The Avengers (2012)

Two Geeks and a GIT Classic Movie Reviews

The second film in our "American saves the world" pairing is the beginning of a franchise for the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and the end of its "Phase 1" stories. Directed by Joss Whedon, a master at ensemble stories, this film took Iron Man, Captain America, and Thor from their separate origin story films and combined them with other heroes in a race to save the planet from a directed invasion by another character we'd met before! In 2012's "The Avengers," we see Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), Agent Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg) and Agent Maria Hill (Cobie Smulders) racing to stop the Tesseract (an alien artifact) from exploding. Astrophysicist Eric Selvig (Stellan Skarsgard) has been studying the artifact under the watchful eye of Clint Barton a.k.a. Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner). When the Tesseract admits Loki (Tom Hiddleston), brother of Thor, to our world, he arrives with a stated intention to rule the planet as its king. After failing to prevent his escape, Fury sends Natasha Romanoff a.k.a. the Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) to recruit Dr. Bruce Banner a.k.a. the Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), Coulson to recruit Tony Stark a.k.a. Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), and Fury himself goes to fetch Steve Rogers a.k.a. Captain America (Chris Evans) as a "response team." Along the way, Thor (Chris Hemsworth) returns, and together they attempt to stop Loki's plan of world domination. Also starring Gwyneth Paltrow, Paul Bettany, and Alexis Denisof. Plus, the gentlemen reveal which two "coming-of-age" films they've chosen for their next pairing!