A little knowledge, a thermonuclear device, a sibling rivalry – these are all dangerous things. Sibling rivalries could lead to intense jealousy, family crises and in extreme cases, the Battle of Kurukshetra. Actually, scratch that last one – in extreme cases, a sibling rivalry could lead to the world getting destroyed. For all its plethora of superheroes coming together for a common cause, The Avengers is, at its core, a story of sibling rivalry. Now, you might wonder who the siblings in question are – does Iron Man have a long-lost brother called Inert-Gas Man that you didn’t know about? Does Captain America have a forgotten twin who’s now Captain Iraq that you didn’t know about? Or is Shrek actually a brother of The Hulk, something that you always suspected but didn’t voice out loud in fear of being called crazy? The answer, dear reader, is that it’s Thor (the Norse God of Thunder) that has a brother that you didn’t know about – and he’s called Loki.
On hearing that name, you might wonder – what the hell kind of a name is Loki? Why would anyone name their kid Loki? I suspect that’s where the problems start, as far as Loki is concerned. His older brother has the sort of name that positively reeks of the grandeur you would typically associate with a God’s name – Thor. Thor, the God of Thunder, ruler of the dominions over the seven seas, protector of heaven and earth, President of Alcoholics’ Anonymous Sweden – none of these titles sound out of place. But replace Thor with Loki, and it just doesn’t cut it – the name doesn’t fit in any longer, does it? In short, Loki’s name itself means that he cannot aspire to any leadership position of any sort – which is bound to piss you off if you’re a God and expect certain privileges as a birthright.
And I’m pretty sure that’s not all that pissed off Loki – as any kid who’s been the younger sibling would understand, Loki probably never got the leg piece because Thor had first right over it being the elder one; Loki never got his own clothes because he would always be handed Thor’s old clothes (even the Iron Man made fun of Thor’s sartorial sense, so you could imagine how bad it would’ve been for someone like Loki who had to work extra hard to step out of Thor’s shadow and be seen as cool); Thor got hold of the cool toys like the hammer that can level an entire mountain while Loki was left with broken GI Joe figures and an out-of-tune harmonica. In short, Loki had enough justification for a simmering desire to kill all humanity and take over the Earth.
It does, however, make you wonder where Thor and Loki’s parents were in the middle of all this? Couldn’t the father have just called his sons and told them “Listen, whatever it is these issues are, I’m sure we can resolve it over the dinner table – why drag the whole world into this mess? It’s a family dispute after all, so let’s keep it within the family.” Clearly, this didn’t happen, and so a combination of lax parenting and sibling rivalry brings us to the beginning of the movie, where a pissed-off Loki steals the Tessaract. The Tessaract is The Avengers’ equivalent of the object that’s there in every superhero/action movie, the one that’s the “critical and cool-looking artifact of possibly extraterrestrial origin with tremendous power that, if fallen into the wrong hands, could destroy the world and is therefore the object that the good guys and the bad guys fight over during the course of the movie”. In fact, the Tessaract is so important that it is under the direct protection of Samuel L Jackson, now a specialist in playing brave, grave, somber characters who stand for truth and righteousness and could anytime break into inspirational speech mode when the chips are down.
Officially, Samuel L Jackson is answerable to a higher authority imaginatively named “The Council”. But we all know that “The Council” is full of stuffy people who play by the book and are not averse to making heartless decisions such as destroying an entire city if it means saving the world. Of course, this is unacceptable to Samuel L Jackson, and when something is unacceptable to Samuel L Jackson, he does not hesitate to say “Fuck You”. So Samuel revives this long-forgotten operation called The Avengers, that brings together four superheroes – Iron Man, The Hulk, Captain America and Thor (who is technically a God), who join up with Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) who was anyway working for him. Their mission, of course, being to retrieve the Tessaract, foil Loki’s evil plan and thereby save the world.
If, like me, you’re a little illiterate about the world of comic-book superheroes and are wondering “How could they come up with a team of superheroes and not include Superman, Spiderman and Batman?” the answer is not because they have a selection policy as muddled as that of the Indian cricket team. The boring truth is that Superman and Batman are DC Comics’ characters while the rest are Marvel Comics’ characters. It does raise interesting comedic possibilities, however “Oh, we tried calling you but I think there’s no signal in the bat cave, Batman!”; “We thought that with the advent of cellular technology there weren’t any phone booths left where you could change, Superman!” and so on. The exclusion of Spiderman, however, remains a mystery.
But coming back to the movie, it follows an arc similar to most action movies:
1. Starts off with a breathless action sequence with enormous explosions, long-drawn out chase sequences and the like, where you don’t really know who’s killed whom and why.
2. The slower middle-section, where some time is devoted to allow the characters to showcase themselves while the action takes a backseat – Iron Man as the wise guy, Captain America as the uptight one, Hulk as the conflicted one and so on. This is also the section where you start understanding what’s happening and why as the plot is explained in greater detail.
3. The final section, where the great, big, ultimate battle to save the Earth takes place with non-stop action sequences and a prominent US city such as NY or LA being subject to widespread destruction on a previously unimaginable scale.
So in answer to some of the big questions one would typically ask about movies – Is the Avengers predictable? Yes. Is there anything new about the Avengers? No. So why should one watch it? One should watch it because, in answer to some of the questions that are more relevant to action movies – Is the Avengers packed with edge-of-the-seat action? Yes. Are the action sequences well-executed? Yes. Does it have great special effects? Yes. Does all that action get you so involved that you almost find yourself cheering for the good guys? Yes. Is it grand and on a massive scale like a superhero movie should be? Yes. In short, you should watch the Avengers if you’re looking for a big-budget, full-blown Hollywood superhero movie. And the other plus point is that it follows in the Iron Man footsteps of “so what if I’m a big-time superhero good guy that has to save the world from evil? I can still have a sense of humor” – so you see a lot of superheroes trying to be wise guys and come up with witty lines, which is sort of fun.
The only disappointment, I guess, would be Captain America. Now I’m not a comic book geek so I don’t know what Captain America’s deal in life is, but apart from bickering, he does precious little in this movie. He’s like one of those bad bosses who delegates work not because he wants to empower you, but rather so that he doesn’t have to do anything himself. He even manages to get overshadowed by the other members of the team who don’t have superpowers – in fact there’s an archer fellow who’s evil for half the movie but still manages to do more to save the Earth than Captain America!
