The Avengers

B+

Directed by Joss Whedon

Story by Joss Whedon and Zak Penn

Screenplay by Joss Whedon

Based off the Comic books by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby

Robert Downey Jr.: Tony Stark/Iron Man

Chris Evans: Steve Rodgers/Captain America

Mark Ruffalo: Bruce Banner/Hulk

Chris Hemsworth: Thor

Scarlet Johansson: Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow

Jeremy Renner: Clint Barton/Hawkeye

Tom Hiddleston: Loki

Samuel L. Jackson: Nick Fury

Clark Gregg: Agent Phil Coulson

Gweneth Paltrow: Pepper Potters

Stellan Skarsgard: Selvig

Paul Bettany: Jarvis (Voice)

Lou Ferigno: Hulk (Voice)

The film begins ominously in a facility of an unknown location where S.H.I.E.L.D. director Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), overseeing an experiment dealing with the Tesseract. So, while astrophysicist Selvig (Stellan Skarsgard) is fidgeting with his super complex machinery and Nick Fury is talking to Clint Barton, a.k.a. Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) about the possibility of the Tesserect being operated through an intergalactic wormhole, Loki (Tom Hiddleson) appears through an open portal and causes general chaos including brainwashing Hawkeye ad Selvig all in the first five minutes. Are you confused? For those of you who didn’t see Captain America or Thor, or for that matter either of the Iron Man films, you have some catching up to do.

The Tesseract was the same thing that Hydra (and by extension, their leader, Red Skull (Hugo Weaving)) were after in Captain America: The First Avenger. However, that film took place during WWII. For those of you who didn’t see Captain America or Thor, or for that matter either of the Iron Man films, you have some catching up to do. As Whedon smartly rushed through in this film, but explained in great lengths by director Joe Johnson and screenwriters Christopher Markus & Stephen McFeely in Captain America, the Tesseract is a source of limitless power. In the 1930’s, Hydra used some old mythos or some similar mumbo-jumbo that seems legitimate when you’re in the theater and stupid when you leave (which – for this kind of a movie – is fine by me) to find the Tesseract, but the film’s end involved Captain America (Chris Evens) crashing a plane into the polar ice caps. While I don’t remember exactly what happened to the Tesseract in that film, Whedon informs us that it had been found at the bottom of the sea. If you say so!  For now, all I’ll say about Loki is that he is a god, brother of Thor and son of the Frost Giants, stepson of Odin, and Power hungry maniac after getting plucket from the throne back in Asgard.

Whedon next takes us Russia where we meet Natasha Romanoff a.k.a. Black Widow. Her back story is cloudy at best but – unless their planning an origins story for her – that’s probably how it should be. All that we really know is that she is ex-assassin. She is dragged out of her…usual… routine and is sent to India. There she picks up Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo), won of the world’s leading experts on gamma radiation (P.S. I swear they didn’t mention the word “Gamma” once in Captain America so the switch was a bit…peculiar). However, as any fanboy can tell you, Bruce Banner is not just the name of scientist, he is also the Dr. Jekyll whose Hyde is none other than the Hulk.

Look up in the sky! Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Is it Superman? Hell no! It’s Robert Downey Jr., reprising his role as Iron Man (Tony Stark) for the third time. Now, despite the fact the his romantic evening with Pepper Potters (Gwenyth Paltrow) getting interrupted, Fury’s right-hand man, Agent Phil Collins (Clark Gregg) makes Stark get involved, as well, albeit in his own way.

Meanwhile, Fury sets out to find Steve Rogers a.k.a. Captain America (Chris Evens), who had just been unfrozen from a 70-year hibernation at the end of his previous film.

Now, to catch you up on Loki: in the end of the Thor, Loki was exiled. Now, appearently, as Thor (Chris Hemsworth), who is not introduced into the film until much later, helps clarify, during his exile,  Loki just happened to come upon an entire alien race (does anyone get how there are aliens in Asgard? – Not the point) who would like to conquer the galaxy (…so their in our galaxy?).

 

Click to watch Trailer