F@#$ The Avengers

just when you think I'm zigging, I'm zagging.  Movie Review!

Back when I bought and read comics, Avengers were my go to title.  Hawkeye and Captain America were in fact the last two titles I collected.  So this movie has to live up to Star Wars like nostalgia for me.



It's based loosely on the Ultimates universe, which tries to re-imagine the classic heroes as they would appear in the current world.  No one believes Thor is from Asgard for instance, and actually institutionalize him.

Anyways, it might be hard for me to review this without giving away spoilers, but here goes.  Go see this movie.

Avengers was conceived well.  One of the biggest weakness of the X-Men franchise is there are simply too many X-Men.  With one or two exceptions (Rogue and Wolverine) none of the heroes personal narrative was told adequately.  And they compounded that problem by cramming more X-Men into the sequels.  Avengers solved that problem by having the more popular heroes have their own solo film first, where the individual narrative was already told.  You already have an interest in Cap, Shellhead, Thor and Hulk.  Now you can argue that Hawkeye and Black Widow were under utilized, and perhaps that's true.  But it sure didn't feel that way.  This was the Avengers story, about how a scrappy bunch of heroes put aside their differences to thwart the epic evil bad guy.  Besides, although Hawkeye is my favorite, even I have to admit he is small potatoes in the Marvel Universe.

Avengers was cast well.  Robert Downey Jr. once again proves that he was an inspired choice for Iron Man.  Mark Ruffalo is the best Hulk yet.  Chris Hensworth as Thor, Chris Evans as Captain America and Jeremy Renner as Hawkeye are all solid.  Yeah they aren't as dynamic as Iron Man, but neither are the characters.   Scarlett Johansson is great as Black Widow, and Samuel L. Jackson is fun as Nick Fury.  He doesn't drop an F-bomb, but he does get to scream at stupid people like only Samuel L. Jackson can.

2 hours and 22 minutes is a long run time for most movies.  Avengers is paced well, and the action builds on the last scene as we wait for the climax.   If I want to nit pick, I will say that some fight scenes drag just a bit (I get it, Iron Man and Thor are both strong...) but that is exactly what I described it as.  Picking Nits.

The story was adequate.  Look, I'm not looking for the Usual Suspects here, adequate is good enough.  In a movie like this, reaching too far with a story can actually get in the way.

The dialogue was fun and really is what makes this a great super hero movie instead of an okay one.  I am including some non-verbal actions from Hulk, since usually all his character does is scream.  So no specific spoilers here, but Hulk has a couple literal laugh out loud moments.

A request for comments.  For a week or two, don't mention specifics.  I will delete them as 1 of my 3 readers hates spoilers.