The Avengers

In its opening weekend The Avengers, a mere a superhero movie, made $270 million dollars. Three weeks later it’s made well over the seemingly unfathomable amount of money, one billion dollars. That type of money can buy one person a couple of Buggati Veyron Super Sports cars, some private jets, a private island or two, or if you got to it before Facebook did, Instagram. It’s an amount of money so ridiculous that most people can’t even imagine what it looks like if it weren’t for google images. For a simple form of entertainment to make that much worldwide is less than a month seems insane, but it’s no wonder. The film that had been on comic book fan’s lips since it was merely a rumor nearly seven years ago, finally saw the light of day.

I was initially weary of The Avengers since most of the comic book films I’ve seen have been fair thus why it took me three weeks of constant word of mouth and a phenomenal stint at the box office to get my ass in gear to see it. The Avengers is a different breed of superhero film, it’s not just a movie for hardcore comic fans or teenage boys, it’s a film for the masses, and honestly I haven’t seen a super hero/comic book movie of its stature before. Whether or not you’ve seen any of the past superhero movies before is almost irrelevant with writer/director/golden-boy-of-the-year Joss Whedon’s all inclusive and entertaining script. The Avengers is the type of movie that someone awoken from a 40 year coma could watch, understand, probably enjoy, and then proceed to shit himself at the changes in filmmaking.

Its present-ish day and Nick Fury, head special agent spy and director of the espionage group S.H.I.E.L.D. is consulting with the leaders of the free world and a physicist who is experimenting with a powerful energy source, the Tesseract. However, obtaining such a powerful object invites consequences of power hungry villains wanting it for themselves, and Loki (Tom Hiddleston), a demi-god from the planet Asgard, is in desperate need of the cube. With the help of a deadly alien race, Loki plans to use the cube to enslave and rule over the people of Earth. Fury has no choice but to assemble The Avengers, a group of super human beings with extraordinary powers: Mike Rogers, the super human Captain America (Chris Evans); billionaire playboy and genius engineer, Tony Stark’s Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.); famed and respected Dr. Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) and his raging alter ego The Hulk, and a savvy spy Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson). The group also receives unexpected help from Loki’s brother and King of Asgard, Thor (Chris Hemsworth), who returns to earth to protect humanity and punish his brother for his past sins on their home planet.

Describing the rest of The Avengers would be like listening to child retail it though; Loki sets out to destroy the world but then Iron Man flies in and shoots fire at him, then Captain America starts punching people and throwing his shield around, The Hulk comes out and then smashes some stuff and jumps through some windows and Thor is a badass who starts flailing his hammer around punching people in the face and, and, and, some guy starts shooting exploding arrows at people. It’s really, really cool!

The Avengers is frankly an amazing experience and reminded me of the escapism that comes with watching a good movie. It’s has everything: gorgeous muscular men, hot ladies, action, drama, humor, romance, spectacle, ingenuity and depth. The action sequences are brilliantly constructed as Whedon’s camera work cleanly and seamlessly captures nearly every aspect of each fight scene or moment of action. Also Whedon’s script allows for innovative ideas in technology. In one scene, a man has a device jammed into his eye that gouges it out of his socket. Another character holds a similar device to a building’s eye detection pad, and as the man’s eye is gouged, a hologram of his eye fills in from the device on the opposite side, granting entry to the patiently waiting villain. Did I mention The Avengers is PG-13 yet so deliciously brutal?

However, the best thing about The Avengers is how it uses its two and half hours featuring roughly seven main characters, who have all had other films devoted to their back story, and well-roundly continues to develop each one. Whedon’s script allows for each character’s personality and story to be efficiently developed just in case you forgot or didn’t see the past films. Some of the The Avengers best moments is the dialogue and shining personalities of each character, as well as the clashing of egos that happens between one another. Plus every major character gets the chance to look like a badass including the antagonists. Even Loki’s desperate attempt to enslave humans is giving an intriguing philosophical viewpoint so much so that I actually thought, “well that’s a pretty valid reason.”

Sitting through Captain America was like sitting through an opera, I barely remember watching The Hulk, the first Iron Man was entertaining but not mind-blowing, while Thor was the only notable film in the genre. The Avengers, on the other hand, is incredible! I had the same feeling after watching The Avengers that I did when I first saw The Matrix. After coming home from the theater as a preteen, I was astoundingly still immersed in the world of The Matrix, so much so that I jumped off every piece of furniture over three feet in high in an attempt to freeze myself in the air and be as badass as then characters I had watched. The Avengers made me want to leave the theater in haze of glory by jumping out of the window of the building and climb up the buildings around me to get home. I wanted to punch through walls and throw hammers at things and sarcastically deprecate everyone around me. Joss Whedon deserves the biggest pat on the back and a happy ending, because that’s how you submerse an audience.

SEE IT. And wish you were a superhero like old times.