It was a movie event years in the making. This was the culmination of everything we had seen up to this point in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. There were so many expectations riding on it, so much for it to live up to. And more than almost any other film it lived up to all those expectations. With The Avengers, Marvel rewrote what people expected from super hero movies and completely changed the landscape. DC, previously on the fence about the idea of a Justice League movie, now realized that they had to do it in order to keep up. If they were smart, they would copy Marvel’s formula. Forget about people accusing them of ripping Marvel off, they need to do it exactly how Marvel did it. They’re not, and that is a post for another day, but let’s hope they have enough of the formula there to make it work. Don’t worry, though, it all comes full circle since The Avengers in the comics were a direct response to the Justice League comics, so there you go.

I loved this movie, from start to finish, and watching it again made me really excited for Age of Ultron. There is just something special about the Avengers films, having all the heroes together in one movie is just so much more amazing than their individual movies, in my opinion. There is just more excitement, more fun. Plus, the chemistry that they all had together was incredible. Part of why it all worked, a really big part is that we knew all of these characters already, including the main villain. The story wasn’t bogged down with any back story of the characters. We just saw how they were all finally brought together. Plus it was cool that they were somewhat true to the source material. The Avengers originally came together in t a story in which Loki tried to put Hulk against Thor, and the result was the Avengers forming. Of course, Cap wasn’t part of the team, but still, it was cool that they went that direction.

The action in this film is nonstop. It starts right at the beginning with the appearance of Loki (explained as a result of the teseract) and him stealing the teseract, as well as Hawkeye and Doctor Selvig. It doesn’t slow down from there. This made for an exciting and enjoyable movie, and you don’t really notice the length. It gets heavy in some parts, but not overly heavy, like when they are all arguing on the carrier. It starts to get heavy, but it’s followed up with a great action sequence, that leads into about 5 minutes of rest, before going right into the climax and the final battle.

Overall, this film has a great story, showing how the team is formed. It follows all the classic stages of team building-Forming (happens at the beginning as well as the films leading up to it), Storming (Starts basically when Black Widow goes to get Banner, continues when Cap meets Stark, and hits its peak in the research room on the carrier), Norming (the team comes together a little bit when Hawkeye attacks and Loki is freed, it continues through when they find out about Coulson’s “death”), and finally Performing (the final battle, as Cap takes charge, and they are finally the Avengers). This is classic story telling, and really how team building works in real life. Minus the super powers and alien invaders.

Watching this movie again made me really excited for Age of Ultron.  I can’t wait to see where Whedon will be taking the team next. I have a feeling they won’t be ending on a high note, since this next movie leads into Civil War. We’ll see. In any case, The Avengers  is one of my all time favorite superhero movies and has everything I want. Good team chemistry, a good story, great action, and very entertaining. You almost don’t notice little inconsistencies, like how did Thor get down to Earth? It’s never really explained.

This was a great conclusion to what Marvel called “Phase 1.” It was a very satisfying ending to the Phase 1 story line, and led us well into Phase 2, which will now be wrapping up with Age of Ultron. It also does a great job of setting up Phase 3, where we are ultimately going with all of this, the Infinity War. We see Thanos for the first time, as well as seeing shawarma for the first time. I wonder if there were little shawarma shops through out the country that saw a huge boost in business after this film came out…

What did you think of Marvel’s conclusion to Phase 1? Was it as good as the hype, or did it not really live up to it? Let me know in the comments. We are just over half way there now as we get closer and closer to the May 1 release of Age of Ultron.

Jake Dietz

the geeky mormon

Jake Dietz is a father, husband, Latter-day Saint, movie lover, and all around geek. He considers himself a member of many fandoms including The Cosmere by Brandon Sanderson, The Lord of the Rings, DC Comics, Marvel Comics, Star Trek, Star Wars, and many, many more. If it has a good story, Jake is interested in it.