowed everybody to have their moment in the spotlight without having it feel forced. They made a natural cohesive unit, where everybody had a task.

      As an example, having Hawkeye, essentially just a guy who shoots a bow really good, actually live up to his codename and be the lookout up high is something that not even anybody in comics thought of until now, but which makes incredible sense, once you think about it.

      That’s something that not every other writer/director would have been able to pull off as perfectly.

      I do agree with you though, in that the sequel is going to be one of helluva tall order.

      Reply

      • James Francis

        August 27, 2012 at 13:20

        I’m not sold that it’s such an instant classic. Avengers is slick – no doubt about it – but Whedon’s main strength is he knew to keep it tight and paced, so that the gaps are not obvious. For example, don’t scrutinise Loki’s plans too closely – they really make little sense. I doubt he would have been as successful at it if he only had one superhero to carry the narrative.

        Reply

        • Kervyn Cloete

          August 27, 2012 at 16:03

          Yeah, agreed on the plot holes,especially Loki’s plans. But what sold it for me though as a classic was that what Whedon proved here was that you don’t actually have to make everything realistic to get it to work on the big screen, a la Chris Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy. If you know what you’re doing, and what fans want to see (because you’re a massive fanboy yourself) then you can pretty much transplant stuff straight from the comic book pages to the screen and have it work gloriously.

          Reply

          • James Francis

            August 27, 2012 at 17:31

            I did note that: the much more stylised ‘comic book’ feel. But now we are getting ahead of ourselves: should Whedon get the credit? Who were the DOP and production designers? I think the hat tip goes to them. Good directors leave such matters in the hands of those people.

            But Nolan’s movies are actually the ones that bucked the trend – almost all the comic book movies are quite unrealistic (in other words, they are very much comic book fodder). Whedon is not the first to pull this off – Sam Raimi’s first venture with Spiderman was just as good as The Avengers. So was the first Iron Man.

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