Movie Review: The Avengers

Marvel has given us Two Iron Man movies, two Hulk movies with two different Hulks, plus a Thor and a Captain America flick.  Finally, we now have all those characters together in one place in "The Avengers."
The Avengers is an elite group that only the most powerful heroes in the universe can join.

After breaking the U.S. record for the biggest opening weekend with a $207 million debut, "The Avengers" also scored the highest-grossing second weekend ever with an estimated $103 million. It's the fastest domestic release to reach the $300 million mark, but since it was released in other countries first, it did not set the record for the quickest to cross $1 billion worldwide.

That record is still held by the reigning champ, "Avatar," which did it in 19 days, two fewer than "Avengers"
The action begins as Nick Fury and his cohorts at S.H.I.E.L.D. are protecting and harnessing the energy of the 'Tesseract'. It's a small cube of unimaginable and never-ending energy which also serves as a gateway between different universes and dimensions. The Tesseract seems to be destabilising, but turns out that's only
the fallen Asgardian 'god' Loki traversing time and space to take over the planet.

Within seconds he flips Hawkeye and Professor Selvig to his side and steals the Tesseract.
That's followed by another impressive scene, when Clark Gregg's Agent Coulson calls Scarlett Johansson's Black Widow to tell her Hawkeye's been "compromised." She was tied to a chair and being interrogated actually, she was interrogating her captors and she performed a well-choreographed ballet of violence to free herself in seconds ( I love that part).  Call it a cliché, but Johansson does look good doing it.
Now it's time to assemble the rest of The Avengers. Nick Fury personally asks the newly-defrosted Captain America for help. Coulson, Fury's right-hand man, recruits Tony Stark, aka Iron Man at his penthouse apartment.  Black Widow finds Bruce Banner, aka The Hulk, hiding in Calcutta. 

Thor literally swoops in after Iron Man, Captain America and Black Widow rather easily capture Loki, who's Thor's Asgardian half-brother, which leads to a rather nasty yet fantastic confrontation between Iron Man and Thor. When Captain America joins in, it's on!

"The Avengers" by design is a big flashy movie, but some of its best moments involve Downey Jr. and Ruffalo, who have the type of chemistry you can't teach. Iconic Stark playfully needles Banner in hopes of getting him turn into that "other" guy, but to no avail.
There's a good reason why "Iron Man" movies do so well because Downey was born to play that role, and in "The Avengers" he was consistently funny throughout.

It must also be said that sometimes, a super hero movie is only as good as its bad guy, and Loki, played by the otherworldly (scary) good. If you thought he showed flashes of brilliance in " Thor," wait until you see him here, wrapped in a rapturous sheen of evil, preening like the cocky yet petulant denizen of Asgard that he is (Evil man).

 As a super hero movie about familiar characters many have been waiting years to see assembled. "The Avengers" is wildly entertaining and imaginative experience that speaks to all generations of comic book fans.

So was "The Avengers" worth the hype, and the wait?

My best character so far is Iron Man :)

The Avengers is still showing at Ozone Cinemas, Silverbird Cinemas (Lagos)