The Avengers (4/5)
Well, it’s
finally here. Many of us have been
waiting for this moment for years, some for even decades. But despite the bumps along the ways, and
fears that we may never see its realization, us fans finally have what we have
wanted for so long. I’m talking, of
course, about Joss Whedon’s first time helming an existing property in a major
motion picture. As much as Whedon fans
have enjoyed his original work over the years, many of us have wondered what he
could do not only with preexisting characters but also with the backing of a
major budget and the epic panoramic screen of the multiplex. Oh, and of course the film itself happens to
be The Avengers, the most anticipated movie of the last ten
years or so. And I’m happy to report that
no one other than Whedon would have been able to pull off a film with this
scope and this huge cast of characters.
As you
might guess, this review will be Whedon centric. Plenty of people have dissected The Avengers from the point of view of
comic book fans or critics of summer blockbusters. But I would like to approach it from the perspective
of one entry within Whedon’s larger oeuvre.
I have a long history with Whedon’s work, starting in high school when I
first started watching Buffy the Vampire
Slayer on a lark. The concept of
transforming a poorly received film into an ongoing series appeared to be such
an idiotic idea that I decided to tune in order to witness some
schadenfreude. But eventually I found
myself sucked into the story of a group of teenagers struggling simultaneously
with adolescents and the supernatural, both elements of the show serving as
metaphor for the other. Not only did Buffy provide a surprisingly accurate
view of growing up, but it also dipped into narrative experimentation. Like many TV shows from the 90s, Buffy was acutely aware of genre
conventions and subverted them whenever it could. From then on I was a devoted fan of Whedon’s
work, from his spin off series Angel
to the cult classic Firefly to his
work in comic books.
And of all
the elements Whedon is most known for, the one that makes him most suited for
an Avengers film is his ability to
handle a large cast of characters without letting anyone slide into the
background. Whedon once said that he had
to add more characters to Angel
because he had such a difficult time writing for just the three principle
actors. It’s also not uncommon for
ancillary characters to become series regulars in his shows. So if anyone is capable of balancing out four
superheroes who had previously anchored their own films along with a good
helping of backup characters, it is Joss Whedon. The
Avengers combines elements from many of the previous films. The Iron
Man movies initially introduced the idea of “The Avengers Initiative,” first
in a post-credit scene from the first film and later in the sequel SHIELD and the
Avengers served as an entire subplot that nearly derailed the movie. The MacGuffin, here known as the tesseract,
was first introduced in Captain America
and has a connection to the Norse Gods that filled out the mythology of Thor.
And the main villain, Loki, is of course the adopted brother of Thor
himself. Of all the previous Marvel
movies, The Incredible Hulk is the
least essential. But with a new casting
(Mark Ruffalo replaces Edward Norton) audiences have an opportunity to become
reacquainted with the green guy.
The basic
plot of the film is relatively straight forward with only a few curves thrown
in for good measure. Loki wants to steal
the tesseract so that he can lead an invading alien force that will take over
the Earth. Without too much plot to get
in the way, Whedon is capable of focusing his energy on the story’s core pith:
the friction between the heroes. A lot
of the film’s drama comes from the fact that these characters don’t belong
together. Their personalities and
ideologies just don’t fit. In most comic
books this means that the heroes have to fight before they team up, and in true
comic book form when Thor tries to extract Loki from SHIELD custody and take
him back to Asgardian jurisdiction Captain America and Iron Man team up to stop
him. Likewise, Captain America, who is
a man out of time, continually brushes up against Tony Stark. This makes sense, since Steve Rogers is a
veteran of World War II when it was necessary for the individuals to sacrifice himself
for the greater good, but, as Iron Man, Tony Stark doesn’t do anything without
first considering his own ego. And in
the midst of all this tension lies Bruce Banner who is liable to Hulk out at
any provocation.
Whedon is
able to steer the film towards the interpersonal thanks to a few tricks he
learned back in his Buffy days. In the episode, “The Yoko Factor,” the gang
captures the punk rock vampire Spike only for him to psychologically manipulate
each of Buffy’s friends in order to get them to turn on one another. The point of the episode is that these
tensions have existed for some time, and it only took a little spark for all of
the resentment between friends to ignite into hatred. Similarly, in The Avengers, Shield manages to capture Loki who then proceeds to
sew seeds of distrust among the newly formed super group. By making the tensions between the Avengers a
weakness the villain can exploit, Whedon is able to clearly illustrate these characters
for the audience while keeping the plot moving along. The story doesn’t need to stop in order for
us to get to know these characters.
If Whedon
is known for one authorial tick, then it is probably his use of witticisms and
word play. The team dynamic allows him
plenty of space to incorporate some of his well known dialogue. The film trades in lots of quips between
heroes and has a sprinkling of snark without going overboard. Critics of Whedon’s writing find his dialogue
to be treacly rather than charming, and while I mostly disagree with these
critics, it’s certainly true that not all of Whedon’s verbal jabs land
properly. This is especially true when
Whedon isn’t present to carefully direct his dialogue’s delivery (see Halle Berry
in
The X-Men). But like an athlete who does his best work in
front of millions, here, when the world is watching, Whedon’s humor absolutely
shines. And he has found a great ally in
Robert Downey Jr. who is known to insist on making his own improvements on his
scripts (the “Shwarma” joke was apparently all his idea). In fact, Whedon is confident enough in his
humor to momentarily take a break from the action to show us a Shield agent
playing Galaga on a multimillion dollar computer when his boss isn’t watching. A joke that wouldn’t work if he didn’t trust
that his audience shared his own bizarre sense of humor.
In addition
to his use of repartee, Whedon’s also well known as a pop culture feminist,
which in practice means he likes to watch an attractive lady beat up guys much
bigger than herself. Here Black Widow
(played by Scarlett Johansson) serves this particular purpose. Several times throughout the film, Black
Widow uses others’ perception of her as an emotionally fragile creature in
order to, jujitsu-like, convince her enemies to spill important
information. What might be first seen as
a weakness becomes a weapon. Whedon is
clearly within the ideological confines of third-wave feminism, which seems to
maintain that women can both serve as sexual objects while simultaneously
kicking ass. And there’s some legitimate
criticism to this approach to feminism, but Whedon generally gets away with it
because he’s able to write strong, interesting female characters. We learn that Black Widow has a history with
another SHIELD agent, Hawkeye (played by Jeremy Renner and, unfortunately, not
given much of a role). And when he is
taken by Loki, Black Widow, in a role reversal, is allowed to become his
savior. Third wave feminism suits
Johansson, an actress who most directors seem unable to do anything interesting
with. Arguably, this is her best role
since Lost in Translation.
But if
there is a single major theme of
The
Avengers, then it is the question of the place of the individual within a
larger community. While making a pit
stop in Germany,
Loki takes the time to make a crowd of people bow before him while he
pontificates on the useless notion of freedom.
And if the parallels between Loki’s philosophy and fascism aren’t clear
enough, an older gentleman in the crowd decides to stand up and all but call
Loki Hitler (obviously this fellow has never heard of
Godwin’s Law). But the Avengers have their own problems
formulating a cohesive group. Each
character is in some manner or other cut off from the larger society, whether
it is Bruce Banner’s rage or Tony Stark’s ego.
These are individuals who are marked as outsiders, a favorite theme of
Whedon’s work. But their very survival,
and the survival of the world, is dependant on the ability of these individual
parts to interlock. Whedon represents
the eventual coming together of these heroes in the final battle with a single
shot that moves around the city in order to let the audience see how these
characters work together as a cohesive unit.
For Whedon the answer to forced unity is not pure individuality, but
rather a volatile mixture of the singular within the communal.
But Whedon
hasn’t lost his healthy distrust of governing bodies. Without giving too much away, in addition to
dealing with an alien invasions, the film’s heroes must also contend with the
unclear motives of SHIELD, the quasi-military/quasi-intelligence agency that
first assembled the Avengers. Not only
do members of the Avengers accuse SHIELD of attempting to create weapons of
mass destruction, but the organization also purposefully attacks a civilian
target for the “greater good.” In fact,
Whedon’s portrayal of SHIELD may have been
too subversive for the U.S. military who
cited its portrayals as a reason why they refused to cooperate with the movie
by lending military equipment, an offer they regularly extend to films that
represent the armed forces in a much more “patriotic” light.
For the
most part the movies produced by Marvel have been, by necessity, studio films
in the classic Hollywood tradition. Superhero movies have become so popular that
most studios have banished any ultra stylistic
auteurs who, early on in the superhero
craze, put out some of the more distinctive films in the genre. The likes of Ang Lee and Sam Raimi were
deemed too idiosyncratic to helm multi-million dollar films. That doesn’t mean that there haven’t been
some interesting superhero films in the last few years, but it does mean that
singular visions have been replaced by the work of handy craftsmen. When you watch Tim Burton’s
Batman, you immediately recognize that
this can be nothing but the work of Tim Burton The same could be said about
Nolan’s Batman series, thanks to the fact that they were first made when superhero
auteurs were still in vogue. (It’s
unlikely in today’s environment that the studio would give Nolan as much free
reign as he wielded). Joss Whedon’s
The Avengers (a title that would make
more sense than
Marvel’s The Avengers)
attempts to derail this trend. While
Whedon is still constrained by the visual and narrative template established previously
in earlier Marvel movies, he still manages to create a film that speaks with
his own artistic voice. This is
especially impressive when you consider the fact that he was entrusted with an
astronomical budget. Maybe from within
the deafening confines of the studio system, a singular voice can make itself
heard after all.
