20140520: Action Review--The Avengers 2012

The Avengers (2012)

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. American live action feature length film, 2012, PG-13, 142 minutes, action, scifi.
2. IMDB: 8.2/10.0 from 659,742 audience ratings.  Estimated budget: 220 million USD.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 92% on the meter; 91% liked it from 1,098,456 audience ratings.
4. Netflix: 4.5/5.0 from 5,956,605 audience ratings.
5. Directed by: Joss Whedon.  Screenplay by: Joss Whedon, story by Zak Penn.
6. Starring: Robert Downey Jr as Iron Man/Tony Stark, Tom Hiddleston as Loki, Chris Hemsworth as Thor, Mark Ruffalo as Hulk/Bruce Banner, Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow/Natasha Romanoff, Jeremy Renner as Hawkeye/Clint Barton, Stellan Skarsgard as Selvig, Clark Gregg as Agent Coulson, Chris Evans as Captain America/Steve Rogers, Cobie Smulders as Agent Maria Hill, Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury.


2. Setup and Plot
1. Loki travels to Earth with the help of aliens who intend to invade.  Loki steals the Tesseract in order to open a portal from the invaders' location to Earth.  While doing this, he instills a large amount of tension among certain SHIELD operatives.


2. The SHIELD project 'Avengers' gets started to counter Loki's activity.  By the time the Avengers (Iron Man, Thor, Hulk, Black Widow, Hawkeye, Captain America) get done dealing with each others' egos, Loki has opened the portal.


3. When the invaders flow through to Earth, the Avengers and the SHIELD flagship are already bruised and battered.  Will the Avengers save Earth?


3. Conclusions
1. One line summary: Lots of action in the Marvel universe.
2. Seven of ten.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 8/10 The blend of SFX and real photography was consistently well done.


2. Sound: 5/10 The volume levels were wildly out of control.


3. Acting: 7/10 Better than I expected.  I liked the performances of Downey, Hiddleston, Ruffalo, Johansson, Renner, Skarsgard, and Gregg quite a bit.  In contrast, Chris Evans, Cobie Smulders, and Samuel L. Jackson were, as per recent experience, reasons to stop watching.  So, seven pluses and three zeros to be charitable.


4. Screenplay: 8/10 The story was well told.  Two hours and twenty-two minutes is fairly long, but went along very smoothly.