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(The Disneycember logo is shown, before showing trailer clips and screenshots from Marvel's The Avengers. "Pucker Up" by Jingle Punks plays in the background)

Doug (vo): So after years and years of build-up, all the hype has finally come to this: The Avengers. There has never been a movie quite like this done before. Six* previous films starring individual superheroes that were all coming together for one event that was planned from the very beginning. Though you could look at them as individual stories, they were all leading up to one grand event. This was the event. (The poster for Freddy vs. Jason is shown) Now, don't get me wrong. There have been crossovers before, but nothing like this and nothing this well thought-out. So, there was a little bit of a concern. Would it pay off? This would definitely have a good opening weekend, no matter what. It's been built up so much. But would it be the gigantic hit everybody wanted? Would it be as good as the other Marvel movies, or, as promised, even better? Ten times better? Something spectacularly huge? Well, the short answer is...yes. Not only was this film a mega, mega, mega, mega hit, but both critics and audiences alike agree it was a ton of fun and worth the wait.

*(Note: The number of movies that came out before The Avengers is actually five)

Story[]

Doug (vo): The movie centers around the return of the sinister Loki. He, apparently, is in cahoots with an evil force in space, who wants to...what else? Take over the world. Of course. (A clip of M. Bison saying the famous line is briefly shown) He plans to do so using a magic scepter to hypnotize people and a gigantic alien army to open up a dimension and bring them into our world, enslaving mankind. Who can stop them? The Avengers, of course, most of them just having come off hit movies: Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, and even the Hulk, played this time by Mark Ruffalo. But also included are characters we haven't seen that much of, like Black Widow and Hawkeye.

Review[]

Doug (vo): And the film, literally from this point on, is nothing but one-liners and action. And I know it sounds strange, but...it's actually kind of perfect. When you see these characters together, a lot of them with big personalities, just having come off of big movies, what do you want to see? You want to see them interact. That includes working off of each other, talking to each other, getting in fights, throwing insults, and because these actors and characters are so strong and so defined, it really works. The whole movie could be all of them just stuck in a room shooting the shit, and you know what? It'd be okay. They're that interesting and that much fun to watch.

(The film's action sequences are shown)

Doug (vo): But, of course, that's not what people are paying to see, they're paying to see action. And when the action gets going, it's some of the most fun I've seen an audience have in a movie theatre. Every superhero has a unique way of fighting a villain, and each one has a different personality trait to make it interesting. Well, for the most part, we don't really know Hawkeye yet, but, eh, we're not at Avengers 2 yet, give it time. A lot of these movies, as I've mentioned before, deliver a lot of character, but sometimes skimp a little bit on the action, particularly in the climax. The great thing about this movie is that it makes you think it's about to end. They do the big team shot, you think, "All right. Well, they're just gonna punch out a few more and then we're gonna stop." But, nope. It's just beginning. They spend a lot of time fighting creatures in the city, and, unlike Transformers, you don't get tired of it. It gives you the exact amount you want to see. Every superhero does what you want to see the superheroes do. The Hulk jumps around and smashes things, he punches this giant whale I-don't-know-what-is, Captain America's throwing his shield, Iron Man's flying around shooting stuff. Even Black Widow, who we didn't see that much before this movie, suddenly becomes this really cool character. She actually might be my favorite out of all of them. And, yeah, I'm waiting for that damn movie, too.

(A fan-made Black Widow poster is shown)

Doug (vo): The one element of the film that is kind of lazy is the story, but to its credit, story is not what you want to focus on here. This is the first time you've seen all these characters come together and you just want to see them be those characters and beat shit up. So the story is very minimal. Hell, it doesn't even really make that much sense. Loki wants to get all the Avengers together, knowing they won't get along, and that would somehow destroy them. Okay. Well, as Tony Stark himself said, "Not a great plan." The whole story is kind of like that. There's all these weird little conveniences that don't really add up and are kind of confusing, but, really, you don't care. You're there to see the Avengers fly around and be the Avengers, and this movie gives you that in bucket loads. They have been hyping this thing up forever, one of the biggest Marvel teams of all time actually comes to the big screen, and...it delivers. Does it have that much drama? No. Is there that much thinking in it? Absolutely not. But it's just an incredibly fun, dumb summer film. This is the kind of movie you want to see kind of mindless, you want to see a lot of dumb explosions. But it's done with so much wit and humor that you find yourself enjoying even the silliest moments. It's nice to see a cinematic gamble like this pay off, and for the right reasons. If we just started off with this movie before Iron Man, Captain America, and all the other films, it wouldn't be as good. It'd be impressive, but it'd just be too jumbled because you wouldn't have all the characters defined. Well, now that we do know all these characters and we enjoy them, and they've certainly proven themselves to be entertaining, they come together beautifully.

(Stills of Mark Ruffalo as Bruce Banner/The Hulk are shown)

Doug (vo): I even kind of find myself enjoying Mark Ruffalo as the Hulk. I'll admit, I like Edward Norton just a little bit more because I think he's such an engaging actor, but I like the take he does. He plays it as a guy who's been spending years trying to achieve inner calm, so he kind of looks half-awake sometimes, but it's actually intentional. It doesn't seem lazy at all, it seems like a guy who's just trying to keep his rage under control because he knows what'll happen with him, and so, he sacrifices some of his stronger emotions to keep everything balanced. It would've been cool to see Norton, but this guy's a good replacement.

Final thought[]

Doug (vo): What else can I say? It's The Avengers, one of the highest-grossing films of all time, one of the most hyped up films of all time, and it gave you exactly what you wanted. It's silly, it's funny, it's over-the-top, it's a comic book movie. At no part in it can you say it's not a comic book movie, it just drenches itself in it. (Posters of Batman & Robin, Steel, and Catwoman are shown) And after years and years these were seen as embarrassing films to make, now they completely won us over, and everybody is trying to do exactly what The Avengers did: (Posters of Justice League, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, the 2016 Ghostbusters reboot, and Dracula Untold are shown) create a movie universe, something that can continue and all these other characters can interact with each other and come in in different ideas. They can all try it and some even succeed, but none of us will forget who did it first. Why? Because it was just so damn fun.

(The film's main shot, showing all the Avengers, Hulk, Hawkeye, Thor, Black Widow, Captain America and Iron Man, facing the Chitauri aliens all around them, is shown)

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