Arguably the greatest superhero movie of all time, The Avengers hit theaters with Hulk-smashing box office records. Marvel Studios released their latest and greatest film in May, and they did not disappoint. The film opens on experiments taking place inside of S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters, when an unexpected interruption from Loki, last seen in Thor, throws the whole operation out of order. Loki takes the Tesseract, the object of the experiments and a source of unlimited power, and threatens the world with war and ultimate destruction. This new threat forces Nick Fury to call upon Earth’s mightiest heroes and form a new super-team, the Avengers!
Whether you’re a fan of the original comic books, the top-notch cast, or seemingly non-stop action, I almost guarantee that you will love this movie. The film uses most of the original actors from their individual films, except for Mark Ruffalo, who takes over as Bruce Banner from past Hulkster Edward Norton. And though he was new to the role, Ruffalo does a great job as Banner and a great job meshing with the rest of the cast. Actually, the cast in general was perfect. I couldn’t think of anyone I would have wanted subbed out for anyone else.
The action itself is everything you’d expect from a movie with six of Marvel’s greatest heroes in it, as well. The hand-to-hand action is all well-choreographed, which tends to be a concern in some action movies. The computer-generated imagery is outstanding. The undoing of most action films that use special effects is poor CGI work, but that definitely wasn’t a problem for this one. From start to finish, the action is everything you want in a superhero movie, and the last 45 minutes or so are even better than that.
Overall, The Avengers was everything I wanted it to be. It was easily one of the greatest superhero movies I’ve ever seen, and is even comparable to The Dark Knight, as far as how epic it was. And with The Amazing Spider-Man slated to release sometime early July, it looks like Marvel wants to keep their momentum going. I wonder how DC’s The Dark Knight Rises is going to stack up in comparison. Anyway, The Avengers definitely earned itself a 4.5 out of 5 on this comic book fan’s rating system. Well done, Marvel.
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