Whedon assembles thrilling Avengers |
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Seattle Gay News
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posted Friday, May 4, 2012 - Volume 40 Issue 18 Whedon assembles thrilling Avengersby Sara Michelle Fetters - SGN Contributing Writer The Avengers Opening May 4 My adoration for Joss Whedon knows few boundaries. It goes back to his Buffy the Vampire Slayer days and has grown exponentially thanks to Firefly, Serenity, and his and Drew Goddard's The Cabin in the Woods, but I can't say I was thrilled at the prospect of him handling the Marvel Comics superhero mash-up The Avengers. Comic films have a long history of falling to pieces once too many heroes and villains get in on the action - over-stuffing being the very thing that doomed the likes of Spider-Man 3, X-Men: The Last Stand, and most notoriously Batman & Robin. It didn't help that, while I've enjoyed the majority of the Marvel features, Captain America: The First Avenger and Thor arguably most of all, while that first half of the initial Iron Man adventure still stands heads and shoulders above the rest, I can't say I've ever done cartwheels for any of them. Unlike, say, The Dark Knight, Spider-Man 2, Superman Returns, or X2: X-Men United, none of these 'Avenger Initiative' adaptations has stayed with me in any discernible way, and while I certainly wasn't dreading the thought of watching Whedon's attempt to bring these heroes together, I wasn't eagerly anticipating it, either. Gosh darn it if the acclaimed writer/director doesn't pull it off. The Avengers is one of the more gleefully entertaining adventures I've had the pleasure to see in quite some time. Far from perfect - it's overlong, yes, and overstuffed - the movie is nonetheless a giddily thrilling saga of teamwork and heroism that held me spellbound for virtually its entire running time. Whedon walks a fine line, taking things just seriously enough to make the stakes for the human race feel palpable while gently winking at the audience as if to let them know he's in on the joke just as much as they are. The darn thing is a magnetically enthralling hoot, making the time spent watching the five previous features unexpectedly worthwhile. The basic plot concerns the former prince of Valhalla, Loki (Tom Hiddleston), vanquished and banished to a shaky ephemeral existence by his brother Thor (Chris Hemsworth), joining forces with a sinister alien race to unleash war upon the Earth and claim an ancient artifact of unspeakable power known as the Tesseract for himself. Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), realizing just how high the stakes are, brings together scientists Tony Stark (Robert Downey, Jr.) and Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo), WWII veteran Steve Rogers (Chris Evans), and assassins Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson) and Clint Barton (Jeremy Renner) to combat this seemingly overpowering evil. Sent to assist them is Thor himself, the Asgard prince intent on bringing his brother back to his homeland to face their father's justice. Somehow, Whedon manages all these disparate threads rather beautifully, his script a model of self-control and restraint that isn't remotely typical for the genre. One can tell he has a special affinity for the property, knows the best way to approach the majority of the characters, and what it is exactly the audience hopes to see. He keeps this cacophony of personality profiles in odd balance with one another, making their initial fracturing and eventual coming together as an Earth-saving team all the more believable because of it. At the same time, Loki was a better, more emotionally captivating villain in Thor than he is here, and as great as Hiddleston is (and he is kind of terrific), the truth of the matter is he comes off as more of a petulant child with daddy (and, obviously, big brother) issues than anything else. As for the alien force assisting him, they're more or less a faceless menace that's never as scary or as frightening as they should be, ending up as nothing more than barely visible cannon fodder for the Avengers to dispatch one after the other. But the movie is a hoot. Evans continues to impress as Rogers/Captain America, while Hemsworth's masculine blustering as Thor is as jovially exuberant as ever. But the real scene-stealers are Downey, showing once again he's the best thing Marvel has going as Iron Man, and somewhat surprisingly Ruffalo, bringing Bruce Banner/Hulk to life like none before him (Eric Bana or Edward Norton). Whedon utilizes these two forces of nature spectacularly, the film slowly building to signature sequences of Iron Man soaring and Hulk smashing that had the majority of the preview audience shrieking in outright glee. These scenes of heroic mayhem are extraordinary, and I borderline adored every one of them. With sequels to their individual adventures in the works, the majority all with solid release dates, it's hard to imagine this team of Marvel regulars is going to reunite for a second escapade anytime soon. At the same time, it almost goes without saying that this film is going to rake it in at the box office, and considering the quality of the production it can only be a matter of time before Stark, Rogers, Banner, and company are back together for another round of interstellar combat. All I can say is that I hope Whedon returns to the helm, because after this movie the thought of The Avengers assembling without his confidently assured guidance is one I have difficulty pondering. |
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