The Avengers is an exercise in giving characters enough screen time without making them seem exploited and underutilized. And, for the most part, it works and successfully builds off of the characters limned in previous installments leading up to this supergroup of an action hero film.
By far, the Hulk is the best part of The Avengers. Not just because he smashes stuff and offers one of the best villain beatdown in cinema history, but because Joss Whedon imagined him correctly in the narrative – so much so that I’m willing to overlook the gaping hole in the narrative where Banner goes from completely unable to control the Hulk to being able to guide his every action, but I digress.
The first two movies, one by Ang Lee starring Eric Bana, and the other by Louis Letterier starring Edward Norton, were both about Bruce Banner, a man trying to cure his rage within. But, that’s not what the Hulk is about. Like an addict, Banner is trying to accept the choices he has made and move on with his life. The first two films were all about Banner getting into trouble while searching for a cure; this Banner (played solidly by Mark Ruffalo) is more similar to the Bill Bixby Banner of the 1980s: a man moving forward, aware of what can happen, and dealing with it every day. There’s no cure to be sought, something made apparent as Whedon’s Banner exposits: “I was low, so I put a gun in my mouth, but the other guy spit it out.” Here, we’re not only privy to the Hulk’s immortality, but Banner’s acceptance of what boils within. This is also emphasized when he approaches the oncoming alien craft and notes, “I’m always angry.” Like an addict, he has accepted his fate and reconciled it. It exists, and he manages it.
This parallel also exists in Ruffalo’s mannerisms. He often holds his arms tight to his body as if afraid to touch anything. One hand routinely clenches the opposite wrist as if to prevent it from shaking and letting loose something that he needs to keep in check.
Despite its entertaining action sequences that involve billions of dollars in collateral damage and alien destruction, something about The Avengers portends its potential failure of a franchise beyond the inevitable sequel(s). For the most part, two of the Avengers are immortal: The Hulk and Thor. Two more are virtually indestructible: Captain America and Iron Man. The final two (Black Widow and Hawkeye) are mortal, but not that interesting, so the main issue revolves around the first four. Clearly, no human villain like the Joker, Dr. Octopus, the Penguin, etc. can challenge with this quartet. Thus, all future villains will most likely need to be extraterrestrial…much like they were in this one, and much like the villain alluded to for the imminent sequel: Thanos. While he’s a classic Avengers villain, this only set the tone for yet another alien-invasion film – or an unfortunate Avengers-in-space film.
A similar conundrum has already presented itself in both the Iron Man and Thor franchises. The virtually indestructible exoskeleton has already battled two villains that are essentially himself. In the first, Jeff Bridges attempts to beat Tony Stark with his own creation. In the second, a Russian-accented Mickey Rourke attempts to do the same. Things get smashed, pithy, mordant lines are exchanged, and there’s a dance number, but all in all, the movies are pretty much the same. Thor is still living off of its lone installment, but in it, the demigod faces a gigantic alien being. The only place left for the film to go – since Loki was the villain in The Avengers – is to introduce a more gigantic alien threat.
The future of the franchise aside, the first installment is rather solid. The first hour or so of the movie is kind of viscous and laden with rather pedantic exposition, but the action sequences most often make up for silly dialogue. The film also makes good use of Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner), a pretty underdeveloped character who only has a few moments within Thor as a lead in to his inclusion in The Avengers, but fashioning him as a manipulated soul is a safe route and doesn’t require much of a backstory. We pick up on the connection between him and Black Widow (another underdeveloped character), and that’s good enough. Neither one of them is meant to drive the story; they’re pretty much there to buffer the more exciting eighty percent of the group.
