The Avengers
1 Oscar Nominations
Rent/Purchase
When an unexpected enemy emerges and threatens global safety and security, Nick Fury, director of the international peacekeeping agency known as S.H.I.E.L.D., finds himself in need of a team to pull the world back from the brink of disaster. Spanning the globe, a daring recruitment effort begins!
What critics thought
Most critics found The Avengers a surprisingly nimble and funny blockbuster, crediting Whedon's script for giving its crowded roster of heroes genuine personality rather than just spectacle. The main fault line ran between those who saw it as a sophisticated, self-aware entertainment and those — like A. O. Scott — who found its pleasures superficial, its action sequences grinding, and its overall shape symptomatic of a cynical genre formula. Mark Ruffalo's Bruce Banner drew near-universal praise; Robert Downey Jr. divided critics who loved his charisma from those who felt the ensemble diluted his sharpest edges.
“It's clamorous, the save-the-world story is one everyone's seen time and again, and the characters have been around for more than half a century in 500 comic book issues. But Whedon and his cohorts have managed to stir all the personalities and ingredients together so that the resulting dish, however familiar, is irresistibly tasty again.”
Todd McCarthy·The Hollywood Reporter
“while The Avengers is hardly worth raging about, its failures are significant and dispiriting. The light, amusing bits cannot overcome the grinding, hectic emptiness, the bloated cynicism that is less a shortcoming of this particular film than a feature of the genre.”
A. O. Scott·The New York Times
“Ruffalo successfully refreshes the Hulk myth, playing Banner as an adorably bashful nerd-genius who, in contrast to the preening hunks on the team, knows better than to draw attention to himself.”
Karina Longworth·The Village Voice
“His Iron Man is certainly a team player, but Mr. Downey comes to the party with two insuperable superpowers: a character of established sophistication—the industrialist/inventor Tony Stark, a sharp-tongued man of the world—and his own quicksilver presence that finds its finest expression in self-irony.”
Joe Morgenstein·The Wall Street Journal
“Like a superior, state-of-the-art model built from reconstituted parts, Joss Whedon's buoyant, witty, and robustly entertaining superhero smash-up is escapism of a sophisticated order, boasting a tonal assurance and rich reserves of humor that offset the potentially lumbering and unavoidably formulaic aspects of this 143-minute team-origin story.”
Justin Chang·Variety
Genres
Action, Sci-Fi
Cast & Crew
DirectorJoss Whedon
StarringRobert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Hemsworth, Scarlett Johansson
ComposerAlan Silvestri
The Avengers
1 Oscar Nominations
When an unexpected enemy emerges and threatens global safety and security, Nick Fury, director of the international peacekeeping agency known as S.H.I.E.L.D., finds himself in need of a team to pull the world back from the brink of disaster. Spanning the globe, a daring recruitment effort begins!
What critics thought
Most critics found The Avengers a surprisingly nimble and funny blockbuster, crediting Whedon's script for giving its crowded roster of heroes genuine personality rather than just spectacle. The main fault line ran between those who saw it as a sophisticated, self-aware entertainment and those — like A. O. Scott — who found its pleasures superficial, its action sequences grinding, and its overall shape symptomatic of a cynical genre formula. Mark Ruffalo's Bruce Banner drew near-universal praise; Robert Downey Jr. divided critics who loved his charisma from those who felt the ensemble diluted his sharpest edges.
“It's clamorous, the save-the-world story is one everyone's seen time and again, and the characters have been around for more than half a century in 500 comic book issues. But Whedon and his cohorts have managed to stir all the personalities and ingredients together so that the resulting dish, however familiar, is irresistibly tasty again.”
Todd McCarthy·The Hollywood Reporter
“while The Avengers is hardly worth raging about, its failures are significant and dispiriting. The light, amusing bits cannot overcome the grinding, hectic emptiness, the bloated cynicism that is less a shortcoming of this particular film than a feature of the genre.”
A. O. Scott·The New York Times
“Ruffalo successfully refreshes the Hulk myth, playing Banner as an adorably bashful nerd-genius who, in contrast to the preening hunks on the team, knows better than to draw attention to himself.”
Karina Longworth·The Village Voice
“His Iron Man is certainly a team player, but Mr. Downey comes to the party with two insuperable superpowers: a character of established sophistication—the industrialist/inventor Tony Stark, a sharp-tongued man of the world—and his own quicksilver presence that finds its finest expression in self-irony.”
Joe Morgenstein·The Wall Street Journal
“Like a superior, state-of-the-art model built from reconstituted parts, Joss Whedon's buoyant, witty, and robustly entertaining superhero smash-up is escapism of a sophisticated order, boasting a tonal assurance and rich reserves of humor that offset the potentially lumbering and unavoidably formulaic aspects of this 143-minute team-origin story.”
Justin Chang·Variety
Genres
Action, Sci-Fi
Cast & Crew
DirectorJoss Whedon
StarringRobert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Hemsworth, Scarlett Johansson
ComposerAlan Silvestri
Rent/Purchase