That crashing sound you’ll hear emanating from cineplexes this weekend will be the sound of comic-book superheroes smashing box-office records.
Actually, the smashing started last weekend, when Marvel’s The Avengers opened in 39 territories around the world, scooping up a cool $178 million in three days. And with legions of fans having already bought advance tickets in the U.S., it’s a pretty sure bet the box-office bonanza will continue as the film opens in more than 4,000 North American theaters.
Fans certainly won’t be disappointed, but neither are they likely to be terribly surprised by Joss Whedon’s enjoyably zingy genre flick. The banter has zip, the effects are fun, the climactic battle is decently spectacular, and if the 3-D is mostly expendable, there are a few scenes where it adds a nice kick.
That said, the plot is strictly standard-issue superhero stuff: the Earth’s in peril when Norse demi-god Loki (Tom Hilddleston, reprising his role as Thor’s ne’er-do-well quasi-sibling) steals a glowing blue cube (the Tesseract!) that offers the planet unlimited power — but has the unfortunate side effect of opening a wormhole through which alien invaders can pop.
This being the sort of thing S.H.I.E.L.D. was set up to foil, the secret agency’s superhero-wrangler, Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), gathers his brood of caped-or-otherwise-flamboyantly-attired heroes. There’s Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), Captain America (Chris Evans), the Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), plus a couple of superpower-challenged assassins who’ve not had their own movies (yet): ace archer Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) and martial-arts tyro Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson). Once they’re all in place, Fury announces: “War has started, and we’re hopelessly outgunned.”