movies
BY MOLLY TEMPLETON
Joss Whedon and his A Team
Buffy creator raises the superhero stakes with The Avengers
THE AVENGERS: Directed by Joss Whedon. Written by
Whedon; story by Whedon and Zak Penn, based on the comics
created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. Cinematography, Seamus
McGarvey. Editors, Jeffrey Ford and Lisa Lassek. Music, Alan
Silvestri. Starring Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Mark
Ruffalo, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner, Chris Hemsworth,
Tom Hiddleston, Samuel L. Jackson, Clark Gregg and Cobie
Smulders. Walt Disney Pictures, 2012. PG-13. 142 minutes.
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I
t’s possible that Joss Whedon’s true calling in life is to
write dialogue for Robert Downey Jr.’s Tony Stark. Or
maybe RDJ was born to speak Whedon’s quippy, pop-
culture-laced dialogue, which sounds as natural coming
from Downey’s mouth as it did from Sarah Michelle
Gellar’s when she played Whedon’s best-known creation,
vampire slayer Buffy Summers.
Whedon didn’t create the Avengers, but he clearly
gets them, and he gets how to make a fl ashy, explosive
summer movie that’s gleefully fun and not entirely
shallow. Serenity, the 2005 fi lm based on Whedon’s short-
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lived TV show Firefl y, now looks like a practice run for
The Avengers: Snappy, swift and clever, Serenity follows a
crew of misfi ts, each with a specifi c skill set, who mostly
love each other even when they don’t really get along.
I’m not sure the Avengers all love each other just yet, though
Tony and Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) share a chemistry that
rivals their formidable intellects. (Please let the fi rst sequel
be Bruce and Tony Do Science!) History connects super-spy
Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson) and Clint Barton
(Jeremy Renner); hammer-wielding Thor (Chris Hemsworth)
is only really in this fi ght because his treacherous brother Loki
(Tom Hiddleston) leads the bad-guy brigade. S.H.I.E.L.D.
director Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) has his right-hand
woman, the steely Maria Hill (Cobie Smulders), and Steve
Rogers (Chris Evans), the long-asleep Captain America, has
a boyish admirer in Agent Coulson (Clark Gregg), who really
wants the Cap to sign his vintage trading cards.
Though he’s not the only human around, Coulson often
seems like the lone ordinary guy, the stand-in for all of us
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who sometimes, secretly or not so secretly, kinda wish we
could fi ght bad guys while tied to a chair, or zoom around
in a shiny metal suit. But an intergalactic battle is a rough
spot for a regular fellow. Loki, in exile on the other side
of space, found a nasty alien race eager to take over the
world for reasons unexplained. (It’s a pretty nice world.)
Loki also has some awkward ideas about humanity’s need
to be free of the troublesome notion of freedom. No one
likes his ideas, or his outfi t or the ease with which he steals
the glowy blue tesseract (last seem in Captain America)
out from under Fury’s nose.
And thus, Fury calls in his big guns. The Avengers is so
nicely pieced together — on second viewing, tiny scenes
and brief lines prove to be completely, surprisingly relevant
— that the heroes come for their own reasons, whether that
be simple scientifi c curiosity, a chance to save a friend or a
need to feel useful in the service of something meaningful.
In quick, effective strokes, Whedon deepens Natasha’s
character; grounds the relationship between Tony and
Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) in genuine affection and
clever banter; and fi nds a way to make the Hulk a truly
scary side of skittish Bruce.
The Avengers wobbles a little toward the end, when
the story is carefully structured to relieve them of diffi cult
decisions. For these heroes, things just have to be done;
skip the dicking about with questions of morality (even if
those questions were raised earlier in the fi lm). But maybe
we needed a break from brooding superheroes (and The
Dark Knight Rises is just over the horizon). Whedon’s
plot (he shares story credit with Zak Penn) does what it
needs to do: gets its stars into the same room, with snarky
asides, comedic quibbling, aggressive male bonding and,
of course, a handful of satisfying action sequences. It’s
peppered with tidbits for superfans (and Whedon geeks)
while perfectly accessible to those of us who don’t have a
Marvel dossier in our heads. And the Hulk gets to smash
things. Is the sequel here yet?
ew
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