Joe Movie - The Avengers

The Avengers (2012) (PG-13)

Check out the trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPoHPNeU9fc

Unless you live under a rock, you have undoubtedly heard of this summer's blockbuster, "The Avengers."  Directed by Joss Whendon with a cast full of Hollywood superstars, this film—based on Stan Lee's comic book creation—is currently the third highest grossing film of all time, with over $1.3 billion in ticket sales.

"The Avengers" has been in the works since 2005, allowing ample time to develop and produce singular films for each key member of the group of superheroes.  Iron Man, Hulk, Thor, and Captain America all had previous films leading up to this collaboration of tough guys. 

If you haven't seen any or some of the movies that shed light on each of the members of "The Avengers," well – you're going to be confused.  Hopefully you can put aside any hopes of following the story anyways, because "The Avengers" is no more than a bunch of explosions and invincible people punching each other.  That's it.  You just saw the entire movie.

For the incredibly lengthy 143 minutes of "The Avengers," I found myself not only confused, but also annoyed. 

I paid very close attention to "The Avengers," from the quintessential beginning through to the obvious ending – and I hardly knew what was going on at almost any point. 

Apparently, a very mean but innocent and pasty looking super-villain named Loki (Tom Hiddleston) enters Earth through some kind of black hole created by an infinite energy source called Tesseract, a non-descript blue mass.  Loki is very angry at the people of Earth.  Why?  No idea, but he makes it very clear that he wants to rule over Earth and all of its inhabitants. 

Luckily, Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), the leader of S.H.I.E.L.D., a government defense organization activates "The Avengers Initiative," which is pretty much just a gathering of all of the known super heroes, along with agents Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) and Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner).  Black Widow spends about an hour bending and stretching in spandex as she gets Captain America (Chris Evans), Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), and Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) to reluctantly joining forces.  How does Thor (Chris Hemsworth) get involved, you may wonder? He just sort of shows up during a thunderstorm.

Anyways, the team of Avengers overcomes numerous obstacles in their pursuit of Loki, where they hit stuff and avoid explosions and devastating collisions.  All of this eventually leads up to the conclusion, the only remotely interesting part of "The Avengers."  With the entire team together and ready to confront Loki in the streets of New York City, a 45-minute fight ensues with, you guessed it, even more explosions and punching.

Unless you are a hardcore fan of the comic book series or saw and loved every one of the prior films leading up to "The Avengers," do yourself a favor and save your money – wait until this classic piece-of-Hollywood-trash becomes available in Red Box.  Although I find it hard to suggest that "The Avengers" is even worth one buck. 

Joe Movie rating: 2/5

The Good:

-          Robert Downey Jr. is great, as usual.

-          If you're a die-hard fan, you'll probably like it.

-          The Hulk has some intense scenes.

The Bad:

-          Repetitive action scenes.

-          Predictable plot.

-          Sensory overload.