The Avengers (2012)

The wait is finally over — Marvel’s summer blockbuster superhero ensemble film The Avengers was finally here. Years in the making, nerds and geeks like me have waited with anticipation for this film to come out, hoping for it to be good. Who doesn’t love the Marvel characters? Although it wasn’t easy, we watched the early Marvel films about these particular superheros (I’m temporarily ignoring Spiderman, Daredevil, Punisher, X-Men, etc.)

• We endured Ang Lee’s 2003 snoozefest of a film, Hulk, and kinds got what we wanted in the 2008 film The Incredible Hulk starring Ed Norton. [My original reviews here and here.]
• We were awestruck by how awesome the first Iron Man was, and yet disappointed by how lousy Iron Man 2 turned out to be. [My original reviews here and here.]
• We enjoyed the good aspects of the 2011 Kenneth Branagh Thor film, and tried to look past the slightly dull scenes on Earth. BTW, wasn’t Asgard interesting? [My original review here.]
• We really enjoyed getting to know the interpretation of Captain America by actor Chris Evans and director Joe Johnston. [My original review here.]

I’m sure everyone knows the basic premise of this film. Nick Fury of S.H.I.E.L.D. brings together a team of super humans to form The Avengers to help save the Earth from Loki and his army. So was it good? YES, but first, a little background information.

As usual, Saturday May 5th included many activities before we could get to Saturday evening.

1. Josh and I had a soccer game at 10am that turned into a 5-0 beatdown of our team. Ah well, you can’t win ’em all.
2. Simultaneously, Nums took Lily to her dance class.
3. Next, we raced home to pick up the girls and head over to Lawrenceville to hit a comic book store for Free Comic Book Day. Josh, Lily, and I each picked out 2-3 comics to take home. I also bought them an Avengers one, so I hope they appreciate it. We then had some pizza at a nearby pizza place.
4. Lily’s game was luckily cancelled, so we had some free time. I gave Lily a shower in the afternoon.
5. I took Josh to his swim class at 4pm.

Now this is where it gets tricky. The movie was playing at 6:30 pm at a nice theater in South Brunswick, and was bound to be packed on a Saturday evening. Doug, Kathy, and Mike were to meet us for the movie. We bought our four tickets, and Mike bought the other tickets. Mike was to get to the theater early to reserve seats for the seven of us. Luckily, the Ipes worked like clockwork to get Josh back from swim class, get him showered and cleaned up, and we were all out the door miraculously by 5:20 pm. We met up with everyone at the theater, waited in the lobby for the crew to clean up the theater, and then they let us in. We got great seats in the middle, and we all sat together.

So, yeah, the movie was actually very good. I was honestly worried that it would be horrible, as I thought Iron Man 2 was frankly a mess. Thankfully, this movie was a whole lot more fun. Lots of great dialogue, a good story, and plenty of action to keep the story in overdrive. As a matter of fact, my wife gets bored by action films and scenes, and she enjoyed the film. Now that’s a ringing endorsement if you ask me. The film is rated PG-13, but if your kids were okay with the earlier Marvel films, you’ll be fine with the action and violence in this film. How did I know if the film would be okay for Joshua and Lily? Duh, I checked out the Wired GeekDad review 10 Things Parents Should Know About The Avengers (Spoiler-Free), duh.

Afterwards, I had plans that we would walk over to the nearby Buffalo Wild Wings, but on account that it was Cinco de Mayo, the place was packed. We ended up not waiting and ditching BWW, and walking instead to Longhorn Steakhouse. I’ve not had good experiences at Longhorn, but we were a little desperate with 7 hungry people (including two kids) at 9:30 pm. Thankfully, the wait wasn’t longer than 20 mins, and we were seats. The food turned out to be pretty decent, so that was a plus.

I hope this film is out on Blu-ray in a few months — I definitely will pre-order it. Great movie, go see it.

The Avengers (2012)