Bobby Movie Review: "The Avengers"

"The Avengers"

What is it about?

After an evil overlord from another planet steals a giant blue cube of enormous power - oh who gives a shit? It's a bunch of popular superheroes using their powers against weird aliens in New York City.

How are the top performances?

ROBERT DOWNEY, JR. as Tony Stark, aka Iron Man

Robert Downey, Jr. does his usual Iron Man schtick here, and he knows what to do with a great line. His character really grated on me on by movie #2 but he's on his A-game here and clearly has fun with how ridiculous this whole thing is (more on this later).

MARK RUFFALO as Bruce Banner, aka The Incredible Hulk

So Ed Norton gets kicked to the curb because, despite being a top acting talent, he's a complete asshole by all accounts who likes to re-edit his own films behind the director's back. But no fear, because Mark Ruffalo steps in. I've been a fan of this guy as a character actor for quite a while, and he got a very well-deserved Oscar nomination last year for The Kids Are All Right.

I feel like this is a bit of a thankless role, because everyone in the audience is just waiting for Bruce Banner to turn into The Hulk, who is, of course, a gigantic green raging piece of CGI. Ruffalo is more than capable though and does a nice job filling in for Norton.

CHRIS HEMSWORTH as Thor

I'm going to stop short of calling this guy a good actor, but I must say that he suffices as a jacked bad-ass from another world. Also, major respect for pulling off the single funniest line of the entire movie. (Won't spoil it, but it comes after "He murdered 80 people in 2 days")

CHRIS EVANS as Captain America

Another guy who isn't going to be picking up his tux for an Oscar acceptance speech anytime soon, but I actually like him better here than the original Captain America movie itself. He also gets tons credit for knocking his best lines out of the park.

SCARLETT JOHANSSON'S ASS I MEAN SCARLETT JOHANSSON as Black Widow

I have no idea why Scarlett Johansson gets as much or arguably MORE screentime playing a regular Russian spy out of any cookie-cutter generic actioner than a dude in a big metal rocket costume or a green monster, but she does. And she's Scarlett. So nobody is really complaining.

What's any good about it?

The movie is a borderline comedy, and I mean that in the most positive way I can.

Look, here's the dealio. I'm not a comic supergeek. I am one of the biggest fans of The Dark Knight, mainly for its parallels to the war on terror and the realistic take it has on an absurd subject.

I'm not huge on guys with horns and capes coming from a portal in the middle of the sky and waging an alien war on Manhattan. It's just too kiddy for me. It's too ridiculous. It's pretty stupid.

So that is why I can't tell you how much I appreciate a movie that KNOWS how ridiculous this is. I'm not going to ruin the film by throwing out and spoiling all the best one-liners, but the movie clearly has a sense of humor about itself and points out on numerous occasions how over-the-top the whole plot is.

The movie also succeeds in the improbable task of giving all these characters sufficient screentime. You can even argue "Why is Jeremy Renner as this Hawkeye guy on screen so much?" They even succeed in stroking everyone's ego so that no superhero really is shown as more powerful than another (Even though, let's be honest, I'm not comic expert but wouldn't the Hulk by far be the most powerful? Then Thor? Then a gigantic deep drop to Iron Man. Then the rest including Captain America have no powers. But whatever.)

For the most part the movie flows pretty freely and doesn't make you notice that it's 2 1/2 hours, which is a great thing.

I'm sure the comic nerds are much satisfied with how this turned out. And considering how shitty most of the preceeding films were, it does its job admirably.

The entire ridiculous, over-the-top, mountain peak of absurdity alien battle in NYC is staged incredibly well. 

Other awesome moments include:

Scarlett's interrogation is great.

Hulk's first transformation is suitably scary.

And every time the heroes find themselves just sitting around talking, it's phenomenal. Really genuinely, witty stuff.


Captain America's orders to the police go over really well.


Captain America taking out his wallet.

Do you have any complaints, you whiny bitch who complains about everything?

I do think it starts out a bit slow.

Also, it's probably not a great thing if your heroes talking is much more entertaining than the action.

And every scene with the weirdly effeminate little brother of Thor talking to that weirdo on the alien planet is complete death.

Best Scene

Loki's confrontation with The Hulk brings the house down.

Final Thoughts

This is pretty much exactly what I was looking for in my summer movie action epic.

It's light, it's funny, it's entertaining, it has likable stars and it's stunningly witty.

Let's be clear: This is not Christopher Nolan's Batman franchise. I like this movie, but in a different way. Batman is a work of art, this is an above-average great popcorn movie that I'll probably forget about by next Wednesday. However, all things considered, I got my money's worth.

And to get my money's worth in a project this insanely hyped, with nothing but 5 mediocre-to-okay movies backing it up, truly is a superhero effort.

Bobby Grade: B+

Great Quote

"Harold, it's Bateman, Patrick Bateman. You're my lawyer so I think you should know: I've killed a lot of people. Some girls in the apartment uptown uh, some homeless people maybe 5 or 10 um an NYU girl I met in Central Park. I left her in a parking lot behind some donut shop. I killed Bethany, my old girlfriend, with a nail gun, and some man uh some old faggot with a dog last week. I killed another girl with a chainsaw, I had to, she almost got away and uh someone else there I can't remember maybe a model, but she's dead too. And Paul Allen. I killed Paul Allen with an axe in the face, his body is dissolving in a bathtub in Hell's Kitchen. I don't want to leave anything out here. I guess I've killed maybe 20 people, maybe 40. I have tapes of a lot of it, uh some of the girls have seen the tapes. I even, um... I ate some of their brains, and I tried to cook a little. Tonight I, uh, I just had to kill a LOT of people. And I'm not sure I'm gonna get away with it this time. I guess I'll uh, I mean, ah, I guess I'm a pretty uh, I mean I guess I'm a pretty sick guy. So, if you get back tomorrow, I may show up at Harry's Bar, so you know, keep your eyes open."

---Patrick Bateman (Christian Bale), American Psycho