The Avengers Smashes Box Office Records

Ho-lee-crap!

Marvel's The Avengers has opened up the summer of blockbusters with a (HULK!) smash. The film brought in $207.4 million in its first weekend, beating out Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2's "amazing" $169.2 million for the lead.  Now, I know you have been asked before, "If everyone was jumping off bridges would you do it?" but this is one time where everyone is doing something and you absolutely need to join them.
 

If you are cinematically stupid, The Avengers have "grown up", starting with Jon Favreau's Iron Man in 2008.  Here is where we first got a hint that an Avengers movie was in the works, when a post-credit scene introduces us to Nick Fury, the director of S.H.I.E.L.D.  From here on out we had post-credit scenes, all giving us hints at future movies.  2008 also gave us a rebooted look at the green giant, The Incredible Hulk. Iron Man 2 followed this in 2010, and gave us a sneek-peek at 2011's Thor.  Finally, Captain America: The First Avenger gave us our final superhero and our first trailer for this years The Avengers.

The Avengers tells the story of Asgardian prince (once king), Loki, and his search for the tesseract and control of the earth.  Backed by an alien army, Loki has only one thing standing between him and world domination: the Avengers.  Brought together from all over, the Avengers must work together and overcome their problems to protect the earth.

Everything about this movie was great: the character development, the cinemetography, visual effects, and everything else you might want.  The fact that this movie had a five movie set-up allows us to jump right into the plot and not have to focus on understanding this world or characters, and add to what we already know as we move along. 

Mark Ruffalo

The character development was outstanding, as you would imagine with each Avenger showcasing their character in a previous film.  The humor was on-par for what was featured before, as well.  What was nice, though, was picking up where they left off (and thinking about where they will go from here).  Captain America was just brought into this unfamiliar world. Thor goes from thinking his brother is dead to finding him trying to take over Earth. The freshest aspect in character was Dr. Bruce Banner.  Edward Norton did a good job of making us like him, but Mark Ruffalo showed the awkward, geeky side I wanted to see in the character.

Looks just like Ruffalo, right?

And while there were som many visual effects to be impressed with, my favorite aspect of the Marvel movie was their work with the Hulk.  Previously in the Hulk and Incredible Hulk, the CGI characters were transformations from Dr. Banner, yet had no resemblance to them.  In this go round, Ruffalo did motion capture for the film, and they were able to nail down a monster that looked like it should.  Not to mention having THE BEST Hulk transformation to-date.


 Simply enough, this is a movie made for the big screen. Not just your normal theater, either. This movie calls out for the IMAX theater (trust me, I have seen the movie now in 2D, 3D, and IMAX 3D). While I think the 3D is a cool aspect, the biggest benefit of IMAX is the sound.  Seeing explosions and Iron Man's pulsar blasts is cool, but hearing it with that much quality is amazing.

I can't wait to see where they take these characters in Iron Man 3 (2013), Thor 2 (2013) and Captain America 2 (2014), but I know whatever they do with them, I will be there to watch them in their individual movies, and when they re-assemble for the Avengers sequel that Disney just announced (If you are wondering, yes, there is an after credit scene. Two to be exact, both awesome).

Director Joss Whedon did a fantastic job with the reigns of the biggest comic book movie to date.  While it will be interesting to see how my love for Christopher Nolan and Batman play out later this summer (and Joss Whedon is wondering the same thing), The Avengers currently holds the box office opening weekend record and the title of "Tim's Favorite Superhero Movie".

The Avengers' grade?