The Avengers (2012)

Earth's mightiest heroes must come together and learn to fight as a team if they are to stop the mischievous Loki and his alien army from enslaving humanity.

Director:

Joss Whedon

Writers:

Joss Whedon (screenplay), Zak Penn (story),

Stars:

Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson

Top 250 #189 | Nominated for 1 Oscar. Another 30 wins & 64 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Robert Downey Jr.	...	Tony Stark / Iron Man
Chris Evans	...	Steve Rogers / Captain America
Mark Ruffalo	...	Bruce Banner / The Hulk
Chris Hemsworth	...	Thor
Scarlett Johansson	...	Natasha Romanoff / Black Widow
Jeremy Renner	...	Clint Barton / Hawkeye
Tom Hiddleston	...	Loki
Clark Gregg	...	Agent Phil Coulson
Cobie Smulders	...	Agent Maria Hill
Stellan Skarsgård	...	Selvig
Samuel L. Jackson	...	Nick Fury
Gwyneth Paltrow	...	Pepper Potts
Paul Bettany	...	Jarvis (voice)
Alexis Denisof	...	The Other
Tina Benko	...	NASA Scientist

Storyline

Nick Fury is director of S.H.I.E.L.D, an international peace keeping agency. The agency is a who's who of Marvel Super Heroes, with Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Thor, Captain America, Hawkeye and Black Widow. When global security is threatened by Loki and his cohorts, Nick Fury and his team will need all their powers to save the world from disaster.

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Plot Keywords:

s.h.i.e.l.d. | tesseract | captain america | thor | captain | 

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Genres:

Action | Adventure | Sci-Fi

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Certificate:

PG

Details

Official Sites:

Official Facebook Official Facebook [United Kingdom]

Country:

USA

Language:

English Russian

Release Date:

4 May 2012 (Canada)

Also Known As:

Les Avengers: le film

Filming Locations:

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$220,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend:

$207,438,708 (USA) (4 May 2012)

Gross:

$623,279,547 (USA) (28 September 2012)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Marvel Studios, Paramount Pictures

Technical Specs

Runtime:

143 min

Sound Mix:

Datasat Dolby Digital Dolby Surround 7.1

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

The single-engine jet fighters are computer-rendered Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning IIs. F-35s appear briefly in several scenes, including a sequence of the airplane transitioning from forward flight to vectored-thrust hover mode to fire its 25mm cannon. The F-35 is still in development and will not even have basic combat capability until late 2015.

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Goofs

During the fight between Natasha Romanoff and Georgi Luchkov (Jerzy Skolimowski) Luchkov's hair changes length and whiteness between shots revealing an obvious stunt double in place of Skolimowski during the more physically-demanding shots.

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Quotes

[first lines]
The Other: The Tesseract has awakened. It is on a little world. A human world. They would wield its power, but our ally knows its workings as they never will. He is ready to lead. And our force, our Chitauri, will follow. The world will be his. The universe yours. And the humans, what can they do but burn?

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Crazy Credits

There is a scene after the credits: the Avengers are seen eating at a shawarma restaurant (the same one Stark mentioned at the end of the battle). This scene was originally only included in the US version of the film, but was included in the international DVD/Blu-ray release.

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Connections

Spoofed in The Tonight Show with Jay Leno: Episode #22.64 (2014)

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Soundtracks

Shoot to Thrill
Written by Angus Young, Malcolm Young and Brian Johnson
Performed by AC/DC
Courtesy of Columbia Records
By arrangement with Sony Music Entertainment

User Reviews

Nothing Short of Amazing

I just saw the early screening for San Diego through the top 10 cities on facebook who got them. And suffice to say I am glad I was privileged enough to.

First off, this hands down is the best Marvel movie ever. I don't say that lightly. And in terms of superhero movie with maybe the Nolan Batman series being tied with this, I thought Whedon did an amazing job to bring out all these characters in this one movie. I especially like what was done with Hawkeye and Black Widow just because those two didn't really have their individual movie with their back story.

You can tell when a comic book fan writes and directs a comic movie because it clearly showed in all areas of production for this film. Going into the film I honestly thought that a lot of the cool mutant action scenes would be strictly Iron Man and Captain America. But Whedon does such a great job giving each mutant their 15 mins of fame and by the end of it you seriously feel like "Wow this guy/chick is a badass" for every mutant. I will admit i am not a Hulk fan. I like the inner story for it but was never a fan of the films, show or comic. But Hulk's role in the movie is so awesome I became a fan just from it.

If any of you are Whedon fans then you guys/girls will love this movie. It has his M.O. written all over the humor and story presentation. And there were definitely parts in the movie where I thought "Wow this seems like Firefly and Serenity". And story aside, if you read, watched, or idolized Marvel superheros as a kid, the action alone will make you cheer just out of sheer nostalgia of imagining The Avengers or X-Men all together on the screen kicking ass.

In summation, I don't need to say you NEED to watch this movie because I think anybody who is anybody already knows they want to see this. All this review has done was just reaffirm the hype behind this movie. I don't say this much but job well done Marvel and Disney for hiring a writer/director who has the audaciousness to keep it honest and true for those most dedicated comic fans who are the backbone of Marvel comics being a success. And in this day and age of superhero movies and movies in general that is very hard to do. Cheers Joss Whedon!