THE AVENGERS: No One Is Insignificant

The Avengers is the best movie I've seen since Inception in 2010.

OK.  So I’m in the midst of compiling a list of comic book movies and ranking them.  As I re-watch some old standby’s I find myself more often underwhelmed by the mediocrity of even some of my favorites.  Without giving anything away too early, movies I thought were fantastic don’t hold up so well under scrutiny.  In making my list, there are only two or three films consistently getting better with repeated viewing.

Some, like early Batman movies, get a LOT worse. 

But then along came The Avengers and it hit the reset button in my brain and wow, when the processor kicked back on (after the movie ended) I was filled with levels of awe yet to be tapped.  I don’t even know where to begin.  Perhaps another five or six viewings? 

The key to great entertainment is to start well and keep getting better until a satisfying ending, and director Joss Whedon handles it with aplomb.  Imagine you’re handed a movie like this, you’re given six characters with a movie history of a combined 7 previous films, who knows how many cartoon series, fifty years of comic books, a 200 million dollar plus budget and the anticipation of the Second Coming of Christ. 

How do you NOT screw that up? 

He didn’t screw it up because he took the job seriously, treated his material with respect, didn’t insult his audience, and recognized that none of the characters were unimportant.  He sacrificed an overly complex plot (thank God) and gave all the screen time to developing characters and showing them interact. 

Which is why Whedon is perfect for this movie.  If you’ve read my The Cabin in the Woods thoughts the other week, I complained a little that the movie was too tongue in cheek to be really affecting, and the characters ,while entertaining, didn’t do much for me.   It was good for the horror fanboy in me, not so much for anything deeper.  It was a movie about a movie.  Or hundreds of movies. 

Yeah, that’s not The Avengers.  It’s about the characters.  As a fiction writer I’ve heard countless times, “create real people and let them shape the plot” but I don’t think I’ve ever seen it until this movie.

Take Iron Man.  Yes, Robert Downey Jr. is very funny and Whedon was literally born to write lines for him.  What might be a throwaway line for another character comes off as Shakespeare for Iron Man.  His first movie was the standard for Marvel superhero films but without going into much detail (another blog post, another time) I enjoyed Iron Man, but didn’t think it went deep enough, the ending was lame, and Tony Stark’s character arc wasn’t terribly believable or inspiring. 

He is believable in this movie because he is so well-balanced by the others.  Take the initial meeting with Thor.  Thor is the opposite of Iron Man.  He may have charisma and twice the power (Iron MAN, Thor, GOD of Thunder), but lacks the wit and the charm.  He is emotionally invested in the plot because his brother is the villain.  Stark doesn’t have ANY emotional investment in anything except himself.  The two come together and you have a terrific fight scene with some real horsepower behind it. 

Then you add Captain America.  If Joss Whedon was born to write lines for Stark, than he was born to write a mockery of Captain America.  And, thank God, he doesn’t.  Captain America may be a giant American Flag, but he is portrayed as a true blue soldier, willing to fight and sacrifice.  You get the feeling he doesn’t measure up to the extreme power of his allies, but doesn’t allow any jealousy or fear to well up within him.  He feels it, but fights it off for the good of the cause.  You know, saving lives and the planet and such. 

I wasn’t expecting to like Captain America as much as I did and he was the biggest surprise of the movie for me.  He is the beating heart of the team, the guy who is the most emotionally invested in the outcome.  Of course he and Tony Stark would clash and he holds his own against the merciless arrogance of Iron Man. 

When he starts calling out orders before the climactic ending battle, you feel like he’s the guy who is truly reaching his potential and doing the best he can with what he has.  He doesn’t have the intellect of Stark or the extreme power of Thor, but he is going to go down fighting one way or the other.  

During a battle scene at the end of the movie, you can see Captain wearing down, feeling pain.  You’re not going to see that in Thor and if you see it in Iron Man he’s just going to crack a joke about it and move on.   They appear unaffected.  Captain America jokes about it, and there’s no mistaking he is feeling the hurt. 

Hawkeye is a dude who shoots arrows.  In this group, that’s like Lance Armstrong telling Mike Tyson he can kick his butt because he can ride his bicycle faster.  It works here though because again, everybody is important.  Everybody has a story.  By making Hawkeye a slave to Loki in the beginning of the film, it adds a dimension to his character he wouldn’t have had otherwise.   That his archery is actually AWESOME is almost not important.

Even better is linking him to Black Widow (who gets the award for best fight scene while tied to a chair).  As S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, they have a complicated history that is more hinted at than shown, but you feel it anyway.  As two of the least powerful heroes, they don’t come across as unnecessary for the survival of the world.

As for Black Widow, she is a complete hero package: slick, intelligent and deadly.  It helps that she’s the only female member.  If Iron Man is the arrogant alpha, Thor the powerful God, Captain America the ultimate soldier, than Black Widow is the ultimate spy.  You can easily see how she would be even more valuable in future adventures.  Who else is going to get information?  Thor?  I doubt it. 

Yes, I leave Bruce Banner last. Yes, because he is the best.  All the characters are wonderful, but Bruce is the only complicated one.  The tortured one.  The one you don’t know how to feel about other than to just feel bad for him.  After two decent but forgettable films, Whedon finally figures out the Hulk and it is a glorious discovery. 

Mark Ruffalo is beyond perfect for Bruce Banner, getting to the exact mix of anxiety, compassion, angst and anger simmering beneath his meek appearance.  His presence alone creates something so many comic book movies (including the other Hulk movies) lack: dramatic tension.  Banner’s extreme polarity is the pitch perfect symbol of assembling a superhero team with such enormous powers and egos. 

Beyond that, Hulk steals every scene he is in and even if you haven’t seen the film, you probably know about the best scene in the movie.  I won’t get into it… you need to see it. 

If there’s a character that gets short-changed in the film, I would think it’s Nick Fury.  I always thought of Nick Fury as an eye-patched Hannibal Smith from the A-team with a much badder attitude, a world weary soldier/spy/leader with some mean scars.  What I got was Sam Jackson.  As much as I love Jackson, he is such a strong character he never appears as anything other than himself, so much so I expected him to yell “”I’m sorry, did I break your concentration?” to Loki inside his cage.  It would have been a unique way to interrupt another of Loki’s insufferable monologues. 

But Jackson is a powerful presence regardless, and it’s difficult to find fault when his character is written so well and is so integral to the movie.  He is the man spinning this story of earth’s salvation and he’s doing it with one eye and bosses he doesn’t like.  Good on him, then. 

As the villain, Loki is perfect.  What other villain in the current marvel film universe could compare to him?  Jeff Bridges (Iron Man ) is too human. The military would be dull (Hulk).  The Red Skull (Captain America) is an intriguing choice, but ultimately not a threat to the universe.  For that, you need a false God with a massive inferiority complex and a source of endless power.  And Loki snatches that up and somehow manages to be both powerfully evil and cringe-fully pathetic at the same time. 

All this to say that Joss Whedon is truly the hero of this movie.  His strengths have always been HEROES, from Buffy to the Browncoats to the Avengers.  Imagine, for a moment, what it would be like for The Avengers to become a series he controls.  He obviously handles long story arcs well and the interplay of characters is something he seems to be able to consistently handle over time.  Even if you don’t like everything he’s done (I don’t, Buffy still makes me cringe) It’s uncanny how so few filmmakers get this stuff right.  

He makes it a habit in this movie to provide a consistent series of build-ups and pay-offs, from a simple ten dollar bet between Nick Fury and Captain America to the promise of a climactic battle.  Every moment is either building up or paying off, throwing us forward into the plot with a constant promise that the next scene will be even more awesome than the last. 

 Trying to make a list of the best comic book movies seems silly after watching The Avengers. It’s the glorious amalgamation of the entire Marvel universe (minus Spiderman, who is bound to guest star at some point).

Folks are talking about The Dark Knight Rises, but it’s difficult for me to think of the newest Batman movies as “comic book” movies, when they’re more like “bizarre crime movies”.  Batman is a crime fighter, not a superhero.  There is a difference. 

So what movie is best compared to this?  There is one, a movie so good that I’m glad The Avengers came out so there would be something to compare it to.  The Avengers breaks the old standards to join the only other superhero film worthy to be called FRIGGING AWESOME by both fanboys and casual fans alike.  By action craving kids to mooks like me who want to overthink everything. 

Yes, there is one hero movie as good as this.  But I’m not saying today.  Look for that post later….

…but feel to free to post some guesses, I’m sure somebody HAS to know besides just me.