The Avengers is a 2012 production from Marvel Studios, written and directed by Joss Whedon. It’s the first movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe that brings all the heroes together for an all-in fight against a greater threat. That means one thing, a star-filled cast. Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Hemsworth, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner, Tom Hiddleston and Samuel L. Jackson are all part of the show. The concept of all the superheroes fighting together seems to be liked by the audience. The movie scores an 8.0 on IMDb and received a 69 Metascore.
A Summary
S.H.I.E.L.D. is trying to use the Tesseract, found after the events of Captain America: The First Avenger, as an energy source to power everything. However, Loki (Tom Hiddleston) has other plans with it. He uses the Tesseract to teleport to the S.H.I.E.L.D. base, where the Asgardian overpowers the security and manages to control of Clint “Hawkeye” Barton (Jeremey Renner).
After Loki escapes the facility with the Tesseract, Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) calls a state of emergency. Now they will try to reach the other superheroes to form a stand against Loki. Natasha “Black Widow” Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson) picks up Bruce “The Hulk” Banner (Mark Ruffalo), Nick Fury goes by Steve “Captain America” Rogers (Chris Evans) and Phil Coulson go to see if Tony “Iron Man” Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) is available.
They all meet at S.H.I.E.L.D.’s aircraft-aeroplane convertible as most members have never spoken to each other. They find Loki in Stuttgart and manage to capture him, while Loki’s associates retrieved the valuable metal iridium needed for their work on the Tesseract. The Asgardian get brought on board of a smaller ship as Thor (Chris Hemsworth) makes an appearance and pulls him right out of there.
Thor gets into a fight with Captain America and Iron Man as they both want to have Loki as their prisoner. After an extensive fight, they agree to bring Loki aboard the aircraft carrier. And that’s when things get messy. S.H.I.E.L.D. is withholding information about their intentions with the Tesseract from the heroes and alongside the question of what to do with Loki, the situation aboard crumbles.
Hawkeye shows up and shoots one of the engines down. Banner turns into Hulk within the ship, destroying everything in his path. Loki escapes his cell and kills Agent Coulson. The chaos is complete. Romanoff manages to snap Hawkeye out of the mind control as both The Hulk and Thor fall of the ship while Loki leaves. The Avengers are left with losses and need to recuperate.
Loki is planning a Chitauri invasion of Earth, who will make him the leader as a trade for the Tesseract. The Chitauri need access to Earth via a portal created by the Tesseract. The portal gets opened on top of the Stark Building as the enemies start the swarm New York. A long fight follows between the Chitauri invaders and The Avengers, but they realise that the portal needs to be closed.
Romanoff gets to the top of the Stark Building, where the Tesseract is located and shuts down the portal. Meantime, Loki gets smashed by Hulk and an atomic bomb gets send to the city. As our superheroes have found a way to close the portal, this bomb is not needed and Iron Man manages to steer it into the portal just before it closes, defeating all enemies on both sides of the portal.
The Story
These Avengers movies are maybe not the best story-wise, but they offer a unique experience. Most of the featured superheroes have had their movie by this point and to see them all come together to fight is breathtaking. The whole plot of this movie could be summed up to “Aliens invading earth; The Avengers need to stop them.” But it is so much more than that.
This movie starts building relationships between characters that will be around for decades to come, featuring in much more movies together. And those relations are genuinely interesting to see unfold. The Banner-Stark combo with their outlandish knowledge, that Romanoff-Barton romance and the Tony-Steve tension. This is just the beginning of what is one of the best movie universes ever created.
The Characters
You could say this movie features eight main characters, so I will make one general analysis. Most of the character-building has already been done by this point. Iron Man, Captain America, Hulk and Thor have all had their movies and Nick Fury, Hawkeye and Black Widow have already appeared in those movies. That nicely leaves one main subject on the table for this movie: the relationship between these characters.
Their interactions are greatly written in my opinion. As I said earlier, the Stark-Rogers interactions are great, one of my favourites actually. Steve is a well-trained soldier, who will always follow orders. Tony on the other hand is more like the opposite of that. It’s one of many examples I could give. Other ones include the whole team being scared of Banner turning into Hulk, Nick Fury managing his team of superheroes and the dynamic of having a god on your team.
The Production
The MCU has a lot of extraterrestrial figures to deal with. Most of the time these need to be made with CGI, but we’ve only seen them in Thor so far (if you follow release order). However, I found that Thor’s CGI was lacking a bit, while The Avengers manages to overcome that hurdle and produces some breathtaking CGI for the Chitauri and Hulk.
The movie features a flying aircraft carrier, a destroyed New York and seven superheroes. Still, the managed to put all of those out there with excellent quality. Also props the Avengers music theme, the moment they all stand in a circle with that music behind it, goosebumps.