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| Thor (Chris Hemsworth) and Captain America (Chris Evans) battle alien invaders in Manhattan. |
By Dan Hagen
Mark Ruffalo really brings something new to the role of Dr. Bruce Banner, all that deliberate calm as a studied answer to the volcano he really is inside. Jeremy Renner (the cold-eyed Hawkeye, Marvel's answer to DC's Green Arrow) has long been a favorite of mine. The Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), an effective cross between Emma Peel and Spider-Man who's been around since the 1960s, is a super-martial artist who has you cheering for her smarts.
“The Avengers” let me notice something I should have spotted before — that Downey has invested his billionaire playboy Tony Stark with certain semi-autistic quirks. Stark is a motor-mouth who can’t stand being handed things by other people. He can be gratuitously annoying in his emotional detachment, even to the inadvisable point of poking Dr. Bruce Banner with a stick and staring into his eyes to see what will happen. This super-genius can focus single-mindedly on arcane subjects for long periods, is fiercely independent and also has a habit of rather charmingly stating the obvious in moments of high stress. As alien invaders plummet from the sky, Iron Man mutters, “Army. Right.”
Thanks to director/screenwriter Joss Whedon and a superb cast, ”The Avengers” is the best roller-coaster ride I’ve ever had, with perfectly paced thrills, wit, surprises, the bombastic bellicosity we want from our heroes and villains, and even the necessary dramatic yeast of humanity without which no story can rise to the occasion.
Whedon has an affinity for presenting strong female characters with empathy, style and wit, a fact evidenced by his well-loved series "Buffy the Vampire Slayer." Here his heroine is the Black Widow, Natasha Romanov, a former freelance spy/assassin whose “very specific skill set” includes Captain America-level hand-to-hand combat skills and expertise in cool, brainy strategic duplicity. She is particularly adept at manipulating powerful men who enjoy terrorizing women, as the film demonstrates in two deft scenes. It’s a wonderful subversion of the old melodramatic clichés about cowering, victimized women. When the Black Widow plays that scene, you know she’s merely a move away from checkmate.
Captain America (Chris Evans) is a believably steady-eyed, old-fashioned democrat, ready to lay down his life for humanity and liberty. Thor (Chris Hemsworth) is all power and nobility, carrying the gravitas of a Norse god lightly on his red-cloaked shoulders. Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) is a cheeky, egotistical genius, a font of quips and irresistible charm since Downey catapulted him straight onto the A list of costumed do-gooders. |
| Robert Downey Jr. as the semi-autistic super hero Tony Stark |
And in this film, and in "Thor," Tom Hiddleston's Loki is my favorite Marvel villain, driven to evil by consuming jealousy, deeply dangerous but still psychologically recognizable and just plain fun. In his quest to subjugate the planet Earth merely in order to revenge himself on his brother we see the strange spectacle of a superhero and a super villain who, on some level, will always love each other.
In a confrontation set tellingly in Germany, having forced humanity to its knees, Loki even lays out the philosophical core of fascism with scene-chewing relish. The dash of philosophy never spoils the taste of the popcorn, though. It enhances the proceedings like butter.
The elaborate multi-picture set up to this film exactly parallels the creation of The Avengers in Stan Lee and Jack Kirby's 1960s Marvel Comics. Unlike Marvel's Fantastic Four but like DC's Justice League of America, the Avengers were a super-team composed of popular characters who had each already been introduced in their own comic book titles. Doing the same thing on screen — introducing each superhero character and the villain separately in earlier films — turns out to work both commercially and artistically for this movie. Each earlier movie helped create audience anticipation for the big event to come, and the fact that each character's personality has already been well defined means that Whedon needs waste no time introducing anyone. They all arrive ready to interact in crowd-pleasing ways.
And there are moments here — I won't mention them now — that rank among the wittiest crowd pleasers on film, When I think of how hard it is to engage an audience of millions in juggling-act mythology about a garishly costumed band of Übermensch without groaning, I am amazed. This is a movie I have waited all my life to see, and never expected to.
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Now that everyone on Midgard has seen this film, I am free to add some other observations.
Every great superhero movie should have something to say about the nature of heroism itself, and this one does, playing Iron Man's freewheeling, libertarian Three Musketeers style off against Captain America's Depression-informed New Deal-Tom Joad sense of community responsibility.
Steve Rogers — who, from his point of view, has watched many good men dying only days ago in the fight against totalitarianism during World War II — chides Tony Stark about his failure to understand the true nature of heroism. Downey shows us that the words from this living legend sting, even as he throws them back in Cap's face, churlishly.
But at the climax, Stark shows us that he has fully understood Cap's lesson, sacrificing his life to save Manhattan from a nuclear strike.
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As the months pile up, and I watch this film again and again, I realize that it is simply one of the best superhero movies ever made.
The elaborate multi-picture set up to this film exactly parallels the creation of The Avengers in Stan Lee and Jack Kirby's 1960s Marvel Comics. Unlike Marvel's Fantastic Four but like DC's Justice League of America, the Avengers were a super-team composed of popular characters who had each already been introduced in their own comic book titles. Doing the same thing on screen — introducing each superhero character and the villain separately in earlier films — turns out to work both commercially and artistically for this movie. Each earlier movie helped create audience anticipation for the big event to come, and the fact that each character's personality has already been well defined means that Whedon needs waste no time introducing anyone. They all arrive ready to interact in crowd-pleasing ways.
And there are moments here — I won't mention them now — that rank among the wittiest crowd pleasers on film, When I think of how hard it is to engage an audience of millions in juggling-act mythology about a garishly costumed band of Übermensch without groaning, I am amazed. This is a movie I have waited all my life to see, and never expected to.
---
Now that everyone on Midgard has seen this film, I am free to add some other observations.
Every great superhero movie should have something to say about the nature of heroism itself, and this one does, playing Iron Man's freewheeling, libertarian Three Musketeers style off against Captain America's Depression-informed New Deal-Tom Joad sense of community responsibility.
Steve Rogers — who, from his point of view, has watched many good men dying only days ago in the fight against totalitarianism during World War II — chides Tony Stark about his failure to understand the true nature of heroism. Downey shows us that the words from this living legend sting, even as he throws them back in Cap's face, churlishly.
But at the climax, Stark shows us that he has fully understood Cap's lesson, sacrificing his life to save Manhattan from a nuclear strike.
Whedon handles Tony's sacrifice with a perfect economy of understated, choke-'em-up melodrama. As his fate becomes clear and inevitable, Tony's artificial intelligence servant Jarvis suggests a goodbye call to his love, Pepper, and Tony agrees. But Pepper, riveted to TV news accounts of Tony's dangerous heroics, ignores her phone, and with Iron Man already passing into another universe, the call fails as Tony, having saved the city and the planet, lapses into unconsciousness...
Not a dry eye in the proverbial house.
It is only by the merest accident that Iron Man survives, and then because his heroism is so evident that it has moved even the raging heart of a monster.---
As the months pile up, and I watch this film again and again, I realize that it is simply one of the best superhero movies ever made.
So far the best live action super-team flick ever made.I would have given Captain America a little bit more to do.But that's my one complaint.
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