Avengers Assemble: The Avengers

“The Avengers. That's what we call ourselves; we're sort of like a team. "Earth's Mightiest Heroes" type thing.”

Filmology Rating: 3.5 out of 4

The Avengers was written and directed by Joss Whedon who is now your full time garbage man and stars everyone in Marvel at this point.

In 2012 when this film came out, a big argument before this film was that superhero films were getting old. They were generic movies about defeating an evil man for the sake of a plot. If this film had failed, I believe we would be in a completely different reality than ours at the present. Thanks to this film, it raised the bar that was the superhero film. And proved many people wrong because this film had everything going against it.

For one: Joss Whedon had never handled a film of this scale. Two: with six different characters, this film was surely going to be all over the place. Three: it is very long.

And this film proved that a film of this scale could be done well. So why is it great? Like I always say, it's down to the characters and this movie has something for everyone to do with no fat to trim.

Joss Whedon brought his fast-paced dialogue to this film that was tailored to every character which made each unique and distinct. And one of the aspects that makes the film so great and satisfying in the end is that every character is fighting all the time. Everyone is disagreeing, punching each other, and it's all great. These characters shouldn't get along because they are all so different.

That also makes the ending so satisfying because it's called "The Avengers" but the movie is not about the Avengers, it's about them becoming the Avengers, but not in a dumb way like "The Justice League." It's very subdued and it happens naturally throughout the film.

What was also surprising was how funny it still was. This film set the tone for a lot of modern blockbusters and this film still has genuinely funny moments after seven years.

What also made the film entertaining was Loki. He isn't a typical bad guy, but what he does is fight the Avengers by not fighting them at all. Instead, he turns the team on each other which made for many wonderful fan moments of the Hulk vs Thor or Iron Man vs Thor.

Banner has a great line where he says, "We're a time bomb." And they really are because if you look at the rest of the MCU films, it's all about the team becoming more separated and scattered which leads to them being weak when Thanos attacks. And it's a wonderful overarching progression. Compared to DC, who is doing nothing at all.

There is a large portion of the middle where the entire film is set on the floating aircraft and it feels almost too restrained. It felt as if it was time to have a new location. However, I believe that section was necessary because the film was restraining itself for a thirty minute action scene to end the film. So over saturating the film with action would be a very bad thing to do. Instead, we get wonderful character stuff.

The end action scene is not incompetent action like "Man of Steel". Here there is a definitive goal and purpose each character has and the entire point of the action sequence was not for the hell of it. It was to unite our characters to fight a larger problem. Action sequences in a film should be thought of as a dance in a film. It should have a thematic purpose and illustrate our characters in unique situations. Like the lightsaber battles in "Star Wars" (the original trilogy). The action is a way to tell a larger story.

I also love the music and the famous hero shot that I believe was switched from 2.35 to 1.85 aspect ratio because they needed to fit the Hulk and Black Widow in the same shot.

There are also many references to "Phase 2 technology" from Nick Fury which is actually setting up the gun ships in "The Winter Soldier." So I love the attention to detail.

However, this film saved the superhero genre of extinction and paved the way for a wonderful set of Phase 2 movies. If you love Captain America, Iron Man, whoever, there is something for everyone in this.

Rating: See It

-Nolan