Why The Avengers Was Everything I Wanted.

It is the same story every time I stay up to see a 12am showing of a film the night it opens. After the first hour and a half of sitting on line a certain question always comes to me, is this worth it? As the start time creeps close and my tiredness grows, I start to wonder if this movie will be worth me staying up to 3am in the morning. In the case of The Avengers, the answer is emphatically yes.

The Avengers is one of those films that you must see for so many reasons. The culmination of over 5 films, The Avengers is a perfect continuation of the successful 5 super hero films on which it is based. For those of you who don’t know, The Avengers is a group of superheroes that gets together to save the world. The group’s main stars are Iron Man, The Hulk, Thor, and Captain America. If you saw a majority of these other films, obviously you need to see this one.

When I am looking for a good comic book film, there are three types of moments that make the film good.

1.       Good movie moments

2.       Funny moments

3.       Comic book moments

The Avengers is successful in conquering all three of these areas. The film is a jam packed action adventure that will keep you laughing and wanting more. For those of you who are real comic book fans, Director Joss Whedon gives you all those “omg that is just like the comic book” moments.  Whedon does a fantastic job balances all the different personalities and is able to give each super hero his/her own moment to shine. The film is very good in balancing the superhero action and the comedic humor and fun nature of comic books. The story of the film revolves around The Avengers, the organized group of superheroes led by Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson). The team is made up of Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), Captain America (Chris Evans), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), The Hulk ( Mark Ruffalo) Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) and Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner). The team must defeat Loki (Tom Hiddleston), Thor’s brother who plans on opening a portal form his world to Earth in order to bring an army of evil looking creatures.

While there are so many stars in the film, there were only a few stars of the film. The Hulk and Iron Man highlighted this jam packed cast. Iron Man’s Tony Stark is one of the wittiest and “love to hate” characters in the last 20 years. Downey Jr. is as charming as they come and he pretty much steals every scene he was in. The surprising other star was that of the Hulk.  Mark Ruffalo is always good but it is the big scary green monster that steals the show. The Hulk is not only the action star of the film but he provides numerous instances of laugh out loud humor (albeit without saying a word- or does he?!?!?!).

The supporting cast is excellent and everyone including Jackson, Johansson and Renner are stellar in their supporting roles. A surprising break out star is Agent Coulson (Clark Gregg) the fan favorite Avengers Agent who has appeared in all the preceding films. 

There are some superhero movies that can be passed on (see the Green Lantern) but there are others that should be seen. This is one of them.