Category: samuel l jackson

Joss Whedon's film manages the hard part of building a team of superheroes but is a bit puzzled trying to figure out what to do with them

It may not be based on a work of, in the old-fashioned sense, literature, but a movie like “The Avengers” is, in some crucial ways, quite like an adaptation of Shakespeare or Dickens.  

Certain characters, plots, phrases, even props must be handled just so or the director risks losing the good will of those who know a thing or two about it all.  Yes, there must be enough in the final product to appeal to non-initiates.  But if the core audience is lost -- as it was, say, with “Hulk” (2003) and “The Incredible Hulk” (2008), to pick two loaded examples -- then the filmmakers might as well have stayed home with their comic collections, because they’ll find little love from outside the target crowd.

The happy news, then, about “The Avengers” is that the screenwriters (director Joss Whedon and Zak Penn), have done a splendid job of bringing an entire universe of characters together and to life with fidelity to the letter and the spirit of the source material.  Gathering threads from a string of franchise-type films featuring Captain America, Iron Man and Thor, resurrecting the Hulk convincingly after two botched films in less than a decade, adding new characters and an overarching plot that intertwines it all, “The Avengers” pretty much offers up anything a fanboy (or -girl) would want from such a film.  

And neutrals are likely to go for it as well, I reckon, for its wit, its pace, and its bang, even if it does expend itself on a third act that doesn’t add much to the drama.  Save for that showy finale -- which endures quite a while, although not without some highlights and pizzazz -- it’s a pip.

The fulcrum of “The Avengers” is Nick Fury, the eyepatch-sporting spymaster who has been played by Samuel L. Jackson in a number of teasers leading up to this film.  Fury and his organization, S. H. I. E. L. D., serve as a liaison between military-slash-political powers and various superheroes scattered around the world.  In the course of his work, Fury has thawed Captain America from decades of icy sleep, worked with Tony Stark (aka Iron Man) on developing weapons, served as a contact with the Norse god Thor during his time on Earth, and employed the assassins Black Widow and Hawkeye in various shadowy missions.  

When “The Avengers” starts, Fury is in possession of the tesseract, a mysterious and powerful cube which Captain America prised away from the Nazis long ago.  Fury’s scientists are attempting to turn the mysterious whatsits into a source of clean, cheap energy -- among other things -- when it’s stolen from them by Loki, Thor’s evil brother, who wishes to rule mankind as a tyrant.  Loki plans to use the tesseract to open a gateway through space and facilitate an alien invasion of Earth, and Fury must roundup all his superhero buddies to stop him.

And so, as in “Seven Samurai” and “Mystery Men” and other films about gaggles of do-gooders, a team is gathered.  Captain America (Chris Evans) is, of course, on board from the get-go, as is Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), who is in mid-mission when she’s summoned.  Stark/Iron Man is recruited with relative ease, but it takes real delicacy to bring in Bruce Banner (aka the Hulk, played as a man by Mark Ruffalo and as a CGI beast with the voice of TV’s Hulk, Lou Ferrigno).  Thor (Chris Hemsworth) appears out of thin air, ready to help, but Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner), has been brainwashed into badness by Loki (Tom Hiddleston), and must regain his senses to round out the classic Avengers lineup.

This portion of the film -- the assembling of the team -- is the best part of “The Avengers.”  There’s real humor in the byplay of altruistic Captain America and cynical Iron Man, and real wit, mystery and tension as Banner tries to control his inner behemoth.  (If nothing else, this is easily the best Hulk on film:  Ruffalo’s slightly twitchy chagrin is a perfect vessel for such a Jekyll-and-Hyde personality.)  Johansson brings a pleasant heft to her role; Hemsworth, achieving the impossible, makes Thor both human and funny; and Hiddleston relishes the chance to play a classic upper-crust English-accented villain with a sneer worthy of Alan Rickman.

Once they’re all in place, though, the film falters -- although, to be fair, it never exactly stalls or gets dull.  There’s a long sequence of plot exposition and fighting aboard Fury’s impressive flying fortress, followed by a long sequence of plot exposition and fighting in midtown Manhattan.  Some of this is spectacular and some of it is funny (two sight gags involving the Hulk and the Norse gods are priceless).  But it isn’t exactly novel or inspired.  And there’s a lot of it.

For the most part, Whedon has made a light and spry film out of humongous, cumbersome parts, and that’s to be lauded.  But he’s not a natural director of action sequences, and perhaps this is why he builds them bigger than they need to be -- as if to compensate for their lack of sharpness.  Writer Whedon is clever enough to add moments of levity even to the gigantic action sequences, but director Whedon is sufficiently pedestrian to require them, and the latter fellow’s sensibility too often blunts that of the other, brighter fellow.  

Perhaps this is too much attention to the film’s weaknesses, because even with the flaws of the final half, “The Avengers” is grand, brisk fun.  It comes tantalizingly close to reaching the level of the very best comic book films of the current generation:  Christopher Nolan’s Batman movies, Sam Raimi’s first two “Spider-Man” films, and the debuts of Iron Man and Captain America.  That “The Avengers” is as good as it is should be celebrated, by fans and noobs alike.  But that it might have been better can’t be denied, even by zealots.
    
(140 min., PG-13, multiple locations) Grade: B