The Avengers
Well before it began, it was promised that 2012 would be a big year for films; in particular, for the often denounced summer blockbuster; in particular, for the often denounced superhero film genre. Much has changed in the last over the last couple of years, beginning with Christopher Nolan’s dramatic breakaway from the generic Batman (or, as some might argue, a move closer towards some of the better of the source material) and culminating in several films that have at worst received lukewarm critical response in addition to the usual commercial tons. And several of those films – Iron Man and its sequel, The Incredible Hulk, Thor, and Captain America – have been leading up to this: Marvel’s star-studded ensemble project, The Avengers. And on the most immediate level, The Avengers fulfils what was promised: it is a massive film, with an (obviously) star-studded cast, the latest in effects technology, and a director hugely popular amongst that section of the targeted audience likely to be most interested in the film – the comic-book fans. On a similarly immediate level, it would appear to have delivered as well: critical reviews are for the most part positive, audience reviews are for the most part gushing, and the commercial revenues have been spectacular, with the film easily 2012’s most successful film so far in that regard (finishing ahead of The Hunger Games) and, in a turn that will make the release of another superhero film scheduled for release later this year all the more interesting, ahead of 2008’s The Dark Knight.
Backgrounds taken care of by the earlier (aforementioned) films, The Avengers cuts to the chase and gets off to a very quick beginning: S.H.I.E.L.D. director Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) is alerted about unusual behaviour observed in the Tesseract, a powerful alien energy source, and arrives at headquarters to investigate. Just as he arrives, however, the chaos begins, as Loki (Tim Hiddleston) – an Asgardian demi-god and brother of Thor – uses the energy of the Tesseract to transport himself to the human realm. A brief skirmish ensues, with Loki easily overpowering Fury and the guards, and casting his unearthly influence over agent Clint Barton (a.k.a. Hawkeye; Jeremy Renner) and scientist Erik Selvig (Stellan Skarsgård) before making a getaway. Realizing that Loki intends to facilitate a full-scale alien invasion of the earth, Fury begins to call together a team of extraordinary individuals to help protect it: Tony Stark/Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), Steve Rogers/Captain America (Chris Evans) and Bruce Banner/Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), the last of whom is contacted by special agent Natasha Romanoff/The Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson). They are soon joined by Thor (Chris Hemsworth), who has arrived to check the misbehaviour of his younger brother – but when the volatile group fails to gel in time to prevent Loki from opening a portal for the alien army, they must come together quick enough to try and save the world.
Much has been made of director/screenwriter Josh Whedon’s balancing of screen-time for each of the superheroes, and it must be said that it is indeed impressive: it cannot have been easy to work with a number of such prominent presences – as difficult, perhaps, as Fury finds it to administrate The Avengers – and Robert Downey Jr. has admitted that initially, he pushed for Tony Stark to assume a lead role in the film. Instead, Whedon treads the more difficult route of trying to give each hero a relatively equal weight – ensuring that each is, in the words of Downey Jr., ‘just an arm of the octopus’. This works to an extent, and while there are relative discrepancies – Stark and Rogers, for instance, stand out much more than Thor – there is never the sense that the film revolves primarily around one character. Captain America, here displaced and confused, is more interesting a character than he is in his titular film, though Evans’ limitedness is still apparent. The friction between him and Tony Stark is also interesting in concept, but seems a little too quick off the mark, and might have been handled a little better. The most consistently convincing of the hero characters is Bruce Banner, whom Ruffalo plays excellently – the laid-back aspect seems to come to him naturally, as it did in The Kids are All Right, and his handling of the tortured, dangerous interior works well enough to justify the Hulk-hype within the story.
The pick of the acting, however, probably comes from Tim Hiddleston, who plays primary antagonist Loki with a charismatic flair that endears to no end. Indeed, when the film shows its clichéd underbelly, it seems that it is only Loki who stands above it all, quietly musing while the heroes engage in bickering that could not have been more obviously scripted, and breaking out of one particularly overused moment that might have ruined the film with chilling efficiency – to the extent, in fact, that it is almost Loki with whom the audience sometimes identifies more. The ‘goodies’ side of it is thus less impressive, with several key moments being underpinned by egoism designed to spark conflict by as boring as some of the lines that represent them. The stylistics are similarly inconsistent, with some interesting effects running into overload as the scale of the film tips up and over; much like the whole of the film itself, which, though starting out as an above average superhero flick, ends on a cringe-worthily self-indulging note.