The Avengers juggernaut (not Cain Marko)

As of writing, The Avengers movie (Avengers Assemble in the UK due to the 'New Avengers' TV series starring Joanna Lumley, Avengers Assemble sounds like a film about a group of superheroes who attempt to put together some flat pack furniture) has grossed worldwide almost $1.2billion (around £800million, how Greece must of wished it made this movie to solve all that countries money problems) and shows no sign of slowing down. It was released less than 3 weeks ago and is currently the 4th highest grossing film of all time behind Avatar ($2.78b), Titanic ($2.18b) and Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows Part 2 ($1.32b), while it should overtake the last Harry Potter movie in the next week, it remains to be seen if it can compete with the two James Cameron goliaths but it has that potential.

I saw The Avengers in 3D on the day it was released worldwide, the marketing and hype for the movie were years in the making, the slow hype has paid of, in the 2008 Iron Man film, there was the tease of Captain America's (I wonder if the true cause of America's financial problems come from Captain America asking for his back pay) shield and in the 2010 sequel, Iron Man 2, the closing credits featured Thor's hammer 'Mjolnir' to leave fans waiting for the characters solo movies leading into this collective collaboration.

   The Avengers features Iron Man, Captain America, Thor and The Incredible Hulk, the two flawed Hulk movies, Thor and Captain America (After watching Captain America, I feel like riot police aren't using their shields properly) have done well at the box office but compared to other Marvel movies, have been modest at best. Iron Man has fared better but nowhere in the league of the Sam Raimi's Spiderman trilogy or The Dark Knight. The success of combining these characters has delightedly astounded Disney (who bought the rights to The Avengers and Iron Man 3 from Paramount) but why has the movie seemingly come out of nowhere to do so well.

   The answer is simply that it is a damn good movie and people want to see it again. The success of Avatar and Titanic was that the audience went back again and again to see the film. If someone hasn't seen Avengers and needed someone to go with, i'd happily go again and see it. It's a feel good film, a family film that most ages can enjoy. It's interesting what Marvel has created leading up to this film, 4 completely different film franchises, all leading up to this one point, each character given their established plot, specific traits and their own big personality. This is the first time that i can think of where a studio has spent 4 years creating a universe to set up one BIG blockbuster. For all the special effects, explosions and nasty villains, the actors are given ample time to shine in their roles and most importantly, no-one is deemed superior to others, they are equal. It's a great feel good movie with cinematic magic and no matter how much marketing a studio does to promote their films, there is nothing like word of mouth to fill cinema seats and has anyone heard a bad word said about this film?

The film isn't perfect (where does the Tesseract come from and what exactly can it do?) but it's exactly what a summer blockbuster should be, The Dark Knight Rises is released in a couple of months and the bar has been set very high in 2012.

View The Avengers trailer here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPoHPNeU9fc

View The Dark Knight Rises trailer here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8evyE9TuYk