Like…really excited.
To be clear, I get excited for pretty much any superhero movie. As someone who has maintained a childlike fascination with comics since I was childlike, it’s just fun to see superheroes in movies. Seeing these characters whose stories and adventures I’ve only read on a panel-to-panel basis suddenly in real, tangible action is an exhilarating experience every time.
Even when it’s not the best “movie,” I can still enjoy it simply because superheroes are involved. Whether it’s the Daredevil movie with Ben Affleck (which I enjoyed, but most people don’t consider to be a “good” movie), or The Dark Knight (which a number of people consider to be one of the best movies ever, superhero or otherwise…even if Batman is a DC character), I’m able to get a thrill out of them strictly because they involve superheroes.
As a Marvel fan my entire life, I was excited when Marvel started making its own movies through Marvel Studios. As a very quick explanation, Marvel had to sell of some character film rights to other companies in order to make some money in the late 90s and 2000s. For example, Fox owns the rights to the X-Men franchise and Sony owns the rights to Spider-Man films. That’s why you’ll never see Wolverine or Spider-Man in an Avengers movie (at least not anytime soon).
All that is to say, Marvel’s recent success with Marvel Studios films (Iron Man & Iron Man 2, The Incredible Hulk, Thor, and Captain America) is really, really exciting as a lifelong Marvel fan. Marvel was finally able to make movies the way THEY wanted to make movies, and they turned out amazingly.
To sum it up, The Avengers somehow manages to both complement those previous Marvel films while simultaneously blowing them out of the water.
The eye-popping action, the laugh out loud hilarity (seriously…the whole theater was laughing…it’s not just me being a comic book nerd…), and the genuine emotion each hero brought to his or her character instantly catapulted Avengers right up near the top of my all-time favorite movie list. I’ve only seen it once so far, and I already know I’m going to love it when I see it again.
Basically, as someone who has spent thousands of dollars (probably) on Marvel comic books, hundreds of hours in my childhood playing with Marvel toys and games, and dozens of hours watching the various Marvel films, The Avengers was everything true Marvel fans hoped to see in a movie of this magnitude (and, selfishly, deserved to see). And then it was more.
Whether or not you’re a comic book fan, you should go out and see the Avengers on a nice, big movie theater screen. I promise—absolutely promise—it won’t even sort of disappoint. Even my wife, who is in no way a “comic book nerd,” said she loved it. And she doesn’t lie about stuff like that.
You don’t have to be a comic book fan to enjoy The Avengers. You just have to be someone who enjoys an epic, emotional, action-packed story that somehow makes the unbelievable feel absolutely, entirely, and entertainingly believable.
Now I just can’t wait for the next batch of Marvel films. Should be amazing.
