Critiqued: The Avengers

What do you get when you put together a bunch of superheroes like Iron Man, Thor, Hawkeye, The Hulk, Black Widow and Captain America in one place, in one team? Absolute mayhem. And in a good way. All the films leading up to The Avengers have all been blockbusters and this movie is going to be no different. We are going to do a two part write-up on The Avengers since the film is slated for release in the United States tomorrow (May 4th). hapless geek's own John Bradley will be doing the second write-up.

As is our credo, we are not going to talk about the story line. There are zillions of other sites that do that. The casting of all the superheroes has been excellent thus far, and Mark Ruffalo is the only new addition to the group as the Hulk. Another excellent choice. The ensemble cast of Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Hemsworth, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner and Tom Hiddleston worked superbly together and the action sequences were really spellbinding. Even Samuel L. Jackson, who we think is a great actor but seemed out of place in all the end scenes in the prior superhero films, redeemed himself with his role as Nick Fury. All the actors played their part to perfection as one would expect and despite Robert Downey Jr.'s Iron Man character being larger than life (figuratively not literally - that's reserved for the Hulk), no character overpowered the other. Chris Evans as Captain America was a great choice and as you watch the film it makes sense why he was the leader of the pack.

Interestingly enough, as we were watching the film, the way it flowed reminded us of the Matrix series build up prior to the final war sequence. Every character's strengths were highlighted as well as the villain Loki's. You can tell the graphic designers definitely had their way with this film. And that's the way it should be for a comic book superhero type film. Thanks to Industrial Light & Magic once again for such an impressive display. In a nutshell, the story was good, the background score even better and the graphics and action sequences the best.

A lot of films these days are simultaneously filmed in 3D. Based on what we saw, don't feel too bad if you don't get to watch it in 3D. You wouldn't be missing much. All we have to say is get your tickets and head to the movies. You are going to have an awesome time.

Update: Check out Part 2 of our review.