The Avengers

Superheroes galore! We have seen a plethora of superhero movies in the past. Now, what if one took all those movies and rolled them into one film? Might it be Marvel's "The Avengers"? Yeah, you guessed it. And what a way to kick off the summer season than with a film that is a  totally in-your-face, roller coaster ride as this-- and in 3D?

Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) is director of S.H.I.E.L.D., an international peace keeping agency. The agency is a who's who of Marvel Super Heroes, with Iron Man/Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.), Captain America/Steve Rogers (Chris Evans), The Hulk/Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Black Widow/Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johnsson), and Hawkeye/Clint Barton (Jeremy Renner). When global security is threatened by Loki (Tom Hiddleston) and his cohorts, Fury and his team will need all their powers to save the world from disaster.

Others to round out the cast are Clark Gregg returning as Agent Phil Coulson, Cobie Smulders as Agent Maria Hill, Stellan Skarsgard as Selvig, Gwyneth Paltrow as Pepper Potts, and Paul Bettany as the voice of Jarvis.

This was well directed by veteran TV pro, Joss Whedon, who also wrote this. You know, the same guy that wrote "Toy Story" '95, "Alien: Resurrection" '97, "Titan A.E." 2000, "Serenity" '05, "This American Life Live!" (TV movie), '09, and"The Cabin in the Woods" '12, with lots of TV in between. Whedon took all these different superhero films and through a story by Zak Penn and himself based on Marvel's comic book by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, connected them all into an interesting film. It wasn't a perfect film, but it really is about the best anyone could create given so many films in which to extract from without it meandering all over the place.

The visual effects were created predominantly by veterans, ILM (Industrial, Light & Magic), Weta Digital, Inc., and Digital Domain, and, of course, were pretty much seamless. The way that the CGI (Computer Generated Imagery), matte paintings, miniatures and sets were all combined effortlessly to give that certain realism was amazing, but the key word here is veteran, so they should look that way.

No joke, if you like high explosive, high energy, adrenaline-packed type of films, you'll revel. As said prior, it's not an overly original plot, but well put together. Also, stay until the big credits at the end roll up, because there's a little surprise. As the kick-off of the summer season bows, enjoy!

Out of 4 stars: 3.5                    Rated: PG-13                        142min.