[05/04/2012]
If you have read any of my previous movie reviews regarding
Comic book movies, especially those from Marvel comics, I have ripped them a
new one quite frequently.
Except
for Iron Man (which still had weaknesses – like the ending of the film), all of
the Marvel Comic movies after the release of X-Men 2 has been disposal
garbage that needs to be flushed down the toilet.
·
The over romanticism in the Spider-Man series
·
The B-movie acting of the two Fantastic Four movies
·
The other ruin of a franchise and Wolverine by X-Men 3
·
The “why am I watching this” of the two Hulk films
To not cut them all down, Thor was an average film. Iron Man 2 was good (Robert Downey, Jr. all the way), but the villain played by that handsome-yet-went-through-plastic-surgery-hell actor stunk to high heaven. Plus the Black Widow character, played by Scarlet Johansson, was that typical “I’m woman hear me roar”, which is pretty old and outdated. The Captain America: First Avenger movie was an above average movie, and I liked it.
So what am I going to suspect with “The Avengers”, where Marvel has spent so much time, money, and hype to get to this point? Another failure? I can’t believe that I am saying this, but I am going to say it...
Tonight, I just saw the BEST COMIC MOVIE EVER!!!! Yes, it equals to or even surpasses The Dark Knight!!
(Oh my! I just committed blasphemy to my favorite comic book hero from Gotham City.)
I just went through a movie equivalent of the last four innings of the Sixth Game of the 2011 World Series. This movie had everything that you wanted in a comic book movie, and mostly none of the things that you shiver. Was there any campiness to it? I could not find it. Was the villain a typical two-dimensional character, like Dr. Evil? No, the villain was much like the Joker in The Dark Knight in terms of fooling his opponents. Was there the template plot that many comic
book films go through, copying the plot from 1978 Superman over and over and
over again? No, the story jumps right in, without so much origin baggage
– something that was refreshing with The Dark Knight. Was there the
wooden or thin characters – relationships and just be completely mindless
action? No, there are actual character development for all of the heroes,
and conflicts between the heroes. Was there the dull one-on-one climax
between the heroes and villains that is usually copied from Superman II?
No, it was not; I could not actually predict the ending of the film – another
refreshing moment.
The director Joss Whedon has experience with having good
stories from an ensemble cast – balancing between character development,
character interactions, and action. He did it with the short lived
but much prized Sci-Fi TV show “Firefly” and the subsequent movie
“Serenity”. Joss did an excellent job of doing the same with this
movie. As we all know, Robert Downey, Jr. as Tony Stark (aka Iron Man) is
the huge star in the comic book movie world. He was just as good in this
movie as Tony Stark as he was in the two Iron Man films. Yet he did not
overshadow the other characters. It’s like eating a great pizza.
You love the pepperoni, but the cheese and the crust and the sauce makes it so
much better. There is a lot of humor, mainly coming from Tony Stark, but
he was not the only one. Each character (IRON MAN, CAPTAIN AMERICA, THOR,
BLACK WIDOW, HAWKEYE, HULK, NICK FURY, and even Agent Phil Coulson [the
S.H.I.E.L.D. agent who brought all of the heroes to Fury]) had their WOW
moments. Each character had moments of character growth. I
have been especially harsh with Scarlett Johansson in the past as Black Widow,
but in this movie her character is actually vulnerable at the ultra-feminist
hard-on as before. Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury was not “over the
top” acting as would expect. You root for Captain America, for
Black Widow, for Hawkeye, for Thor – not just Iron Man.
But the biggest surprise was Bruce Banner as the HULK.
The HULK was my favorite – and you definitely ROOT for him. This HULK is
not like from the bad two movies or the TV series. HULK is what we really
expected from him. Mark Ruffalo plays Bruce Banner to a tee.
He’s not some self-pitied character hiding away because of his
affliction. He’s an intelligent and confident person who just wants
to be left alone. Where were you Mark for the other two
films? HULK does some comic book scenes equivalent of Scarface’s “say
hello to my little friend”. HULK is the bad-#&$#$. Here is a
little trivia for you. Who does the voice of the HULK in this
movie? None other than Lou Ferrigno of the Hulk TV series.
The climax action between the heroes and the villains were
great. It is something that we’ve wanted from Superman II and even from
the Star Wars prequel films but never really got it. The action was not
mindless. There was direction. It was thought out. Yet the
editing did not jump to any boring scene. It was just intense – and
cool. FINALLY!! FINALLY!! A comic book movie that is
satisfying for some time.
If I had four stars, I’d say four stars – or four and a half stars. It’s
worth spending $10.00 plus for this movie and get into the long lines for it,
and you don’t need 3-D glasses to enjoy it. As many of you know, I
saw the Star Wars films many times in the theaters. I rarely do that,
because of the lack of quality of many films. The last movie I saw more
than once in a theater was The Dark Knight. I plan to watch it
again very soon. After writing this review, I’m going to go on Amazon and
see if I can pre-Order the Blu-Ray for “The Avengers”.
I did see the latest trailers for Prometheus and The Dark
Knight Rises. After seeing The Avengers, those films are going to have a
tough ride up to knock out what I call the top movie of the year.
Yes, those movies are going to be much darker. But if you want to see
what a good old-fashion hero vs. villain movie, it’s right here with The
Avengers.
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