Dream a Little Bigger, Darling- "The Avengers" Review

    There's a scene, early on in Christopher Nolan's "Inception," where Joseph Gordon-Levitt's character is using his assault rifle to fight against the army of projections trying to kill him. His weapon is dependable, it's sturdy, and it'll certainly get the job done, but his combatants keep firing back. That is until Tom Hardy sidles over and with a sly smirk and says "Mustn't be afraid to dream a little bigger darling" as he raises a grenade launcher and fires towards them with a loud explosion.
     While watching Joss Whedon's giant superhero pot luck "Marvel's The Avengers," I had similar feelings throughout. It's fun. It's loud, and it's funny. It features all the flash, whiz, and bang one has come to expect from the best comic book films, but instead of raising itself to be about something greater, something more nuanced, it and its filmmaker are happy just making rollicking summer fare.
 

     The film picks up after last year's onslaught of Marvel films left off. Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) and the rest of S.H.I.E.L.D. are testing the intense power of the tesseract (the glowing cube of energy introduced in "Thor"), that is until Thor's adoptive brother Loki (Tom Hiddleston) returns with a vengeful spirit to steal it and with it unleash a force of super-fighting aliens to help him enslave the world finally be the ruler he was never allowed to be on Asgard.
     So....what's Fury to do? He reestablishes the Avengers Initiative and gathers together a special fighting force of his own including Captain America fresh from his thawing, Thor back on Earth after traveling the universe, Iron Man, Black Widow, and the reclusive Dr. Bruce Banner who if angry enough becomes as he calls him "the other guy." With that many egos in the room there's bound to be some infighting and they do with great fervor, but eventually they do have to save the world.
     The king of all nerdom Joss Whedon has crafted a fine film. Unlike all of the other films these characters are in, this one is written with the savvy wit and a coherent voice that is such a welcome contrast to the screenplay by committee so many of the other ones come from, and is so distinctively Joss's. It's full of quip-laden battles, CGI creatures, and explosions run amok. He also figures out what to do about two of the more difficult characters: Thor and The Hulk.
     Despite what the two previous Hulk films have to tried to indicate, Banner is not supposed to be a brooding, nihilistic hunk who eventually enjoys wielding his power because he's still angry for having been infected in the first place. That's no where near what Mark Ruffalo does with his Banner. He plays him with a soft-spoken, anti-social twitch that feels authentic. He doesn't want to become the hulk; he knows what it does to him and everyone around him. He's the only character that seems to have any shred of emotional relevance because unlike the Norse prince from another planet, the billionaire smart mouth with his special suit, or the genetically engineered super-soldier, he seems to have something to lose.
     Thor is also finally worth watching. In the first film, his stiff, stilted dialogue althought appropriate for the character, never seemed to congeal with the fish-out-of-water story the filmmakers were trying to make. This time his golden mane and shiny breastplate are still intact, but this time he has a sense of humor! Somewhere in his intergalactic travels, and certainly because he's in a Joss Whedon script, Thor learned what irony was and it suits him just fine.
    A problem the film faces is the fact that Loki is no where near as exciting as his opponents. His doleful and vengeful stepbrother who wants his rightful share father's love and glory is downright Shakespearean, but eventually, his actions don't fit his motivations. It just feels shallow. The shock and awe also becomes a little draining by the two hour and twenty minute mark. I wish that more people used stunt workers and brick and morter rather than pixels and 1s and 0s.
     The biggest problem as I said in the opening is one of ambition. How much did they try to make this any bigger or more interesting than the standard comic book film? Did everyone forget "X2: X-Men United," "Spider-Man 2" or "The Dark Knight"? With the bar being set ever higher by stronger and stronger pictures, something simple and straight down the middle just doesn't measure up. Great dialogue doesn't always make up for a slow story and an uninteresting villain. More and more it feels like Joss and his team made a fun movie that has little to add to the world because they were so afraid to offend the fanboys.
     Is "Marvel's The Avengers" good? Sure. Is it worth seeing? Why not? Is it a revelation or in any way elevate the artform? Not in the slightest. Grade: B-