Review: The Avengers

So, I gave in. After all, there wasn't many movies that came out this weekend. No one wanted to compete with The Avengers on opening weekend. And rightfully so. It had the best opening weekend domestic gross (money it made in America) in movie history! This weekend it made $200.3 million in domestic box offices. Thats more than James Cameron's Avatar and Titanic, the two highest grossing movies of all time, made in their opening weekend combined. However, that isn't saying that The Avengers will become the highest grossing movie of all time. Having a fantastic opening weekend such as this usually means profits will decline greatly in the following weeks. But it is still an impressive feat.

This movie exceeded my expectations. If any of you read my last post about how I feel towards Super Hero movies, you would no, I wasn't completely sold on seeing it right away. Luckily, nothing else came out, so I had no choice but to see it.

We all know the story. Or should, anyway. The Government creates a program, called the Avengers initiative during a dire situation. Loki, played by Tom Hiddleston (Thor, Midnight in Paris), a norse god, tired of living in the shadows of his brother, Thor, played b Chris Hemsworth (Thor, Cabin in the Woods), travels to Earth planning to bring an army of alien creatures and wage war on Humans to rise up and become their ruler.

Nick Fury calls upon Ironman (Robert Downey Jr. Ironman, Sherlock Holmes), Captain America (Chris Evan, Captain America, Sunshine) Dr. Bruce Banner/The Incredible Hulk (Mark Ruffalo, Shutter Island, Zodiac) and, of course, Thor, to stop Loki and save the planet.

The main thing I was worried about, going in to the theatre, was that they were going to rush into the action. A lot of action movies nowadays do that. They say "screw the story" and give the minimum amount of information needed to follow and just jump into the explosions. That, for me, makes a movie dull, boring, and quite frankly, insulting. It makes me feel that the studio is assuming that I, as a movie goer, am a empty headed, popcorn eating, zombie. But to my surprise, they took their time with it.

They made sure every character had a beginning, middle and end to their story. No one just popped up out of thin air. All of the characters were connected to their previous movies and everything fit together. It felt like everything was planned from when they first made Ironman. Which is probably what happened.

There was a great balance of every emotion in this movie. You felt for all of the characters, and you wanted them to succeed. And when things felt they were getting cliché, something surprising or hilarious would happen to change that.

Joss Whedon co-wrote and directed this newest installment from Marvel. He is one of the best directors out there right now, yet he is mostly unknown. I suspect his name will become more well known... hopefully. He deserves the recognition.

My Grade: A