The Avengers (2012)
Directed By: Joss Whedon
Screenplay By: Joss Whedon
Starring: Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, and the rest of Earth’s Mightest Heroes

The long wait is over. After hinting at something called the ‘Avengers Initiative’ in Iron Man (2008) and continuing into: Iron Man 2, The Incredible Hulk, Thor, and Captain America – The First Avenger, the end result: The Avengers, turns out to be everything you could hope for in a comic book movie this epic. Building upon events from Marvel Studio’s five other films, all the pieces come together in a show-stopping movie, that doesn’t disappoint when it comes to a threat that the heroes can’t face individually.

Loki, Thor’s brother, wants the Tessaract (known to Marvel Zombies as the Cosmic Cube) to take over the Earth…and quite possibly the universe. Nick Fury enlists the aid of our heroes to try and stop him but first they all have to just get along. Steve Rogers is a man out of time, Bruce Banner doesn’t usually play well with others, Thor has a lot on his plate keeping Asgard in order, Black Widow & Hawkeye are a little overwhelmed, and Tony Stark is well, Tony Stark. It’s going to take a scheming Loki and his alien army: The Chitauri, to bring the heroes together.

And when they assemble, boy is it unreal. At certain moments during the film, I almost couldn’t believe I was sitting in the theater watching The Avengers onscreen. When it was first announced that Mr. Whedon would be at the helm directing the first outing of the team, I was a little skeptical. I know he’s a very good writer and fantastic at shepherding his personal projects (Buffy, Firefly, etc.), but I wasn’t sure about his directing chops with a scenario this massive. Well, he shut me up pretty quickly.

Every BIG moment that you hoped would be in the movie is pretty much in the movie. Every match-up that comic fans in comic shops all over the world have talked about since the announcement of this film is in the movie. Every character has his or her moment to shine. And yes, the Hulk is that awesome, “Incredible”, really (I couldn’t resist).

By the time the climax hits, and New York is being invaded, your mind will probably already have been thoroughly blown out of the back of the theater, but when you see The Earth’s Mightiest Heroes taking on the intergalactic threat, and fighting for us, you can’t help but feel like a kid opening the pages of your first Avengers comic. Wonder and excitement and a lot of really cool things blowing up all in a self contained universe that’s probably going to get a whole lot bigger. And of course, (like I have to tell you), there
is a whopper of a scene, two scenes actually, during and after the end credits.

-Tom Costello