The Avengers

                                      My Rating: 3.5/4

      With "The Avengers", Joss Whedon has brought a well-told, witty, and visually stunning story to the big screen. With a lot to dig out of Marvel's comic book lore, the story is put together in a way that will satisfy the members of the audience, regardless of their reasons for attending a screening. When I was at the theater to see this, there was a sea of both people who seemed to know everything about Marvel and people who seemed to know very little about Marvel, and one thing the movie really has going for it is that you don't have to be either to enjoy it.
       The "Avengers" are a group of superheroes from the marvel universe who work together against whatever threat is greatest. Originally, the Avengers had more members and there were constant changes in the roster, however, Marvel luckily decided to stick to its main icons for the sake of the film. The team in the movie consists mainly of Iron Man(Robert Downey Jr.), Captain America(Chris Evans), Hulk(Mark Ruffalo), and Thor(Chris Hemsworth), with its "lesser" members being Hawkeye(Jeremy Renner) and Black Widow(Scarlett Johansson). The Story picks up after the events left off by the respective movies of the four main Avengers. Thor's evil brother, Loki(Tom Hiddleston), has joined with a mysterious race of aliens, robots, or whatever you'd like to call them. It's not really explained what they are, it is only mentioned that they are from another dimension and they are called the "Chitauri". Loki is leading his army of Chitauri to Earth to retrieve powerful cube-shaped object called the Tesseract, which also made an appearance in "The First Avenger: Captain America". In order to defend the Earth from Loki's invasion, Nick Fury(Samuel L. Jackson) and the secret government organization "S.H.I.E.L.D." begin a recruitment effort to bring together a team that can save the planet.
        Now one key concern I, as well as many other people, had about the film was that the screenplay would not give each Avenger the spotlight, and that some may seem less important than the others. In writing the script, I am sure that that was one of Whedon's main challenges. However, somehow each Avenger is given their own time to shine, and none of the Avengers seem to be more important than the others. This achievement ends up being more important than it seems, because with a balance between the characters, it adds another element to the storytelling where each character's own individual story is made known, while at the same time it shows how those stories converge into this story.
       With all of these great heroes, such a story requires a good villain. Tom Hiddleston's performance as Loki has been very underrated since the film's release. His portrayal of Loki really gives you a sense that his character is vengeful, violent, powerful, greedy, and a worthy opponent to the Avengers. The witty combination of argument and banter between the characters is very amusing, with the best being between Loki and the other characters.
        Although the film brings all of these amazing elements together, my favorite thing about "The Avengers" is that it is an engaging story the entire way through. The dialogue always furthers the story, the dynamic between the characters never ceases to flip and twist in ways you would not have suspected, and surprisingly, the movie is very funny. I have been to comedies at the theater where people did not laugh as hard as they did at this movie. I was laughing too, because somehow the film seems to have outdone many comedies. The reaction of the audience did not lie, people were cheering, applauding, laughing, and really enjoying themselves. "The Avengers" reminded me why we go to movies in the first place.