Last weekend history was made. It did not mark the start of a war, or the discovery of some vital new technology, instead tens of thousands of people stood in line for a movie. Altogether, these people spent approximately 207 million dollars to see this movie. This is far and away the greatest total for a single movie in a single weekend. This record-breaking movie is Marvel's The Avengers, and I, quite unwittingly, was one of the many who helped it make history. At last, something to add to my resume.
I was in Dallas for the weekend, visiting my sister and brother-in-law. At some point during the drive from Dallas to Waco, we decided to see The Avengers. We're typically not the movie going type, so seeing a film on opening weekend was a pretty big deal. Not that I'm complaining. After driving nine-and-a-half hours from Kansas City to Dallas, and then traversing the massive state of Texas for the next two days, a movie sounded great. We reserved our tickets at a Theater that served food, which I thought was really weird. So naturally when we arrived about half an hour early and the movie was already sold out, I was surprised. At this point I was starting to get that this was a popular movie.
Don't go to this movie expecting a complex, edge-of-your-seat plot, because it doesn't have one. The plot is basically: Super Heroes needing to be nice to each other in order to stop alien invasion. With such a simple plot, the majority of the screen time was allotted to keeping track of the handful of main characters. These included super genius billionaire Tony Stark/Iron Man, super soldier from WW2 Captain America, the Incredible Hulk, the Thunder God Thor, a few super secret agents from the agency Shield, and of course, of the maniacal villain, Loki, who just happens to be Thor's little brother. Loki wants to take over the world, and he gets some evil alien species to help him. He comes to earth, guns blazing (or rather, evil death rod blazing) and steals this glowing-cube thing called the Tesseract, which first made an appearance in the recent Captain America movie. Apparently, this doesn't sit well with Shield director Nick Fury (played by Samuel L. Jackson) since the cube can open a portal that would let all sorts of nasties into earth. He calls up our resident super heroes who proceed to not cooperate. Loki gets away with the cube and plots to destroy the world. Pretty much your typical sci-fi flick. What separates this movie, however, are the characters.
When you call up a bunch of super heroes and ask them to play nice, you're probably not going to get a good result. Insults are thrown, tempers flare, egos are damaged, all to our, and the arch villain's, glee. The acting is great and the dialogue is seamless. Wit flows like a fountain from Tony Stark ( played by Robert Downey Jr.) and his banter with fellow heroes Captain America and Doctor Banner (The Hulk's not Hulky form) are classic. We get a bit of tear wrenching drama (and I don't mean tear wrenching because it's so dramatic) from Jeremy Renner's and Scarlett Johansson's fellow secret agent characters, which under normal circumstances would be permissible. However, with Tony Stark no doubt being awesome somewhere else off screen this bit was a little drab. And by a little I mean a lot. As for Thor, all he seems to care about is finding his conniving little brother so he can beat him into a pulp with his superior muscles. Meanwhile, Mace Windu, err, Nick Fury, has an awesome eye patch.
The film is riddled with wit, which quickly has you waiting for the next one-liner instead of the next big explosion or death-defying stunt. Case-in-point: during the huge battle at the end, after Thor and The Hulk have finished blowing through some baddies, they're standing next to each other looking all-heroic with smoldering ruins behind them. Then without any warning, The Hulk's left hand proceeds to shoot out and Thor exits stage right. For no apparent reason The Hulk punched his buddy, I mean, what's up with that? But at this advanced point in the movie, we're used to this kinda thing. The film doesn't dwell on it, it just happens and then we move on like no big deal. Comedy is not only expected, it's accepted and passed without ceremony. Well, that's not true. Ceremony might include not being able to hear the movie for the next five minutes because your fellow moviegoers are laughing so loudly.
This movie is pure entertainment. Big explosions, big guns, big muscles, big laughs. Constant peril keeps you glued to your seat, causing you (fine, me) to curse that Pepsi I guzzled during the Trailers which is now beckoning me towards the bathroom. Everyone knows there's no chance that Marvel's greatest heroes are going to let some ugly aliens take over the planet, it's just fun thinking they might. It's a giant party. After all, do the ugly aliens ever win? Not when giant green rage monsters are involved, that's for sure.
Review by Kansas City teen Josiah Bell. When Josiah isn't writing, you'll find him playing the guitar!
Josiah Bell, Teen Blogger