Gathering
together a diverse crew of Marvel Comics all-stars—some already well into their
respective movie adaptation franchises—to collectively combat the threat of
intergalactic totalitarianism, The
Avengers, helmed by Joss Whedon, is
something of a super-hero clearing house: Want some more of that witty Iron
Man? How about we throw in a little Hawkeye with that? Remember him? But the
result of more bang for your buck can feel an awful lot like a monster truck
rally that just never seems to end, a parade of virtually indestructible big
dudes in funny suits beating the shit out of each other for 143 minutes, a
marathon of dazzling fights that will leave you punch-drunk and exhausted. At
least there are indeed some funny lines. And yes, Scarlett Johansson does wear
latex well.
Should I describe the plot? Do you
have an hour to spare? Got your super-encyclopedia handy? No? Okay, here’s the
haiku version:
Spooky energy
Makes portal for aliens.
Super folk unite!
It begins with
the flamboyant arrival of Loki (Tom Hiddleston) at a secret S.H.I.E.L.D. base
where they house the Tesseract, a glowing cube that may or may not be aiding
the development of weapons of mass destruction. In case you don’t know who Loki
is, there’s some expository dialogue to help you out: “Loki,” gasps Dr. Erik
Selvig (Stellan Skarsgård), “brother of
Thor!” (If you don’t know who Thor is, you should probably just give up
now.) “Freedom is life’s great lie,” says Loki, who wants humanity to kneel
before him, forcibly, if necessary. So S.H.I.E.L.D.’s one-eyed director Nick
Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) tracks down Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), Captain
America (Chris Evans), the Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), Thor (Chris Hemsworth) and
Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) to trap Loki and recover the Tesseract.
Complications ensue, various feisty alpha-males learn to play nice, half of
Manhattan is destroyed, et cetera.
That clever dialogue I mentioned is
accompanied by much dumbness: a token gay character (Clark Gregg) who never
stops reminding you that he’s the gay one; a presumably staggering civilian death
count without a single image of anyone getting hurt; Iron Man’s boasting of his
skyscraper powered by self-sustainable energy, while Iron Man’s jetpacks suck
up more juice than a fleet of Hummers, his girlfriend regularly takes her
private jet along the eastern seaboard, and the entire S.H.I.E.L.D. team whips
all over the world in an invisible flying fucking aircraft carrier. Of course
there are nice details, like the S.H.I.E.L.D. engineer who plays Atari when no
one’s looking, a cameo by a certain beloved character actor, and Ruffalo’s
pleasingly incongruent nuance, but the bulk of the pleasures to be found here
are brute ones, mostly featuring Hulk ripping apart alien aircraft with a mighty
roar. I’m not being facetious; Hulk ripping shit apart can be hugely
entertaining. All I want to say is that there’s a point when this sassy, busy, carefully
designed, emotionally shallow, mega-budget Wrestlemania pummels the viewer’s
senses in such a way that it makes he or she want to transform into their own
raging green Id-monster, screaming, “Okay, okay, I got my $13 worth! I don’t care if
the Chitauri leader comes back after the end-credits. Let me out of here
already!”
