Movie review: Superheroic battles stir up excitement in The Avengers

Of the recent plethora of superhero movies, The Avengers is the best so far. Writer/director Joss Whedon, who also helms the hip Buffy The Vampire Slayer series, has come up with a masterpiece. And it’s not because of the casting coup of bringing together such top flight (and very bankable) talent such as Robert Downey Jr. (as Iron Man), Scarlett Johansson (as the Black Widow), and Samuel Jackson (as Nick Fury). What makes The Avengers such a masterpiece are the levels of pathos and catharsis the film generates. What Captain America failed to generate in this writer's empathy, The Avengers makes up for in adamantium spades. Where in his own movie Captain America fails to sustain interest, in this movie the good captain and his mighty shield generate prepubescent levels of boyhood excitement among those of us who came of age in the '80s. When the Cap hung perilously from the side of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s flying battleship, we hung with him with our hearts in our throats. Of the Marvel superheroes, Captain America has always been one of the wimpiest. He has no cool otherworldly powers, nothing radioactive, no adamantium skeletons in his closet, no mutant healing factor. But that's part of what makes him so cool. He's vulnerable and human, and yet he battles superheroically. It's wonderful! And it's wonderful to watch a movie which suspends our disbelief until even a day after watching it! Speaking of heroes bereft of super powers who are actually all the more heroic for their lack of it, The Black Widow -- trained as a master martial artist and assassin -- captures the viewer's empathy from the get-go. She actually has nothing but gymnastic fighting skills and Johansson's ethereal beauty going for her, but like Captain America, she stands shoulder to shoulder as a hero with her fellow Avengers because she battles valiantly with only her all-too human powers, skills, and strength to go on. Tony Stark (Iron Man), played by Robert Downey Jr, is also all too human. But quite an accomplished human he is! Grilled by Captain America, “Big man in that suit of armor, but without it, what are you?” Stark answers drolly: “a billionaire, genius, playboy philanthropist.”   Stark pulls off perhaps the most heroic act in the movie, and ultimately saves humanity and the planet, so he's entitled to being a bit narcissistic. Besides, he's played by his generation's best actor, so we'll forgive Iron Man anything.   Speaking of great actors, we feel Mark Ruffalo as the Hulk is an inspired casting choice. Ruffalo is plenty smart enough to play Hulk alter-ego Bruce Banner, and his rough-hewed features do bring to mind the hulk's rough persona.   Another great casting choice is Chris Hemsworth as Thor. A relative unknown prior to Thor, Hemsworth has no cinematic history to color his role as Thor. The audience knows him just as Thor, so disbelief is suspended from the start. Hemsworth is also physically perfect as Thor. He's got the face and body of a Norse god/surfer and he can swing a hammer with panache and élan. Perfect!   Perfectly cast too is Tom Hiddleston as Loki the naughty Asgardian. His face and facial expressions are aptly impish, and his eyes betray the angst of a god who grew up in the long shadow of his hammer-wielding surfer dude of an older brother.   Jeremy Renner's Hawkeye is an enigma, which is consonant with the comic book character who was also always a bit of a mystery. Basically, Hawkeye is a master assassin/archer who can pull off miraculous feats with his bows and arrows. Before Catniss Everdeen, there was Hawkeye... and this guy could hit anything with his arrows.   Our only caveats revolve around exposition. The film never quite makes perfectly clear exactly what the mysterious tesseract is and why it's so darned important to everyone. We have a vague memory of it also playing a role in Captain America, where its role was also rather unclear. Also, the respective backstories of Nick Fury and S.H.I.E.L.D. (and their flying fortress) could've been made clearer.   All in all, though, the dramatic fight scenes, witty dialogue, and the presence of the great Robert Downey Jr. and Scarlett Johansson's otherworldly beauty more than make up for whatever small shortcomings The Avengers movie may have.   Two thumbs way up! – YA/HS, GMA News