Monday Matinee: The Avengers (2012)

 I was a little late to this party.  I'll blame the end of school.  But there is no way we were going to miss seeing The Avengers.  I was a little mystified though.  Super Heroes?  A 93% on Rotten Tomatoes?  Biggest movie opening EVER?  Hmmm.  I wasn't sure about that.  


Hey, I'm not anti-Super Hero.  They are always fun summer movies, lots of action, bad guys you love to hate, explosions, cool cutting edge technology.  But they usually don't challenge you to think too hard, and are pretty predictable.  I guess there is always room for a little bit of that.


Then there is Thor you see.


  




Sorry.  I got distracted.  So in a nutshell, here is what's going on.  The US has acquired a glowing cubey thing called Tesseract that has unlimited power that could allow complete energy independence (and maybe more sinister uses).  Tesseract is pretty much the bomb...everybody desires it, and has appeared in Iron Man 2, Captain America and Thor.  


So Loki, the pathetic unwanted adopted brother of Thor, sets his sights on the Tesseract.  If he can get his hands on it, this evil alien dude "The Other" will give him armies and kingdoms and stuff that he was denied because Thor is so awesome and obviously the better God.  Thus threatening life as we know it.  Nick Fury (Samuel Jackson), the man in charge, calls together his homeys to take care of business.        


   

The homeys being Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), Tony Stark/Ironman (Robert Downey Jr.), Steve Rogers/Captain America (Chris Evans), and Dr. Bruce Banner/Hulk (Mark Ruffalo).  And later some backup assistance from Clint Barton/Hawkeye (Jeremy Rinner) and Thor of course.  Big budget just in payroll, no?


And you know what?  So predictable, lots of fun and explosions and chases, lots of technology.  Exactly what you would expect.  They could almost photoshop faces from any of the previous movies and call it new.  So why all the fuss?  They didn't make all this fuss over Ironman 2.  


Because it is like old home week.  It really is a geek fest to have all these badasses together, working (sort of) as a team.  Yeah, well, there are some old feuds that each of them bring to the table, and they squabble and posture and fight to be on the top of the pile.  They are funny...you really can't beat Robert Downey Jr. for his smart aleck sarcasm (he accuses Dr. Banner of either doing Pilates or smoking weed to keep himself calm) all the while swilling a bourbon.  Scarlett even acts smart while sporting a black bodysuit (throwing a bone to the men).  And why on earth could we have not had Ruffalo as Hulk all this time?  Good Lord, you just have to love the guy.  Something that Eric Bana, Edward Norton or Lou Ferrigno could not pull off.


And then there is Thor you see.  Really people, he is male personified.  I was a little disappointed he didn't take his shirt off in this movie, but I'm sure there will be more opportunities with sequels.  I'm beginning to think I have a thing for long, greasy hair (ala Viggo/Aragorn).  

 There was one aspect of the movie that I found to be a joke (maybe it was meant to be?).  And that was Loki's evil costume with the antelope/dung beetle horns.  Really?  And there is also The Other.  Couldn't find a picture of him.  But both were strangely reminiscent of the bad guys in the Power Ranger TV shows that the kids used to watch, complete with the digitized demonic voice and everything.  Every time one of these images came on the screen, my husband and I started giggling.  


There is lots of violence and shooting and near-death experiences, which might scare the littles, and there are a few references to drugs and alcohol, but you can take your tweens to this one and know they will come out no worse for wear.  Bring on the summer!