Did you line up this weekend for some super hero fun? Roger Ebert compared Joss Whedon’s “The Avengers” to a prominent dog show, but I’m more inclined to compare it to an opera: It has over-the-top costumes, lots of deafening sounds and incredible costly sets.
We begin far, far, far away in a dark universe, bathed in blue blacks. A serious man with a pale face, slicked back dark hair is getting ready for war. This will be an uncommon war, as the man isn’t human, but a Norse god, Loki. Opera fans will remember Loki as Loge at the beginning of Richard Wagner’s Ring Cycle. Here Loki (Tim Hiddleston) isn’t serving Wotan, but another mysterious figure who leads an aggressive space race called the Chitauri. The battle isn’t over a ring, but a transparent cube that contains flickering vaporous light: the Tesseract.
Loki appears at a remote research facility of the espionage agency, SHIELD (Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division) while experiments are being run on the Tesseract by physicist Er. Erick Selvig (Stellan Skarsgard) under the watchful eyes of Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), Agent Clint Barton (Jeremy Renner) and other agents. “I am Loki of Asgard and I am burdened with glorious purpose,” Loki intones.
Loki doesn’t have anything against earthlings as he tells Fury, “An ant has no quarrel with a boot.” Nice that Loki is aware of both clothes and insects on eart. Loki’s purpose is to rule earth, but you can’t help but wonder if he isn’t a bit misguided. Doesn’t he know we’re on the path to self-destruction anyway?
Loki uses his powers to brainwash Selvig and Barton and they help him steal the Tesseract. He needs Selvig and the Tesseract to open up a portal and bring an army of Chitauri into this world. The threat to world security pushes Fury to activate the Avengers Initiative. Agent Phil Coulon (Clark Gregg) seeks Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) while Agent Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johannson) searches for Dr. Bruce Banner (aka the Hulk). Stark and Banner have the scientific know-how to understand Selvig’s research and to figure out how to locate the Tesseract.
Fury asks Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) to join this crew. The threesome of Rogers, Stark and Romanoff head out to Germany where the egotistical Loki has made an appearance, causing people to kneel out of fear. “Freedom,” he declares, “is life’s great lie. Once you accept that, you will know peace.” One older man isn’t convinced and stands up, but before Loki can blow him off the face of the earth, our threesome gets him under control.
Yet, don’t forget Loki has a brother, Thor, who is also a god. Thor comes to earth in order to bring Loki back to Asgard. After a minor disagreement which basically lays waste to a remote forest, Thor joins Rogers, Stark and Romanoff as they return to their SHIELD base, a helicarrier. Loki is imprisoned in a cell originally meant for the Hulk.
Stark and the rest of us know that this is all too easy and there’s something not quite right with Fury’s story. And we haven’t seen the Hulk run amok. Something needs to push Stark (Iron Man), Rogers (Captain America), Thor (with his faithful hammer), Banner (Hulk), Romanoff (Black Widow) and Barton (Hawkeye) together in a one-for-all; all-for-one fighting team. Of course, someone also needs to deactivate Barton’s brainwashing before that can really begin.
Since we’re living in the world, we know the world will be saved, Loki will be defeated and the Chitauri will be sent back to their own world. Joss Whedon as director gives us plenty of world-threatening action scenes, arias of last-minute rescues and the high tragedy of big scale destruction. Whedon and Zak Penn’s script is pumped up with humor; there are plenty of duets of witty dialogue. This action hero opera doesn’t take itself too seriously and from my perspective that’s a good thing.
My favorite bit of CGI are Chitauri ships that seems like marine dinosaurs in ectoskeleton form. From between the scales, Chitauri warriors leap like parasites searching for a new host. They latch on to buildings like fleas on to a dog. Can’t wait to see more of those.
The London-born Hiddleston takes on the mantel intellectual evil English villain. Consider how this contrasts Cold War movies when Scarlett Johannson’s faux-Russian accented Agent Natasha Romanoff might have been the enemy. Adding to this linguistic idealistic muddle is the contrast between Hiddleston’s Loki whose clipped modern English is out of sync with Chris Hemsworth’s Thor who speaks with a Middle-Age-ish indeterminate European accent. We know these two are stepbrothers, Loki being adopted, but did these two go to different schools in Asgard?
Johannson’s Black Widow is sensibly dressed for action and a cleverly capable of deceiving men for a bit of information. She might not, like Barton, have super powers, but she fights like she does. How else could these two take a licking and keep on ticking?
Yet if you’re at “The Avengers,” you aren’t likely analyzing the science or social reality of this science fiction. After all, how many alternative realities exist for all these heroes and superheroes? They co-exist and yet also have their own singular universes and adventures. Whedon’s adventure is well-paced , fun, yet respectful of the comic canon. Even at the end, when the world is saved and Stark is considering repairs to his new pad with companion Pepper, Penn and Whedon aren’t ready to complete this Avenger adventure and leave us with two villains waiting in the wings.
Age of the Geek 