The Avengers

Rating: ****

The Avengers, by virtue of being the first movie of summer, gets to set the tone for the season, and that tone is a fun, thrilling spectacle that balances big action and heart. It develops strong characters with complex relationships, while still being able to level New York under the thumb of an alien invasion. Under the stewardship of Joss Whedon, The Avengers, a movie that really was too big to fail, does the highly improbable for modern Hollywood blockbuster filmmaking: it makes your ticket price seem like money well spent.

Following up on Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man 2, Thor, and Captain America: The First Avenger, The Avengers brings together characters from all those films into a single adventure. When Thor’s vengeful brother Loki suddenly appears in an installation run by the world peacekeeping agency S.H.I.E.L.D., stealing the Cosmic Cube (from Captain America) and kidnapping Dr Selvig and Hawkeye (from Thor) as his worker bees, S.H.I.E.L.D. Director Nick Fury puts the Avengers Initiative into effect. Assembling Captain America, Bruce Banner, Iron Man, Black Widow and eventually Thor, The Avengers set out to stop Loki before he can unleash an alien army to take over the Earth.

So, where to begin? How about the writer/director Joss Whedon, and may I say how astounded I am about how much of his typical Whedon-ness manages to make it into the finished film. How does one define ‘Whedon-ness?” Well, there’s the scene during the alien invasion when Black Widow reminisces about Budapest to which Hawkeye retorts that the two of them remember Budapest very differently. There’s the scene on the helicarrier where Stark refers to Loki’s slaves as “flying monkeys” to which Captain America excitedly realizes that he gets that reference. And then there a couple of prime Hulk scenes that are honestly too good to spoil.

Speaking of whom, this is another area that Whedon excels: his characterization of the Hulk and his alterego Bruce Banner. The recasting of Mark Ruffalo for the part was an added treat because Ruffalo, as a person, is so unassuming and seems so harmless that when he Hulks out, there really is something to fear. Ruffalo getting to be the first actor to play both Banner and Hulk through the miracle of motion capture adds to that effect because you can see both characters reflected in each other. But Whedon gets credit for this Hulk too because I think the script gets that psychology better than any writer on a Hulk movie previous.

The rest of the cast does well, although I think Chris Hemsworth as Thor and Jeremy Renner as Hawkeye get the short end of the stick, because, sadly, in a cast this big, there just isn’t the same amount of room for everyone. The one character, besides the Hulk, that gets the benefit of the Whedon treatment is Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow. In Whedon’s hands, Widow rightly joins the filmmaker’s pantheon of butt-kicking females, and Johansson gets to show some vulnerability as well as some cleverness considering Widow is one of two Avengers without powers. Chris Evans continues to be commanding as Captain America, and subtly plays well Cap’s man out of time struggles while still being a authoritative presence. Whedon also does well restraining the unbridled enthusiasm of Robert Downey Jr as Tony Stark, and focusing it. Downey also plays well off Ruffalo as the team’s two resident brainiacs.

But the true miracle of The Avengers is pacing. There were so many masters that Whedon had to answer to, so many highlights he had to hit, it’s a wonder that the movie didn’t look more like a highlight reel rather something with a coherent narrative. There’s a lot of action, but there’s also a lot of character moments, a lot of time spent on seeing how these heroes interact outside the immediacy of the next crisis. And in another typical Whedon touch, one supporting character is killed before the end of the second act, providing both a dramatic impetus for the team, and a justifiable reason why they go with their given nom de plume.

On the downside, The Avengers is geek chic of the highest order, so when you come, you have to come in a playful mood because there’s no room for curmudgeons in the theatre. Alan Silvestri’s score is perfectly unmemorable, which is a real shame because I think if there’s one element holding this back from being perfect popcorn fare it’s the forgettable music. Sure Raiders of the Lost Ark was great, but what connected you to all those great memories of the film as you left the theatre? It was the John Williams theme. Perhaps J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek, featuring a score by Michael Giacchino, may be a more recent example of a musical score that makes just that little bit of extra difference.

But ultimately I feel that any criticism of The Avengers might fall under the category of nit-picking, and certainly the box office returns thus far prove that if ever there was a movie that fit the definition of critic proof, this would be it. But the thing of it is that The Avengers deserves the accolades and the adulation, and appropriately, just as the superhero genre seemed to be a game of diminishing returns, The Avengers comes in and saves the day. Ultimately, when it came to building hype for this movie, there was no assembly required.

And do stay to the very end of the credits for the second bonus scene. You will not be disappointed.

Captain America: The First Avenger

****

With two out of three of the necessary pieces to build The Avengers crown jewel under its belt, Marvel Studios would have to work pretty hard to screw up at this point. Frankly, they could have hired any director of average ability and gotten a descent, if not overly impressive, Captain America movie. Granted, the process isn’t as easy as it looks, as people who’ve seen the 1990, rubber ears version of the Star-Spangled Avenger will attest.

But if the producers of Captain America can be credited with one smart move it’s in the hiring of Joe Johnston to direct. Johnston is most well-known for his early work at Industrial Light & Magic creating key designs for the original Star Wars trilogy before directing fine, blockbuster fair like Jumanji and Jurassic Park III. But most importantly, Johnston directed a film called The Rocketeer. Set in pre-World War II Hollywood, it was based on a comic strip about a pilot named Cliff Secord, who finds a jetpack invented by Howard Hughes and uses it to thwart gangsters and Nazis. The film was a blockbuster failure, but its combination of 90s superheroism and 30s matinee swashbuckling has made the film a cult favourite.

Looking at Captain America: The First Avenger, it’s hard not to see the influence and style of Johnston’s own work on The Rocketeer: The gee-whiz quality, the retro-futuristic props, the big set pieces, daring-do heroes and diabolical villains with no grey in between. Oh, and it’s also a prime superhero story that not only stands on its own perfectly in the archetype, but it’s also the most effective tease yet for next summer’s The Avengers.

It starts with a man being chosen from several potential candidates, and his mission is to somehow be the embodiment of a nation’s hopes while leading the good guys to victory over heinous villains. And that man’s name is Chris Evans. Chosen from a proverbial laundry list of fine, upstanding leading men, Evans got the nod to play Capt. Steve Rogers, AKA: Captain America, a scrawny kid from Brooklyn given a super-soldier serum to become a super-human Nazi fighter.

Evans has a variety of experience playing comic book characters like the Human Torch in Fantastic Four, and one of the seven evil-exes in Scott Pilgrim, but as Captain America he really finds a groove and exudes an effortless confidence and earnestness that sells you on him as the shield-brandishing hero. When Cap plays modest and says he’s nothing special, “Just a kid from Brooklyn,” you believe it. In fact, one could argue that the whole story hinges on Evans believably turning from puny Rogers to brawny Captain America, and doing so without a hint of irony or sarcasm, two things Evans has excelled at in past performances.

On the flip side is Hugo Weaving as Cap’s arch-nemesis The Red Skull, the head of the Nazis; advanced science division called Hydra. Being the heavy is an act that Weaving can do in his sleep, but the actor shows an interesting kind of restraint in playing Red Skull. He may have delusions of world domination, but Red Skull isn’t a scenery chewing, two-dimensional villain. Or at least he doesn’t seem like it. Toby Jones should also be commended for getting Weaving’s back up as Red Skull’s snivelling toady Dr. Zola.

The story itself, interestingly, is where Captain America is weakest, but unlike Iron Man 2 and Thor that weakness has nothing to do with setting up The Avengers. The film builds up a solid first hour, chronicling Steve’s recruitment into the super-soldier program and transformation into Captain America, but many of Cap’s World War II exploits are crammed into a five minute montage. For the sake of brevity, a true sense of Cap’s prowess and importance as a warrior is lost, and the film could have been another hour longer and I don’t think fans would have had much of a problem with it.

But if Captain America suffers from an abundance of ambition, I can live with that. The film is a zinging and thrilling superhero adventure that’s pulpy to a tee while still feeling genuine. The set pieces are brilliantly executed and there’s some great character work too thanks to its talented cast. Johnston has taken a lot of different ingredients and cooked them up in a unique tasting suffle of a movie. It’s a fun ride by itself, and as a pleasant bonus, there’s a wonderful little hook for The Avengers at the end. By any stretch, Captain America is a wonderful addition to the comic book movie canon.

For maximum value, go for the Blu-ray/DVD combo pack which includes deleted scenes, making of featurettes and a commentary track with Johnston and key crew members. Also, there’s a fun little short with Clark Gregg, who plays S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Coulson in Iron Man and Thor called” A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Thor’s Hammer.” Gregg’s brilliant deadpan delivery, and Coulson’s never before seen killer instinct, make for a funny short worthy of the price of the disc alone.

Thor

***1/2

If there’s a fault to Thor it’s that it feels like two different movies smooshed together into one ying-yang narrative. One of these films is a standard superhero origin story, which is, in fact, part of grander tapestry that will be realized next summer in The Avengers, and the other is a dynamic drama about family and duty and the fate of a kingdom. One of these is very paint by numbers; the other is given a relevant gravitas befitting an epic stage tragedy.

It was an unusual choice to select Kenneth Branagh to direct Thor, who along with Iron Man and Captain America makes up the core trinity of the Avengers super-team. Branagh, known predominately for his screen adaptations of Shakespeare plays like Henry V, Hamlet and Much Ado About Nothing, brings these considerable resources to bear in painting the God of Thunder’s life on Asgard, a mythical realm where the Norse gods dwell. Thor (played by Chris Hemsworth) believe he is ready to be king, his father Odin (Anthony Hopkins) is not so sure, and his brother Loki (Tom Hiddleston) seems unusually shifty.

But when Thor is banished to Earth for jumping the gun to start a war with the Frost Giants, the family psychodrama takes a backseat to the paint-by-numbers superhero origin, and the not-suitable stuffing of Easter egg references of Marvel movies past and future. Clark Gregg reprises his role as Agent Coulson from the Iron Man movies, and is the S.H.I.E.L.D. agent supervising all the other-worldly stuff afoot in the New Mexico desert. Jeremy Renner appears briefly as Clint Barton, better know to the comic book mafia as The Avengers’ archer in residence, Hawkeye.

Aside from all the superhero drama, Thor encounters a lovely human scientist named Jane (Natalie Portman), her sarcastic sidekick Darcy (Kat Dennings) and their mentor Dr. Selvig (Stellan Skarsgård). This aspect of the film is probably the most underdeveloped in an already loaded script that still clocks in at just over two hours. We’re supposed to believe that in two and a half days Thor falls in love with Jane, discovers the value of mortal existence, and learns the lessons of humility and self-sacrifice that his father sent him to Earth to learn. Possible, I guess, but I don’t feel that the film gives this aspect the proper time to develop naturally.

Of course, technically the film is an achievement all its own. Asgard is beautifully realized thanks to master production designer Bo Welch, a seamless mish-mash of futuristic Cloud City and old school medievalism; they’ve got both horses and temporal portholes. After all, Thor reminds us that Asgard is a place where magic and science are the exact same thing. The effects are outstanding and the worlds that Thor explores beyond our mortal realm blend very well with the real world we know. The film is vivid and colourful and jumps off the screen, but it doesn’t overwhelm the humans in their make-up and costumes.

The cast is very solid. Hemswroth makes a convincing Thor in both physicality and personality. He has a commanding presence, but is able to show some humanity, but I’m not sure that the film tests him as much as it could have. Thor lacks the same kind of personality crutch as say Tony Stark, or a pessimistic you lose when you win fate like Peter Parker. Hiddleston does snivelling well, but I have a feeling that the Loki’s true villain potential has been left to be explored in The Avengers. Hopkins, meanwhile, finds a descent balance between scenery chewing and the hyper-reality of playing an old world god.

The DVD includes some simple features, like the barebones “Road to the Avengers,” which doesn’t tell you anything that you couldn’t have gotten from a movie spoiler site three months ago. A commentary by Branagh offers some interesting insight into the filmmaking process and there are a couple of gems in the deleted scenes, including a warm, brotherly moment between Loki and Thor that I wish had stayed in the film. It might have made Loki’s later machinations much more impacting to see the brothers in a rare friendly moment.

As a film franchise, Thor definitely has potential. It would have been nice had in this first outing the film hadn’t been weighed down with all this Avengers preamble, but in this respect it’s a crutch that Thor shares with Iron Man 2. I will say that I warmed more to Thor in its second viewing. Perhaps the characters were more familiar now, or I was able to appreciate it on its own merits. Still, as superhero movies go, Thor demonstrates above average achievement and dedication. Hopefully when the eventual sequel rolls around, Thor might be able to stand on his own.