GB Assemble! Let’s Talk ‘The Avengers’

The Avengers is a box office smash, having shattered records with a $200 million opening weekend. So when it came time for us to review The Avengers, we realized that pretty much every staff member and their dog (and Michelle’s cat Pepper Potts) had something to say about the film. So it only made sense that we provide a forum for us all to share our thoughts. Of course not all our thoughts were entirely positive. But most of them were. I also enlisted a few friends of the site to get their opinion on this monumental movie. Let’s get to it.

Dr. Kronner:

Well, after years in the making, my childhood imagination was finally given life this weekend with Marvel’s release of The Avengers. Writer/Director Joss Whedon took what was given to him from the previous 5 movies (Iron Man, Incredible Hulk, Iron Man 2, Thor, Captain America: The First Avenger) and showed us that in this case, the sum is greater than the parts. With huge potential to epically fail from a creative standpoint (ala X3, Wolverine, Ghost Rider, Daredevil, Iron Man 2) as many people were concerned that it was just too many characters to gel together, The Avengers proved the to be Marvel Studios best film yet. And after the early vocal concerns about Mr. Buffy – Joss Whedon directing, it would seem he was actually the perfect man for the job. There was enough of a comic book feel to appease the readers, while remaining accessible enough not to lose the average movie goer.

The movie itself provided perhaps the best ever use of the Hulk on-screen, as it’s obvious that he works better in a supporting role than carrying a movie himself. And his interactions with Thor were immensely enjoyable. Mark Ruffalo I thought was also the most enjoyable Bruce Banner we’ve seen, at least since Bill Bixby on the 70’s TV show anyway. The scenes with Stark and Banner nerding it up while Thor and Cap struggled to follow along just felt right.

Overall, Loki made a solid villain, even if we are never really clear what his powers are, and the last 30 minutes of the movie were non-stop awesome. The humor was well-timed, and while things started a little slow, the payoff was well worth the wait. I’ve gone twice already and I loved it both times.

MY FAVORITE PARTS (Possible Spoilers)
– Thor Headbutting Iron Man
– Hulk vs. Loki
– Stark and Banner in the Lab
– Hawkeye shooting Loki out of the air
– Cap stopping the Thor/Iron Man fight.

SupaScoot:

I’ve never been happier to be a nerd. I’ve been a fan of The Avengers since I was old enough to read, and like many fans never imagined I would ever get a chance to see the team on the big screen. Then the Iron Man  post-credit scene opened the door and the little fanboy inside of me rejoiced. The Road to the Avengers was a long one, and we witnessed some great entries and some not-so-great entries, but they were all leading to what I now consider my Holy Grail. All they needed was the right director to put it all together. And they found him.

Whedon delivered a breathtakingly awesome portrayal of some of my favorite characters. I was practically near tears at a few moments throughout the movie, and my emotional roller-coaster didn’t stop until well after the final scene of the film.  While it started off a little slow, I never felt that the exploration of the characters bogged the movie down at all, and it all led nicely to the ridiculously action packed third act of the film. As a comic fan, I was overjoyed to see a little more development of Black Widow’s character, as well as probably the best Bruce Banner I’ve ever seen. Kudos goes out to Mark Ruffalo for absolutely nailing it. The Big 3 (Thor, Cap, Iron Man) were very consistent with their characterizations and were enjoyable, but what really stood out for me were some of the supporting cast. Obviously Jeremy Renner’s Hawkeye (Agent Barton as he is most commonly referred to) was a high point of the movie for me, but I really enjoyed Clark Gregg’s Agent Coulson and Cobie Smulder’s Agent Hill.  I left the theater feeling more satisfied then I have at any summer blockbuster I can remember, and that feeling continued even after I saw it a second time.

I don’t even know If I can look forward to future movies. The Avengers might have just spoiled me as a movie lover. The Dark What? Who’s Batman?

MichelleLynn61:

Although I knew that The Avengers would be a star-studded, explosion-fest, I had very low expectations. After some pretty bad Marvel blunders (Spider-man 3, where Peter Parker looks like he is a member of Fall Out Boy, and “Ghost Rider” which had an equally terrible sequel) I was terrified for what they might do with this film. After seeing The Avengers, I would say this movie not only exceeded my expectations greatly, but it is the most fun I have had at the movies in… well… since I can remember. Aside from the teenagers clapping every time Tony Stark said something, The Avengers was an amazing movie experience.

One of my favorite parts is when Thor shows up. The three-way battle between Captain America, Iron Man, and Thor was absolutely amazing. Also, there’s Loki catching Hawkeye’s exploding arrow. However, of my favorite parts, I would have to say that the most hilarious was when Hulk treated Loki like a rag-doll. “Puny God!” There has got to be a way to get a GIF of that (Check the link above in Dr. Kronner’s piece). When I left the movie theater, my face literally hurt from smiling. I am very pleased with this film. Joss Whedon- I love you.

The Wozz:

The Avengers is a project that isn’t meant to work in Hollywood: Four different movie franchises culminating into one team-up action blockbuster. It’s a concept that would essentially read as fan fiction were it not already an established concept in source material. The amount of scheduling, policing, planning and communication that has to go down just to make it happen is astounding. Having it succeed would be nothing short of superhuman.

Enter the seventh Avenger, Joss Whedon, whose penchant for writing characters has earned him an almost mythical reputation in the Nerdscape. Whedon has an uncanny ability to isolate the most interesting elements of his characters and bounce them off one other, and that’s just what he does here. The fact that superheroes by nature have such bold, highly concentrated personalities makes every line of dialogue crackle with electricity, and every character arc feel attended to. This is the foundation of The Avengers success. We’ve seen countless action movies crumble under the weight of too many characters, or a convoluted script.  The Avengers manages to tie everything down and keep the story grounded.

I could go on and try to summarize The Avengers experience for you, but I could never say it better than Patton Oswalt did on Twitter:

joey123mo:

Despite keeping my expectations low for this film, The Avengers is, from its first scene, underwhelming in every way. With a script littered with excuses for a plot, and an exposition that lasts far too long, The Avengers doesn’t only take a few pages from the Transformers: Dark of the Moon Handbook; it steals the handbook and uses every page. Mark Ruffalo is fantastic and the Hulk keeps the film grounded in some realm of human emotion, but The Avengers is too busy setting up for yet another Marvel movie to take a minute and reflect on how far it’s already come. Furthermore, The Avengers is just proof that Loki needs a hug.

Fister Roboto of LeftHandHorror:

Nerds everywhere owe Joss Whedon an enormous ‘thank you’. Not only has he satisfied critics and hardcore comic fans with his adaptation, but he’s given the film a soul as well. Every scene smacks of his signature witty and snarky dialogue; a welcome element to a team of super serious heroes. If the film felt effortless and organic to you, we can once again thank Joss for turning his love of The Avengers comic into a passionately well-crafted film. The Avengers is everything we’ve ever wanted in a comic book movie. Packed with action, great banter, citywide property destruction, mesmerizing special effects and a rampaging Hulk on the loose – The Avengers cements Whedon into geek infamy forever. This film is a true rarity of success and substance.

Christopher Brown of ModernBro:

Two words: HOLY. SH*T.

Avengers could possibly be the best comic book movie of all time. Not only did they achieve exactly what the fans wanted, but they did it with style, humor, and a boatload of action. For a two and a half hour movie, it flew by, never dragging or lagging, always entertaining and always faithful to the characters’ characterizations. Everything about this movie was great, in my opinion, and each character had his or her charm and appeal (though Hawkeye and Black Widow seemed a bit flatter than the rest of the characters). Without spoiling anything, I think that The Hulk flat out stole the show with some of the most amusingly badass – and flat out hilarious – scenes. I’ve got a definite new found respect for The Hulk as he was done RIGHT in this movie.

This one’s definitely being added to the collection, and I can’t wait to compare The Dark Knight Rises to it. It’s going to be extremely difficult for anyone – including Marvel – to top this…and yet, the extra scene after the credits makes a BOLD promise that they intend to try. And for that, Marvel, I salute you with a good old fashioned Stan Lee “Excelsior!”

Tim of Tim’s Film Reviews

Joss Whedon you beautiful man you. Well he has done what many thought would be impossible creating a film with six superheroes without it being a total mess. The film is not only not bad but in my opinion pretty damn perfect. By perfect I mean I honestly don’t have any complaints, no stupid stuff, no boring scenes, it’s just a great action film.The characters are surprisingly well performed by the cast and were written as being more human than any of their own films have portrayed before (especially Bruce Banner).

The avenger’s first contact with each other certainly was kept true to the characters created in the films and comics meaning there was plenty of clashes involving all the heroes.There are a few things Joss Whedon does very well and you see two of them a lot in this film, the first would be brilliant character development meaning in this film that each of the characters in this massive film had their own screen time without one being more important than any other(even lesser characters got their time on the screen). The second is making smaller film sets get packed with massive stories and characters which looks and works great (action scenes within flying fortress, fight between Iron man and Thor within the woods), he obviously feels more comfortable on smaller sets because of his work on TV and lower budget films but he knows how to make these look just as good as in the open landscape scenes. This film is great for anyone to watch and I hope it does as well as it deserves.

So a pretty resounding success for Marvel Studios and the cast of the film. I guarantee you that as the numbers were rolling in for the opening weekend Keven Feige and Co. were spinning out new movie ideas left and right. Which is a good thing in my eyes.

So what does everybody else think? Let us know your thoughts on the movie in the comments section below!