Marvel's The Avengers (2012) Review

THE FOLLOWING REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS OF THE DISCUSSED FILM. READERS DISCRETION IS ADVISED.

May 4, 2012, was the day audiences saw the most ambitious film crossover at its time, as the MCU's Phase One concludes with the eventful film, Marvel’s The Avengers. The film begins with the God of Mischief Loki arriving on Earth via teleportation by the Tesseract, that activated on its own. He quickly steals it after using a scepter to mind control multiple people including SHIELD agent Clint Barton and astrophysicist Erik Selvig (Stellan Skarsgard). Fury summons ‘The Avengers Initiative’ in order to stop this new threat. The Black Widow, Natasha Romanoff gets recruited after discovering her friend Barton got compromised. She than recruits scientist Bruce Banner, who might track the cube due to its exposure to gamma radiation. Fury goes to Steve Rogers/Captain America himself, who encountered the cube before he crashed into the Arctic decades ago. Agent Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg) gives Tony Stark Selvig’s research to review. Loki gets made in Stuttgart, as he and Barton were stealing Iridium to stabilize the cube’s power. Only he is taken into custody by the captain and the Iron Man. Thor than appears attempting to take him straight to Asgard, but after confronting the other heroes as well, he agrees to take him to SHIELD’s aircraft, the ‘Helicarrier’. As his brother is imprisoned in a cell designed for the Hulk, he shares that Loki has an extraterrestrial army called the ‘Chitauri’ which he’ll use to attack Earth. Based on Selvig’s research, Tony also explains that Loki will need a stronghold to use the cube to open the portal so it won’t collapse on itself like it did at the SHIELD facility Pegasus. All of our heroes temporarily become divided both on how to deal with Loki and with the discovery that SHIELD would make weapons out of the Tesseract, they’re not sure to trust Fury. Within this time, Barton attacks the carrier, disabling an engine. The explosion causes Banner to be stressed out enough to turn into the Hulk. Thor fights him off until he falls to the ground after attacking a fighter jet. Cap and Stark restart the damaged engine while Romanoff breaks Barton from Loki’s control by knocking him unconscious. Loki kills Coulson after he escapes and ejects Thor from the airship. After saving the ship, Tony realizes that Loki will use Stark Tower as a location to summon the Tesseract’s wormhole, which would launch his invasion with the alien army. When Tony arrives to shoot the cube, contained in a wormhole generator, it only ricochets and hits Selvig, breaking him from Loki as well. When Barton recovers, he goes with Cap and Nat to stop Loki and fight off his army. Thor gets there too but is unable to change his brother and stop the cube on his own. Banner arrives last and all fight together with Stark in order to evacuate as much civilians as possible. When Nat reaches to Stark Tower, she finds the recovered Selvig. He tells her to use the scepter to close the portal. However, SHIELD’s council attempts to send a nuclear missile to destroy the remaining army and don’t care that the city hasn’t been completely evacuated yet. When Fury warns Stark, the Iron Man quickly takes it through the portal to space, where it would destroy the mothership. Because he was in space, his suit loses power and he free falls before the portal is completely closed by Nat. Hulk catches him from the fall and thankfully, he survives. After the event, the group of heroes are praised by the public. The film ends with Thor taking Loki back to Asgard, including the Tesseract, while Stark redesigns Stark Tower into Avengers Tower with his girlfriend Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow). After watching it during its theatrical release, I recall thinking to myself like the trolley kid from The Incredibles, ‘That was totally wicked!’. I did grow up reading these comics but I never actually thought about a film like this would happen, yet it became a dream come true. Hearing it on paper sounded impossible but director/writer Joss Whedon and producer Kevin Feige ensured to make it so, and they succeeded in making something inventive. I love this movie with all my heart, but there are a few moments where I admit would have been done differently. First of which would be that Loki should’ve just killed Tony quickly rather than letting him threaten him before the battle began. I don't want Loki to win, but he has to point to do this if he thinks he has the upper hand. It is pretty logical for him to kill off Fury and eliminate an obstacle, but imagine how useful he'd be if he mind controlled him instead. I was pretty surprised that Barton went for the kill, but it's pretty ridiculous that he would not remember his superior having a vest. Hell, Loki doesn't even try to control Cap either, which again could've worked out big time for him. I was laughing a whole lot when it backfires to control Tony when he aims at the chest, it doesn't work because of the arc reactor blocking his heart. But if that's possible, why doesn't he try elsewhere in the body to control him like his brain? The heart shouldn't be the way for a stone powered scepter to control someone. And I don’t understand how Black Widow quickly understood using the Chitauri’s weapons and used it against them. That is the most unreal moment for me. I know our heroes need an advantage, but she learned way too fast since we don't even see how she figured it out. There’s a short film named Item 47, where we see a couple figure it out. And if we see them figure it out, we should see how one of our heroes did it. Also, it was funny for Coulson to override Jarvis just to reach Tony, but shouldn't he the latter extremely upset for someone to do that? No wonder it wasn't so hard for Ultron to overpower the AI. I don't blame Fury for thinking the cube powered the scepter because he knows there has to be a connection with these artifacts, but since no one knows about the Infinity Stones yet, what makes him this is true? Loki didn't need the cube when he went to Germany, so Nat should've shared that that weapon is its own thing. It is intense when Cap discovers SHIELD's intent to weaponize the cube, but how the hell did security not go off when he opened a door with his own strength? Since The Winter Soldier revealed that HYDRA infiltrated SHIELD after Cap went under, they should've been on top of this to keep their cover. It's even weirder how they didn't punish Barton when he spared Nat. I know Fury would be lenient and she proved herself a good agent after Dreykov scenario shown her 2021 film, but it's insane that there's no certainty of Fury's superiors being against any of it. They even had escort fighter jets ready to attack Hulk, but not Barton's ship. If they had that the whole time, they should've shot at that opposing jet to avoid Loki leaving. And if there was an option to shut down his jet automatically, then Hill should've done that immediately after the turbine blew. Im even surprised that Fury had enough time to quip himself to stop the jets. If they're supposed to take as long he did to get them, then that's ridiculous. And lastly, I respect Tony for willing to sacrifice himself by taking the nuke directly to the wormhole, but couldn't he just let go after changing its course? If he had to take it all the way, he should've said so. Once you ignore this, the movie will feel timeless. The true reason that it remains to be this way because as each movie has done is that we still learn something throughout. The biggest lesson is the most obvious: If you work alongside others, you can solve your problems and overcome the obstacles that you’re unable because no one can do anything alone. We get this message from one of the best ensembles I have ever seen. After having a cameo in Thor, Jeremy Renner gives Hawkeye a proper introduction here and delivers. I could’ve not guessed that he would be mind controlled by Loki for most of the movie before fighting alongside Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. He made the character likable because once he regained his free will, he didn’t hesitate sticking himself out there again and acts as brave as the others he fights alongside. A bow and arrow honestly wouldn't be my first choice for weaponry, but it doesn’t mean he ain’t looking badass with it. His chemistry with Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow is easily shown from first to last scene together, making us feel that they’ve known each other forever. The same is said with the two and the rest of the cast. Speaking of Johansson, she remains memorable for being able to remain mostly emotionless to maintain focus for what is at stake. The example comes from how she shares her backstory (which would be heavily explored in her 2021 solo film) just to figure out how Loki would break from captivity. Even though her vulnerability was temporarily present, she continued to be another strong willed figure on the team. Mark Ruffalo filled the big shoes and was a great choice as the replacement to Edward Norton for not just Bruce Banner, but also providing impressive motion capture for the newly designed Hulk. He does show off an interesting dynamic in his portrayal: While big green can be a simple minded savage, Banner is a shy yet mild mannered person. We root for him because he is now alongside people who accept him and don’t judge him for what he’s done. Robert Downey Jr. returns to be the cynical yet more mature hero we know him for. His dislike towards Rogers comes from how based on his father’s admiration, he had a hard time living up to the expectations. He was told by Rogers that he wasn’t willing to sacrifice himself for others because he didn’t believe he could do it like he did in his lifetime, yet he proves him wrong by taking the nuke to the wormhole, knowing it could have been a one way trip. That moment alone teaches another lesson that people should set an example if they want to be taken seriously. After that paid off, this would begin one of the most dynamic friendships in film history. Chris Evans returns as a man out of time, but makes a memorable mark by showing Captain America to remain as a noble man no matter what decade he lives in. He didn’t trust Stark because he didn’t see Howard in him, as in the optimism he remembers. His most badass moment comes from him standing up to Thor. That moment is so effective because it teaches us that you can’t ever be afraid to stand your ground. Speaking of which, Chris Hemsworth is also great in his second appearance as Thor. In this outing, he is far from an arrogant person now because he’s choosing to be more responsible. He does remain hot tempered because he originally did not trust the other heroes. Once he understood that they fight for the same cause, he channeled into stopping his brother. I appreciate the moment where he hesitates in grabbing Mjolnir. It expresses on how he doubts himself, worried that he might fail to stop what was coming. Lucky for him, he had help to pull off his goal. The best thing to know about this movie is how Loki was the first villain that the Avengers fought together just like as the comics presented, and Tom Hiddleston still backed it up as the complex, despicable villain in his second outing. His Chitauri army may come off disposable as the heroes take them out one by one, they actually appear more formidable because they attack regardless of how strong their opponents are. If you have an army as willing as that, than you’re giving your enemies a run for the money. Samuel L Jackson did not get enough screen time in previous films playing Nick Fury because they were mainly cameos, but thankfully this film is able to give him better development. In his given screen time, we get to see how he is somewhat of an enigma because he is pragmatic based on his actions. Some of his decisions sound unnecessary but since we know he isn’t a HYDRA agent, we know he is coming from the right place. I do like the change on Cobie Smulders’ Agent Maria Hill who was originally a ruthless figure in the comics, but thankfully is not like that in this movie. This time around, she is presented as someone who trusts Fury and doesn’t exactly overthink the situation. It is crazy that Coulson’s death was the motivation to get the the team together, but it works because he was someone who truly believed in them. The way he expresses himself as a fan to Captain America showed how much he believed that they could stop Loki. It’s crazy looking back on how between all the cheerful moments, there was laughter. Hulk tossing Loki around will go down as the funniest moment of the franchise. But besides that, the movie can be mostly funny throughout with scenes such as: Tony spotting a SHIELD agent playing Galaga, Harry Dean Stanton’s cameo, or Cap giving Fury $10 for a bet he didn’t he never technically accepted. I mean I recall laughing pretty loud over these moments because that’s how funny it was. The visuals are in good use not just for the Hulk, but the entire Battle in NY sequence, which is a third act battles that becomes more iconic as the years go by. Seeing the heroes together all at once in a circle is a shot everyone will recognize in film history. Although Iron Man was the first MCU film to have an after credits scene, The Avengers made it a staple for the franchise and made it a new trend for later blockbusters because at the time, no one would stop talking about either the heroes eating at Shawarma or the appearance of the purple figure known as Thanos. If this film had not succeeded, I’m not sure if they’d move forward and see the Titan again. Alan Silvestri composes what could be the best score of the superhero film genre, and it was great for him to return to compose for Infinity War & Endgame. In the end, Marvel’s The Avengers is a great movie whether or not you’ve seen the previous films that built up to this crossover. For the new superhero fans reading this, you won’t regret witnessing this.