The Avengers has always been a batshit insane goal.  It’s part of Marvel’s attempt to copy and paste their entire comic book universe into the world of movies.  They’ve gone about it the same way as well.  Iron Man isn’t Jon Favreau’s series.  He won’t be directing the third one.  He was brought in to tell a story and now they want that story told differently, probably because of what a hot mess 2 was.  It’s also the same in that Marvel is building up to a huge event.  Each individual movie is working a double shift.  Not only do they need to stand alone as good movies, they need to draw you in to the big picture and make you want to see all the others so you know what’s going on.  Those two goals directly conflict, and it’s shown to at least some degree in every Marvel movie so far.

The Chris Nolan Batman movies have the freedom of being their own thing entirely.  Nolan isn’t going to finish his script and then have an executive tell him Aquaman needs to make a cameo because he’s in JLA, but they can’t just give him his own movie.  The important thing here is that these are movies we’re talking about.  Taking over Captain America the comic book for six months so you can prep him for Civil War just isn’t the same thing as saying ‘Watch this whole movie that’s a prequel for another movie.’  So Marvel is basically gambling the success of their entire franchise on one movie.  If The Avengers is good, everything works out.  If it’s bad, people won’t go see Thor 2 because they’re not going to go see The Avengers 2 so why do the homework?

Fortunately for them, The Avengers was FUCKING AMAZING.  Their gamble paid off and now they get roll around in even more money the rest of their lives, with the promise of even more flowing in on top of that.  And they did it in the best way possible, by hiring someone who’s good at what he does and letting him do it.  One of the big questions going into Avengers was ‘is this going to be a Whedon movie or a Marvel movie?’ and it’s actually both.  It’s everything you liked about the other Marvel stuff with all parts you didn’t sucked out and replaced with clever dialogue and one-liners.

Before I go into the rest of the ways this movie was great, let me just say that Joss Whedon made me feel feelings about Scarlett Johansson.  Feelings other than ‘Please leave my screen, hot lady who can’t act.’  I specifically take time out of my day, every day, to dislike Scarlett Johansson.  Yet in a movie where she runs around in a tight leather suit, wrapping her legs around dudes’ necks, Whedon still took the time to make her a real person.  Who does that?  No other director she’s worked with, for one.  You know who else Whedon made a real person?  The Hulk.  The fucking Hulk.  The most un-filmable, you’ll-never-get-this-right movie character of all time, and he nailed it.  Yes, the Avengers will actually make you think beautiful women and giant green mutants are real people.

Every character in this movie feels real.  You’re splitting screen time between 10 different stars and they all have a clear, interesting arc.  Part of that is that Marvel has done a good job of hiring real actors to play their heroes.  Another part, and they deserve tons of credit here, is that they never even attempted to muzzle Whedon.  As I’ve said, this is the first Marvel movie that’s actually auteuristic.  And because of that, it’s the first one to actually feel grown up.  Marvel has always been the ‘Lighter’ of the major comic book worlds and the Avengers isn’t chock full of rape mysteries like every DC reboot, but it’s still dark enough to give everything that extra shade of realism.  Whedon gives every character devious motives, inner demons and real, honest-to-god flaws.  In a movie where Thor, god of thunder, battles a giant space army, that’s nice to have.

And likewise, in a movie where Hulk (mild spoiler) talks about how he wishes he could kill himself, it’s nice to have those great one-liners and comedic moments because again – Thor and space armies, so I’m clearly not here to watch Seven Pounds.  That’s the whole secret to this movie’s success.  It knows even better than you do when you want to laugh and when you want shit to get real.  It might do both at the same time, and it will definitely give you diarrhea, which is my only complaint.  The Avengers actually gave me a pretty bad case of the Slip N Slides.  I don’t know if that was an artistic choice on Whedon’s part, but I do not agree with it at all.  I’m willing to admit part of the problem might have been all the warm milk I was drinking, but if they sold warm milk at the theater I wouldn’t have to sneak it in myself.  The rest of the problem is definitely The Avengers, and I’d bet Scarlett Johansson in particular.  Still totally worth it though, so load up on your fiber, grab a tall glass of room temp or hotter milk and enjoy this fucking movie.

Verdict:

*** & 1/2(out of ****)

 

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