Let’s be honest: Was there really a chance this movie wouldn’t be good? When it was written and directed by Joss Whedon and contained just about every star imaginable from recent Marvel-based movies? When it’s rocking 93% on Rotten Tomatoes? When it made $1 billion in the span of less than 2 weeks?
Yeah. It was good. And it’s not very surprising.
There are a variety of reasons why the movie is very, very strong, from the quality of writing, to the effects, to the “star power,” to the “let’s throw money at it and surely something awesome will come out” mentality to its production. However, I’ll focus on two things in particular.
First, Joss Whedon had his work cut out for him because much of the “origin story” was already told in other movies, including Iron Man, Thor, Captain America and The Incredible Hulk. Almost every character that showed up in this movie was already introduced in a previous one, which allowed Whedon the freedom to spend his 2.5 hrs of screen time on the story at hand: not the description of each character and why we should care. I’ve talked with a few people that have seen the movie and now want to go back and see the “origin stories” of the characters they missed. It didn’t detract from their enjoyment of this movie, but it certainly inspired them to seek out additional material to help enhance the experience of this film.
Second, while I expected the dialog to be witty and amusing, I didn’t expect genuine laugh-out-loud moments. By no means is The Avengers a “comedy,” though it has its share of hilarious parts that don’t feel forced in the least. The theater cracked up on multiple occasions, typically centering on the Hulk, who ends up stealing the show during the latter 30 min of the movie. So even if you aren’t necessarily a “comic book movie” fan, I think you’ll appreciate the humor that comes of it.
Aside from these things, generally speaking, the movie is so well-paced that you forget how long you’ve been sitting in the seat. Each character is introduced so as to “ease you” in, rather than having the entire team show up together, leading to a longer slog through the film (Fantastic Four comes to mind). Heck, you don’t even see the Hulk until relatively late in the movie! But when you do, you’re ready for it. I guess I’m saying that no one over-stays their welcome and the characters all fit together in a very cohesive manner, which is very difficult to do when you’re dealing with a movie consisting of 8+ main characters. It’s obviously an ensemble cast.
I also paid the exorbitant fee required of seeing it in IMAX 3D. Let’s just say that this was another case where the money was worth it. The 3D wasn’t over-done and, overall, enhanced the viewing experience without too much “look at me, I’m in 3D!!” shenanigans. I’ll be satisfied with my Bluray release in a few months (when I definitely buy it…), but I’m glad my first exposure to the movie was in IMAX 3D.
To summarize, it’s a spectacular movie. In some ways, it’s a good thing that most of these characters have their own franchises, so we’ll have a few years of their own sequels before we get the inevitable “Avengers 2.”