The Avengers (2012)
It’s something we take for granted nowadays, but crossovers are kind of a big deal. Getting even one characters or product to succeed is already a monumental task, only compounded further and further when you start adding on to it. As such, while we now are fairly unfazed by the inclusion of multiple characters in a single movie, it’s worth looking back every once in a while to let it sink back in that any movie is already a challenge, and a movie that connects a bunch more? Well, that’s a damn miracle.
The Avengers set out to do what would have been impossible beforehand; establish a definitive, multi-armed cinematic universe. Connecting all of the disparate pieces that were put in place by the five movies preceding it (Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man 2, Thor, and Captain America: The First Avenger), this movie was the first ever to execute such a concept on such a scale, and would go on to shape not only superhero cinema, but cinema as a whole going forward.
The best thing this movie did was have a good story on its own. While watching The Avengers on release in 2012 without having seen the movies leading up to it probably would have been moderately confusing at times, it would have been irrelevant at others. Much of the movie explains itself, with characters like Captain America being out of their element meaning that others have to explain things to them. Bruce Banner isn’t as much of a case for this, as he seems to have a working knowledge of the events of the other films, but he occasionally needs a briefing as well, especially since the last time we saw him, he looked a lot more like Edward Norton than Mark Ruffalo. Funnily enough, though, Mark Ruffalo was The Incredible Hulk director Louis Letterier’s original choice for Bruce Banner, only for the studio to insist on a more established actor instead.
Who’s laughing now, Ike Perlmutter?
All that aside, the movie’s plot boils down to a simple “save the world” plot. This isn’t meant to demean it; in fact, it actually serves the greater purpose of bringing these characters together very well. If the movie was too crowded in the plot, the admittedly-crowded cast would struggle that much more to make their personalities shine through. Instead, with the plot being simply “Loki is trying to take over the world with a MacGuffin,” you can have moments like Black Widow and Hawkeye commiserating, Steve and Tony arguing, and more, take up some space. Otherwise, you’d either have to shove them in to the plot and slow it down, or remove them entirely.\
Everyone obviously shines, as they did in their original showings. I guess I didn’t mention, but Hawkeye shows up very briefly as a cameo in Thor, and Black Widow is pretty central to the plot of Iron Man 2. Both get a bit more time in the spotlight here, but neither would really get their day until later Avengers movies, and it wouldn’t be until after Endgame that they would both get their own movies (or, in Hawkeye’s case, TV series). Despite that, both Scarlett Johansson and Jeremy Renner are fantastic as their characters. They also connect in a nice, platonic way that is sadly very rare in cinema anymore. Actually, this series is very good about that, but I’ll talk more on the when we get to The Winter Soldier.
The visuals also do a lot of heavy-lifting in this movie. Even today the CG of 2012 looks fantastic, as the alien Chitauri descend on New York. The Leviathans in particular stand out, as they have so many shifting parts and facets, yet look believable as they soar through the air. At any given moment, so many things are happening, yet none of them feel like they’ve been given less thought than the others.
Most memorable to me is a scene that involves some camera play that I’m always a sucker for - the oner. If you’re not a cinematography nerd like myself, a oner is when the camera doesn’t cut for a long time, meaning a single scene all takes place without a single cut. Often, this is achieved in the most obvious way possible, without cutting the camera, but in others, trickery is used to make it seem like the camera hasn’t stopped running. Movies like 1917 or Birdman use this type of technique, and it’s also used here.
In a single scene, we see every Avenger as they take the fight to the enemy. Given that this movie isn’t shot in a scale replica of New York (I’m sure some day, we’ll have that technology), this is a carefully spliced-together set of separate scenes that are then masterfully cut together. One scene will play out, only for a Leviathan to swoop through, allowing the camera to attach to it as Thor and Hulk land on it, followed by a fly-by from Iron Man, and so on. It’s a jaw-dropping moment, one that really sells the absolute scale of the chaos at hand. At some point, it’s mentioned that they’ve contained the fighting to only a few blocks, but scenes like this make you realize just how big a city block truly is, and how incredible the Avengers are to achieve even that.
What you don’t see while watching this movie, however, is how much it would go on to change the world. DC didn’t really care about connecting their movies, but after the success of the MCU, exemplified in no better place than here, they started trying to fast-track their own cinematic universe. Personally, I find the DCEU to be fun in its own right, but it’s hard to argue that they do it better than Marvel has. Other series would go on to attempt connections between their films, such as the sadly scrapped Universal Monsters universe, officially titled Dark Pictures universe. I would have loved to see that, and 2017’s The Mummy really was fine, fine enough to keep the concept alive, at least.
Either way, The Avengers took a genre that was notoriously tough to succeed with, had a lead up that started to change that mindset, and slam dunked with a Phase One finale that made it clear that it was all worth it. Kevin Feige, once coffee boy in the Marvel hierarchy, put any worries to rest, and would go on to become the face of crossover success.
It all started here, as six heroes assembled for the very first time, and made cinema history while they were at it.
