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are you acquainted with the phrase “more is more”? Buckle your seatbelts, Marvel is ready to demonstrate.


fi nally brought the whole dysfunctional family together for a blockbuster picnic called The Avengers, a fi lm that is not shy about its premise: “You liked one superhero, now try six.” I say six, but I probably should clarify


grooming all its tights-clad franchises for the inevitable assemblage — “Avengers assemble!” — Marvel has


After nearly a decade of Too many superheroes in this


where Thor left off: Thor’s brother Loki has assembled an army on the other side of the cosmos. All he needs is the Allspark … I mean Tesseract, a cube of energy last seen in Captain America, to unlock an extra-dimensional gateway to Earth so he can warp his alien commandos down into New York City, specifi cally to the location dictated on the fi lm permit, which is the Park Avenue Viaduct above 42nd Street. For such a broad invasion the fi lm certainly uses one location an awful lot; Pershing Square will be picking dead alien bits out of their cobb salads for weeks. Once Loki shows up and proves he means business, it’s up to cyclopean hero- manager Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) — think Tommy Lasorda, but round, tall, black and less grumpy — to assemble the Avengers from bits of better movies. Captain America is in Brooklyn taking his frustration out on punching bags. Bruce Banner is on the other side of the world avoiding any Hulk aggression triggers. Iron Man’s Tony Stark is in plain sight as he rockets up and down Manhattan. Finally, there’s Thor, who only materializes when he senses his brother’s presence, which made me wonder why he didn’t use that trick to shorten his Thor movie by a solid 30 minutes. Eventually, after some beleaguered prodding from Fury, the superheroes agree to form up to fi ght Loki and his smallpox-infested space-minions. At this point The Avengers could have


really fl exed its muscles and shown us who’s boss. An action scene right about here would have served that purpose immensely well. Instead the fi lm settles into a slow, plodding second act that takes all the bad parts of the Fantastic Four movies — fi ghting in public, power plays for leadership, whiny temper tantrums — and turns them into grueling high-concept performance art. When this many fantastically amazing people are assembled in one room and all they can do is bicker and argue, well then it’s time to rethink the plot. And hire a nanny. This goes on for a long time, but eventually it clears the way for a whopper of a third act that is the big New York City battle. This might be the mother of all superhero fi ght sequences, with its smorgasbord of digital effects, battle tropes and comic clichés, and all the scenery smashing your insurance provider will let you witness before they raise your premium. And just when you think a giant fl ying mechanized tapeworm was the last


that it’s more like four-and-a-quarter. Demigod Thor counts as one, as do Iron Man and Hulk, but poor Captain America has barely anything to do. At one point he’s asked to pull a lever and he nearly botches that. Certainly he’s only two- thirds superhero. He can’t fl y, can’t shoot rockets from his forearms, he can’t turn into a rage-monster and since he’s freezer- burned from the 1940s he defi nitely can’t rock a Twitter feed (try @drunkhulk, and you’re welcome). Captain America is joined on the second-string team by Hawkeye, an archery expert and D-list hero, and Black Widow, a sexy spy who vamps around in clingy fetishwear. Add all of them up and The Avengers looks like a slightly more handsome line for the bathrooms at Comic-Con. The fi lm picks up kinda-sorta-maybe


superhero movie superhero movie


ou might be familiar with the phrase “less is more,” but


The Avengers


Starring Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner and Samuel L. Jackson. Directed by Joss Whedon. From Paramount Pictures and Walt Disney Studios. Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of sci-fi violence and action throughout, and a mild drug reference. Now showing.


of it, oh wait, here’s fi ve giant fl ying mechanized tapeworms. In case you’re missing the theme here, The Avengers is all about quantity, not quality, though I will admit the last battle sequence is quite electric. I did take issue with the post- 9/11 doomsday scenarios in this massive war sequence. If you have some bizarre hankering to watch fl ying things crash into skyscrapers or buildings collapsing into their own footprints or ash-covered New Yorkers pecking through the debris as they fi ght for their lives, then boy is this the movie for you. It doesn’t quite exploit 9/11’s drama, but it does shamelessly plagiarize from that story’s back cover.


The cast may look silly in their little tighties, but they give decent enough performances. Chris Hemsworth plays Thor like the meathead he is. Mark Ruffalo is Bruce Banner’s third actor in as many movies,


and he does a fi ne job conveying Banner’s debilitating duality. Chris Evans is underwhelming as Captain America, but Captain America is an underwhelming hero so it all works out. Robert Downey Jr., as Iron Man, continues to delight; he steals every scene he’s in. Jeremy Renner and Scarlett Johannson, as Hawkeye and Black Widow, needed more to work with even though they were playing peripheral characters. In the end, though, most of the heroes get their time to shine and fans of each one will fi nd something especially exciting to latch onto.


and effective enough, but it all felt like a rehash to me. I blame the fl at characters, who were done growing in each of their respective movies. For comparison’s sake, look at Batman, a superhero who is still growing and changing three movies in. These characters have no lofty


The lead actors are charismatic


ideas about good and evil, and they have no deeper story to unravel. They simply show up to smash things into bits. Where The Avengers really scores points is with its sense of humor. This is a hilarious movie. I laughed harder in this action picture than I do in most full-fl edged comedies. Many of the gags come from Iron Man, but a surprising number come from the Hulk, which is odd since the green monster only makes two appearances throughout the picture. The Avengers is a middle-of-the-


road comic movie with a boring middle section that’s counteracted with a terrifi c, if also overblown, fi nal act. Comic fans will like it, but that’s not saying much since they have no discernible taste — The Avengers’ mere existence is all they require.


Michael Clawson can be reached by email at mclawson@westvalleyview.com.


17 West Valley View, Avondale, Arizona, Tuesday, May 8, 2012


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