ANALYSIS:

Nick Fury and SHIELD are trying to harness the Tesseract (aka the cosmic cube) for its unlimited energy when Loki appears and steals it.   He gains control of the minds of several personnel including Dr. Erik Selvig and Agent Clint Barton.   The destruction of one of SHIELD's bases leads Nick Fury to revive the Avengers Initiative and bring together Iron Man, the Hulk, CaptainAmerica, and the Hulk.   The Black Widow is sent to bring in Dr. Banner to track down the Tesseract as the new team tries to figure out what Loki's game is.  Loki wants to use the Tesseract to bring an alien army to take over Earth.   The team must figure out to work together to save Earth from the Alien invasion in what is one of the best movies based on Marvel comic books.

Joss Whedon is able to create several moments of humor, develop multiple characters and give them their own piece of the story, and put together a cohesive storyline with action scenes you can easily follow.   The Black Widow is given much more to do in this movie than IRON MAN 2 as she is given one of the more developed arcs of the film while Captain America, Thor, Iron Man, and the Hulk are more rewarding as characters if you have followed the previous movies.   The story is a little thin and somewhat predictable, but all of the character moments and quip worthy dialogue.  Still THE AVENGERS is an enjoyable ride if you haven't seen the other movies that led up to it.  

Stay around to the end credits for two bonus scenes (I wish the mysterious big BAD Thanos was involved in a SILVER SURFER or GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY movie).   The music score by Alan Silvestri help sell part of this fun superhero extravaganza.  It is a fun action popcorn ride.   Joss Whedon will be back to write and direct THE AVENGERS 2 and help plan out the future of the movie and TV shows for Marvel.   I hope he will find sometime to make another FIREFLY movie and a sequel to DR. HORRIBLE.

SPECIAL FEATURES:

Audio commentary with Director Joss Whedon

THE AVENGERS INITIATIVE: Second Screen Experience- dive into additional content via iPad, iPhone, or laptop

ITEM 47 is a short and insignificant (but entertaining) short film about a couple using an alien weapon from the alien invasion to rob banks and the SHIELD agent who is tracking them.  I wish Marvel would put more effort into these shorts and use them as a springboard to mine some of the various comic book characters not seen on screen.

The deleted scenes include an alternate opening and ending thankfully cut, but I wish they left in the montage scene of Captain America adjusting to modern times.

A VISUAL JOURNEY- a look at the production design, visual effects, and cinematography of the film.

ASSEMBLING THE ULTIMATE TEAM- the cast and director Joss Whedon talk about the characters and their excitement in working with Joss

Soundgarden music video for “Live To Rise”

They didn’t include any of the theatrical trailers.  The behind-the-scenes extras seem a little small this time.

TARGET BONUS DISC-

Seven Exclusive featurettes which form the story of MARVEL BUILDING A CINEMATIC UNIVERSE that contains original footage, interviews, Robert Downey Jr’s IRON MAN screen test, and more as it chronicles the story of making Marvel’s Phase One (of the movie universe).   It runs at a total of about 97 minutes and it is a good chronicle of how Marvel got into producing their own movies and the rise of their movie empire as the movies keep making money.  It is sad writers passed on IRON MAN only to regret it later.  I like how Samuel L. Jackson also thinks the original (white) version of Nick Fury is also cool.

FINAL ANALYSIS:   THE AVENGERS is a fun action movie.    The Target bonus disc is worth buying.  I wish they had more behind-the-scenes extras even though the deleted scenes are good.

This review is (c)9-30-2012 David Blackwell and cannot be reprinted without permission.  send all comments to feedback@enterline-media.com