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| Edited By: Daniel Pinto |Source: DNA |Updated: Nov 21, 2013, 01:44 PM IST
Film: The Avengers
Cast: Robert Downey Jr, Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Hemsworth, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner, Tom Hiddleston, Samuel L Jackson
Director: Joss Whedon
Rating: ****
Our heroes are in pursuit of the Tesseract, a cube of cosmic super-awesomeness which was previously seen in Iron Man 2 (2008), Thor and Captain America: The First Avenger (2011). The object, an unlimited source of power, couldn’t have landed in the worse hands. When Loki, the film’s devious antagonist magics it out of the super-secret organisation S.H.I.E.L.D.’s grasp, its director the otherwise cool Nick Fury ( Samuel L Jackson) is by own admission a desperate man. The Earth’s mightiest heroes are duly rounded up. Tony Stark a.k.a Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr) is busy living large while the equally brilliant but less fortunate Bruce Banner a.ka the Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) is cooling his heels in Kolkata. The less-endowed (in terms of super powers) but deadly Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) is being sweated by Russian goons while the Captain (Chris Evans) works up a sweat relentlessly punching sandbags, awaiting his mission like the soldier he is.
Eventually, everyone gets together and sparks fly while the threat of a mad god, seeking to subjugate mankind, looms dangerously closer.
With the dots finally on the verge of being connected after the gentle hints and post-credit scenes since 2008’s Iron Man, the film maintains a fine balance which holds together the characters, the gravity, the wit and the ample pyrotechnics. And when the pyrotechnics come, man do they come fast! Painstakingly planned and heavy-hitting, nothing is held back when it comes to show just why The Avengers — even a bloke with just a bow and arrows — are Earth's mightiest heroes.
From alcoholism (Tony Stark) to spousal abuse (Henry Pym, a founding Avenger absent in the film) to social ostracism (Peter Parker, Benjamin Grim a.k.a The Thing), Marvel comics always had a thing for the human part of being superhuman. And for all their awesomeness, the heroes’ fallibility is seen. However, unlike Christopher Nolan, Whedon is not apologetic of old-fashioned comic-book excessiveness. Instead, he channelises it, banking on it for humour to balance out the drama. Miraculously, the film doesn’t dissolve into kitschiness. Largely, this is due to the tight writing. There is no overbrimming of Asgardian operatics, or indulgent WW2 flashbacks, no monologues about the shames of being hunted down and limelight isn’t meted out to Iron Man alone. The larger story is never convoluted because of all the characters and their baggage.
One may never know the details of the beef between Marvel Studios and Edward Norton who played the Hulk in the 2008 film but as a man in resignation — almost embracing the absurdness of his existence — Ruffalo’s performance does honour to the purple pants.
Downey Jr does what he does best playing the blase, individualist bad boy, in the process contrasting the dated goody-two-shoes notions of the stoic Evans’s Captain America. Hiddleston is perfect as Loki, who like the best villains believes himself to be slighted by the ones he loved (or did he ever really? Hmmm...) The character’s brother, however, suffers a treatment that is at times more suited to a surfer dude than Jack Kirby’s Norse deity. Though Whedon’s feministic worldview is witnessed in the asskickery of the Widow and SHIELD agent Maria Hill, she and agent Clint Barton (Jeremy Renner) a.k.a Hawkeye (who were first seen in Iron Man 2 and Thor) don’t get enough of the limelight.
Still, a better film by miles than those that set the stage for it, Avengers — with its sharp writing — is the extravaganza Transformers wishes it was. Unprecedented in its crossover nature, there isn’t really much to moan about (we don’t know much about Hawkeye and Black Widow? Well, they are shadowy agents anyway) .
Nerdgasm-inducing revelation (Spoiler alert): Stick around for a mid-credit scene for where a cosmic megabaddie is shown. Hint: He’s big, purple and is the self-styled lover of Marvel’s personification of Death.
