Road to Endgame: The Avengers (2012)

The Avengers (2012)

People love to talk about how Infinity War and Endgame are the biggest collaboration of movies ever.  However, this movie was the first.  This brought characters and plot lines from 5 different movies together for the first time and it worked.

Leading up to the film, we got another recast.  Edward Norton would not be returning as Bruce Banner.  Instead we would be getting. . .Mark Ruffalo?  That guy from the Romantic Comedies?  What are they thinking?!?

Again, so so so glad to be wrong.  Mark Ruffalo was AMAZING as the Hulk.  He was funny, he had depth, he was everything we wanted in a Hulk.  Now all we need to do is give him his own movie again.  Guys?  Anybody?  Okay.

Iron Man, Captain America, and Thor all return and aren’t diminished or altered from their own franchises.  They all just fit right into the movie like a glove.

Black Widow finally comes into her own in this movie.  In Iron Man 2 she was just so so.  Yes she kicked some ass but she seemed so lacking.  She was too much of an assistant to everybody and was not a dominating character.  She lacked personality of her own.  In this she thrives.  Hell, she is such a bad ass in this that she knocks a guy out WITH HER HAIR!

If there is one character that suffers, it is Hawkeye.  He spends most of this movie as a puppet of Loki.  As a result we just get action from him and no personality.  Hawkeye gets a MAJOR character upgrade in Age of Ultron and Civil War.

Loki makes a decent villain in this movie, but I agree that it would have been nice to have a new villain, but I don’t think a different villain would have brought Thor back.  One of Joss Whedon’s proudest moments was sneaking in the phrase Mewling Quim into a Disney film.  Look it up.  It’s fun.

One of my favorite scenes in the movie is the long tracking scene from the final battle.  It is just absolute art as they flow from one part of the battle to the next to the next to the next until finally ending with a HILARIOUS Punch from Hulk to Thor.  Sadly that scene got spoiled for me a bit.  I don’t remember how exactly, but there was a grainy clip showing that scene on facebook or something a few days before the movie came out.

But nothing will beat the thrill of seeing the six Avengers standing back to back while an Army screeches at them for the first time.

This movie is just amazing in its scale and what it managed to do.

Before we leave Phase 1 behind, I’m going to finally get my Fiancé to watch The Incredible Hulk.