The Avengers: A New Kind of Superhero Movie

Title: The Avengers.

Director: Joss Whedon.

Cast: Robert Downey, Jr., Chris Hemsworth, Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner.

Country: Unites States.

Year: 2012.

The lights dim, the crowd around me whispers excitedly, some kids in the front row won’t stop talking. This is the experience you get a Friday afternoon while waiting for the start of one of the biggest movies of the year. And then it happens: you become a 5 year old for a couple of hours and you know with certainty “The Avengers” will be a hit.

The story has a pretty basic premise: the world is being threatened by an outer space evil creatures led by Thor’s brother, Loki. Nick Fury, along with S.H.I.E.L.D, a government group that experiments with advanced technology, recruits the help of extraordinary people to bring down the evil force. This group comes together to try and save the Earth from a never-before seen menace.

Let’s start by talking about the thing most superhero movies take for granted: the script. Even though the story doesn’t take a serious tone [again, no such thing as a “deep tone”], it’s still smart enough to create relatable and human characters. It is a clash of egos, and that is were each hero’s flaws come out to play. This all ties up neatly with a very original narrative, very particular to the writer and director Joss Whedon. He manages to make you feel involved with every single character because we get enough time to get to know them and for them to have a storyline and relationships with every other character.

The main villain, Loki, is different to the Joker, Green Goblin and most villians. He is smart and cocky but above all, he is upfront all the time and doesn’t like to hide. This makes an interesting plot because you will always be more afraid of him. He is so sure of himself, it’s disconcerting. The script made him a much more interesting character than he was in “Thor” (2011) and it adds immensely to the narrative.

For me, one of the best characters was Black Widow. It is a type of character that could be boring or super predictable. But Johansson creates something more than a killing machine: a very round deep character. She is conniving and deceiving, but you root for her. She gets to shine and be awesome in really unexpected ways.

Other character that had me satisfied was Bruce “The Hulk” Banner. It is the first time we can actually see the duality with which he struggles. We get to see both of his sides and how he truly struggles with his anger. He is physically the least strong of the bunch, but as the essence of the character described, appearances can be deceiving.

It was truly impressive to see how with the size of the cast, every character got moments to shine. Even Maria Hill, Phil and Nick Fury become an attachment to the audience; that is very difficult to accomplish in a movie that spawns from other movies that focused on each character. You can see they believed in the project and the wholesomeness it would bring if they worked as a team. They have chemistry and they strengthen their own heroes.

To anyone who has seen anything by Joss Whedon, it is very clear this movie is his. He has a style and he is not afraid to use it. He is a masterful storyteller and this is obvious in the plot of “The Avengers”. Every single detail ties up neatly into the narrative and it relates directly to the characters. We don’t waste time and we don’t get bored.

Visually, the movie is astounding, merging visual effects with live action flawlessly (The Hulk and its design, or those outer space sequences). With really great and innovative shots—like the “battle” long tracking/sequence shot; you will know which I’m talking about—that made my eyes water. The cinematography is pretty clean and uses a lot of color, which really adds to the beauty of some of the images.

The acting is also flawless and we can thank Joss Whedon for it. As we have seen countless times, it is very easy to make a super hero movie that ends up sounding and looking cheesy –“The Fantastic Four” anyone?--. “The Avengers” avoids this because each actor knows their respective character, they have a witty script to help them through, and a director that understands human emotion like few in Hollywood do. We have all the cool visual stuff and all the cool emotional stuff without one suffocating another or turning the movie into a boring cheesefest.

So I’m a very glad to say that “The Avengers” is a great movie. I was very excited and scared because I’ve been a Joss Whedon fan since I watched “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” (by the way see if you can find a couple of references or similes to the show) and I must say I wasn’t disappointed. “The Avengers” is a well-written, fun movie to watch with round characters without losing that human connection that we need to make a film transcend.