The Avengers

This is the mother of all summer movies. Shattering records and destroying all other movies in its path is what The Avengers is currently doing. This is being brought to us by the genius that is Joss Whedon, and starring all of the leading actors from the last 4 Marvel movies. The movie is really great for what it is supposed to be, the ultimate summer blockbuster. You get a little humor, some good character development and some awesome action. What more could you possibly ask for in a summer blockbuster?

This was a mesmerizing movie to watch in person. Clocking in at two and a half hours, it is a fairly long movie and it did not frag at all. That by itself is an amazing accomplishment when compared to other movies of that length that have come out recently. It does happen to follow a similar formula that all of the Marvel movies have been following lately. Something happens to make the heroes doubt themselves, they regain confidence, and then crush the villain. If the formula isn't broken then you don't need to fix it. I was pleasantly surprised at how much characterization they packed into this movie. Every character gets their own set up scenes and is given time over the course of the movie to grow. The standout characters in my opinion were Black Widow and Hulk/Bruce Banner. Just two awesome characters that have a few great scenes together and the Hulk pretty much dominated every scene that he was featured in because he is just a force of pure destruction.

The action in this movie was just spectacular and kicked it off right with the fight between Iron Man and Thor. They just beat the shit out of each other for five minutes and the fight just kept getting better the longer it went. They went over the top with the action and the inclusion of Joss' trademark humor in these scenes really took them to another level. Whether it be Hawkeye's no-look shots at aliens or Hulk sucker punching Thor after they took down an alien destroyer. Little things like this break up the more serious sections of the movie and pretty much everything in the movie was pitch perfect. I'm definitely looking forward to the sequel in a few years and I am pretty pumped about the next Iron Man movie which comes out next spring.

Verdict

THIS IS A MUST SEE. This is the best of the comic book movies so far, beating out The Dark Knight in pretty convincing fashion. This movie is a good time from start to end and there aren't a lot of movies that come out these days that you can say that about. Joss Whedon has made his presence felt in Hollywood and hopefully more studios will realize his talent and give him the opportunity to make more and more movies. Between The Avengers and Cabin In The Woods, Joss is having an all time great year. This is the one movie of the summer season besides Prometheus that I would truly consider to be a must see movie. .