THE AVENGERS (2012)

The Avengers is essentially one movie but four sequels for the films: Thor, Captain America, The Incredible Hulk, and Iron Man 2.

            The Avengers starts off with Loki encountering the Other, leader of the Chitauris, who offers him an army to raid earth for obtaining the Tesseract. The Tesseract is a cube with infinite self-sustaining pure energy (which is held by S.H.I.E.L.D.). As Loki uses the Tesseract on Earth to teleport, it creates the levels of energy to spike, forcing Nick Fury (director of S.H.I.E.L.D.) to call for an evacuation. Loki uses his scepter to escape and enslave a few people, most prominently Hawk Eye. In response to Loki, Fury reactivated the “Avengers Initiative” although it was disbanded and considered untested. The initiative begins with Agent Romanoff (Black Widow) to visit Dr. Bruce Banner (The Hulk) for his assistance in locating the Tesseract due to its emission of gamma radiation. Agent Phil Coulson (of S.H.I.E.L.D.) recruits Tony Stark (Iron Man) by letting him review the Tesseract research. Fury then goes and recruits Steve Rogers (Captain America) asking him to retrieve the Tesseract.

While Loki’s minions attempt to steal iridium, he shows up in France to distract the Avengers. However this leads to Loki’s surrender and placement into S.H.I.E.L.D.’s custody. While being escorted, Thor comes and frees Loki pleading him to come back to Asgard. Thor then decided to bring Loki to S.H.I.E.L.D.’s Helicopter in which Loki is imprisoned. Banner and Stark start to locate the Tesseract. The Avengers become divided after learning S.H.I.E.L.D.’s intentions of the Tesseract, and Loki brakes out of prison. This leads to Hawk Eye losing his mind control state. Loki kills Agent Coulson in the process of braking out, forcing the Avengers to come together. Loki builds the Tesseract portal in NYC, on top of Stark’s tower. After fighting some Chitauri, the Hulk knocks Loki unconscious and takes his scepter giving it to Romanoff who closes the portal just as Iron Man forces a nuke launched by the government to end the Chitauri’s attack, through the portal. Iron Man falls through a tiny hole as the portal closes and the Avengers disband on good terms.

            For a 143 minute long movie, it doesn’t feel that lengthy at all (although it created a long summary above!). The movie flies by no matter the ’nth time watching and for an action movie, the film has several hilarious moments. The length of some action shots scenes creates a smooth fight rather than a constant cutted action scene. Applause and praise always goes to Robert Downey Jr. for his portrayal of Tony Stark / Iron Man as well as Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury. Mark Ruffalo, as Bruce Banner also was praise worthy with a cool and calm presence when on camera. With a storyline that doesn’t bore, interest is never lost in the movie. The visual effects are also very stellar, particularly the Tesseract portal and the Chitauri minions. Joss Whedon undoubtedly deserves recognition for a beautifully directed film. To cap off this lengthy review, I would easily give it five out of five stars.

JAWS (1975)

‘Jaws’ begins with a girl leaving a party at the beach on New England’s Amity Island. With a boy, they travel to an area of the beach where they proceed to go skinny-dipping. While in the water the girl is dragged down into the water from something below. With the coroner examining the remains that washed ashore and identifying it as a shark attack, the chief of police Mark Brody decides to close the beaches. The Mayor disagrees with Brody and keeps the beaches open to not scare away tourists. The shark kills a young boy and the mother places a bounty for the shark. This ignites an amateur shark hunting competition; in which some fisherman catch a tiger shark. Brody and a marine biologist, named Hooper, secretly open the sharks stomach to find no human remains. More tourists arrive for the Fourth of July and a man is killed again by the shark, allowing Brody to persuade Vaughan to hire Quint (who offered to kill the shark initially for ten grand), to hunt the shark down. Brody and Hooper join Quint. Eventually, they find the shark, but the shark is so large and powerful the normal techniques don’t work. The shark damages the boat to where it cannot move and starts to sink.  Having scuba gear on the boat, Brody jams in the shark’s mouth a tank of oxygen. Brody takes Quint’s rifle and fires upon the tank blowing up the shark.

            Notorious for the shark not working, this created a lack of an actual visual on the shark for most of the movie. Although this occurrence has led to many say it is brilliant in suspension. Personally I didn’t feel suspense at all while watching this film, but that could be from two factors; one being I’ve heard of the film and two I knew what eventually happens. The only shot that stands out in my mind is where they truck forward while zooming out to create a trippy background effect. Otherwise, I would say the film is shot fine. On an unrelated note, the film runs 124 minutes and that I feel is too long. Lastly, most of the scene involving Brody, Quint and Hooper talking in the cabin be done without.

            Lastly, this is what really made Spielberg – Spielberg. The shark not working worked to his advantage, and for going way over budget it certainly made the money back through the box office. All in all, the direction of this movie I would say is slightly about decent. As a consequence of its drawn out storyline and a lack of suspense to me leaves me to give the film four out of five stars.