AVENGERS ASSEMBLE FOR 15 HOURS

In a blog a few weeks back I lamented the fact that I was not going to be able to go to the Mighty Marvel Movie marathon, a marathon of 5 movies that leads to the midnight show of The Avengers. But fortune favored the lazy and I was able to get a ticket. So on a warm, humid Thursday, I took a vacation day from work and went to sit in an air conditioned movie theater for 15 hours to watch movies based on Marvel Comics that culminated in the midnight show of The Avengers.

Iron Man starring Robert Downey Jr. was the first of the modern era of Marvel movies to come out, and probably my third favorite. Downey was cast perfectly and we started to see the beginnings of a new era. The film directed by Jon Favreau was embraced and made a ton of money. Marvel had started on the right foot.

While Mark Ruffalo (pictured above) did not get the nod as the Hulk until the Avengers, Marvel released The Incredible Hulk the same year as Iron Man, and while it did not do as well as Iron Man, the movie starring Edward Norton was not bad. But what really saved it was the apperance at the end by Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark (AKA Iron Man). We were now getting an idea of what Marvel had planned. A tight continuity where stars from other movies could show up as their character in different films.

Then there was a break for a year, then Marvel came back with Iron Man 2. While not as good as the original Iron Man, fans were happy to see the return of Downey as well as Clark Gregg who played fan favorite SHIELD agent Coulson, and the introduction of The Black Widow (plyed by Scarlett Johanssen). Another potential member of the Avengers. Samuel L. Jackson continued his role as Nick Fury. As per all the other Marvel films, after the credits were over one scene came on that hinted at the next Marvel Movie, in this case we find Coulson finding Thor's hammer.

2011 would be a huge year for Marvel Movies. They would be releasing 2 movies featuring 1 character (Thor played by Chris Hemsworth and directed by Kenneth Braughn) who had made one live action apperance on a horrible Incredible Hulk Tv movie and 1 mention in Adventures in Babysitting. Then you had Captain America who had 1 horrible movie as well. These new Marvel movies were not going to have Iron Man, or the Hulk (whom people knew from a 70s tv series) to bring awareness. But you would have the knowledge that Marvel had released 3 pretty good movies. And sure enough Thor (which is my 2nd favorite film) made good money and introduced us to not one but 2 possible members of the Avengers. Thor and...

Hawkeye,(played by Jeremy Renner the new Bourne) who makes a brief cameo apperance in the film. Which to some critics felt was shoehorned into Thor to introduce a character they wanted to use in The Avengers. It also introduced us to Loki who would end up being one of the main bad guys in The Avengers. The post credit scene teased Captain America with the modern day arrival of the Cosmic Cube, or as they call it in the Marvel Movies, the Tesseract.

Chris Evans who was best known as playing another Marvel Character, the Human Torch in the Fantastic Four movies was cast as Captain America, in a movie that spends the majority of it's time in the 1940s. This film did great as well and lead to the post credit trailer for The Avengers.

There is only one way to describe the Avengers and it is as a Comic Book come to life on screen. While watching the five previous movies again yesterday in the movie theater I came to the realization that even though they have the look, and some of the beats of a comic book they are still movies. The Avengers was a comic book come to life on screen. it hit every comic book beat and should be looked at as the best way to make a true adaptation of a comic book into a movie. I will not spoil anything, or talk about anything for a bit, but I think I will be writing a review sometime next week. So take my advice. Go see The Avengers. If you have never seen any of the previous films, that's ok, The Avengers does an excellent job of introducing the characters.  Avengers Assemble!