The Avengers

Ridiculously funny. It should have added the by-line “when egos meet”.

The Avengers was a huge treat to satisfy my craving for clashes of superpower abilities. I have always been amazed with how mighty powers can inspire or corrupt its bearer. And so I loved X-Men since I was a kid. But what X-Men did not achieve in carefully giving each superhero a time of its own to shine, The Avengers thoughtfully balanced the showcase of abilities. There was never a scene when one character seemed to be dominant over another. There was always a tug of war between two or more egos. And this is usually the core of the fight scenes: a fight for one’s vested interest (not even “for the good of everyone” until they realized it was how it was supposed to be... and we still call them superheroes).

I found Captain America, Iron Man and Thor very proud and egotistic. They have high regard for themselves and are easily pissed by each other’s air of authority. The slightest comments of one are never taken lightly by the others. Hence, ego-battles between and amongst these three are not uncommon. Funny that I see these three representing our biggest leaders and their egos: the government (Captain America), science (Iron Man) and religion (Thor). There were scenes when each asserts superiority over the other, and the film was intelligent enough not to make it appear that one won over the other.

Meanwhile Black Widow, Hulk and Hawkeye are equally magnificent but are not as self-absorbed as the former three. I see them as representations of magnified human follies: cunning & deception (Black Widow); blind obedience which is in stark contrast of his archery precision (Hawkeye); and intelligence and rage (Hulk). Loki could represent vengefulness which is a folly of both the humans and the leaders. Each of these characteristics was clearly developed in the film. In fact, each superhero character is rich in irony.

While The Avengers is far from being a psychological (or a sociological) film, its characterization of superheroes spelled out basic psychological statements to me. And although there were six superheroes in the film (seven, including Loki), there were no redundancies in their characterizations. It was a bonus I did not expect from green-screen movies, and so I enjoyed the film to a great extent. The comic timing of Iron Man and his witty lines were undeniably the source of many of my loud laughs in the cinema. Their magnificence and valour vis-a-vis their impulsiveness and primal reflex made them ridiculously funny, (if not irritatingly similar to our leaders and bosses who are self-indulgent and self-dignified supposed-to-be-better-at-decision-making heroes). It was not until a “fan” of these heroes was killed that they got their act together and lived up to their group name The Avengers.

I would definitely watch this film again in the cinema after my exam.