Crossovers are nothing new, as they have been a thing since the dawn of the television. if you have ever watched a cartoon or a sitcom on TV in the past, chances are you seen characters from one show interact with characters from another show. In terms of movie’s, there have only been a handful of crossovers in film history, but that would all change when Marvel came in with a plan to unite four heroes each coming from their own separate movies, and put them together in an epic battle, unlike anything our heroes have faced before. This movie titled The Avengers would go on into not only being one of the best comic book movies in history, but it would change the landscape of cinema for years to come.
In one of the headquarters of Sheild, Nick Furry (Samual L Jackson) is overseeing the progress of Sheild’s recovery of the tesseract which was recovered years ago by Howard Stark back in the 1940s. Suddenly, Thor’s brother Loki (Tom Hiddleston) comes out of nowhere to steal the tesseract and hypnotize a few of Shield’s agents to help him in creating a portal that will unleash an army from another galaxy. Desperate for help, Nick Furry calls in help to assemble four different heroes each coming from their own separate backgrounds. Tony Stark as Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr), Bruce Banner as the Hulk (Mark Rufflo), Thor (Chirs Hemsworth), and Steve Rodgers as Captain America (Chris Evans) all come together to stop Loki and put an end to his plans for the destruction of the earth, but first, our heroes will need to learn to work as a team, as personalities collide and disputes are made among the characters. With the aid of agents like Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) and Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner), things are about to get disastrous for our heroes.
The overall idea of having different characters from different movies coming together would be enough to satisfy MCU fans, but what makes the movie great is its storytelling in trying to combine all the previous Marvel storylines we’ve seen beforehand and put them together to make for one heck of a grand experience. Even on its own, the movie knows how to set up character relationships and deliver on heart-stopping action that helps to move the story and characters forward. Knowing the previous movies beforehand will make the experience even more epic, but the movie is still clever to tell its own story that can stand on its own terms even with not having seen the previous MCU movies beforehand. What many people came to see though, was not just the fact that there would be plenty of action and comic book-style writing, they came to see the characters that were already established in the previous movies come together and either work together or butt heads with each other. Just seeing Robert Downey Jr and Chris Evans in the same movie playing their respective characters is great for character building and just pure satisfaction knowing how from the beginning of the MCU they wanted all this to happen, and wow did it pay off big time.
The Cinematography and visuals go even larger than in the previous stand-alone movies and the action just keeps getting bigger and bigger building upon what direction the story goes and what the movie decides to show us. There are many impressive camera angles and even the CGI effects look really fantastic, one of the grandest set pieces though is Sheild’s army ship as it has the ability to take off into the sky. Of course, we do get to see our main heroes in action and each of them has a different way of defeating evil that matches their personalities such as Iron Man flying around blasting things or Thor summing his god-like powers to inflict lightning on his enemies. Each one of the action sequences is better than the last and it all leads to the final battle when Loki and the army he summons attacks New York City. The action is much like the previous MCU movies with ten times more epic battles between heroes and enemies. The visuals in the action scenes are some of the grandest and creative that Marvel has ever done and that’s saying a lot given their lineup. Lastly, the music is composed by Alan Silvestri after his impressive scoring for the first Captain America movie and he certainly delivers. His main theme for the Avengers coming together is so epic and so powerful that it’s hard not to feel a rush of emotions when things finally go right for our team.
Many other movie franchises have tried to copy the success of what Marvel has done for The Avengers, but no matter how many have tried, Marvel knew exactly what they were doing from the beginning and the final product really reflects that. Marvel, as well as movies, would never be the same after the success of this 2012 summer blockbuster. That is all thanks to an action-packed and really fun storyline, Characters that have already been established doing their typical thing in with great one-liners, impressive cinematography, and visuals that would define many other MCU films to come, and an epic music composition from composer Alan Silverstri. This movie would conclude the first phase of the MCU and there is no doubt that we are about to discover new heroes, as well as new enemies in the rest of the anticipated phases that follow.
(Final Grade: A)