The Avengers

Released: May 4, 2012

Studio: Disney

Genre: super hero

Box Office (numbers in millions):

Domestic: 623.40 Worldwide: 1520.54

Adjusted for Inflation:

Domestic: 754.28 Worldwide: 1750.00

Directing: Joss Whedon

Screenwriting: Joss Whedon, Zak Penn

Starring: Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner, Tom Hiddleston

Review:

Critic Roger Ebert called this “the Westminster Dog Show of superheroes.” ^RE Starting with Iron Man (Downey) in 2008, Marvel introduced a slate of their famed comic book heroes to the big screen including Hulk (Ruffalo), Thor (Hemsworth), and Captain America (Evans) via freestanding movies. This brings them all together, as well as Black Widow (Johansson) and Hawkeye (Renner), for all-star conclusion to Phase One of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

The Avengers must band together to stave off a threat from Thor’s adopted brother, Loki (Hiddleston). He plans to open a gateway to the universe via a pulsing cube of energy known as the Tesseract. He’ll then attack Earth “with his fleet of reptile-looking monster-machines.” ^RE

Of course, bringing these super egos together makes for some reopened rivalries until they do what Ebert says “was so highly valued on my first-grade report card: the concept of Working Well With Others.” ^RE

The film traverses familiar territory. “There must be a threat. The heroes must be enlisted. The villain must be dramatized. Some personality defects are probed. And then the last hour or so consists of special effects in which large mechanical objects engage in combat that results in deafening crashes and explosions and great balls of fire.” ^RE

Still, it is “done well by Joss Whedon, with style and energy.” ^RE He “not only pulled off a colossal character-juggling act, he also pushed the studio’s commercial success to a much higher level. It’s still one of the best-scripted Marvels, and we’ve yet to see a villain on more entertainingly nefarious form than Tom Hiddleston’s Loki was here.” ^EM

Sources:

^RE Roger Ebert
EM: Empire

Awards/Honors/Lists:

Dave’s Movie Database Lists:

Box Office:

Oscars:

Wins: 0

Nominations: 1: Best Achievement in Visual Effects

First posted 5/25/2023.