The Avengers (film)

The Avengers is a 2009 superhero film set in the Marvel Media Franchise, the eleventh film in the universe. The film stars Bradley Cooper, Chris Evans, Charlie Hunnam, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Ryan Reynolds, Michelle Williams, James Marsden, Charlie Cox, Matt Damon, Rosamund Pike, and Samuel L. Jackson and was released worldwide on April 3, 2009. The film ran 153 minutes and grossed $934.4 million on a $250 million budget, the 3rd most expensive film at it's time.

Plot
Tony Stark is the CEO of the multi-billion dollar company Stark Industries. Stark also fights crime as the superhero, Iron Man, using a super-suit that allows him to fly and shoot blasts of energy. However, his identity is kept a secret from the public. Steve Rogers was a soldier in 1940s fighting in World War II, known internationally as "Captain America". However, in 1944, he was frozen and was kept that way for 62 years, until awakening in 2006, and continued to work under S.H.I.E.L.D., a government organization, for the next three years. Thor is the God of Thunder living in Asgard, one of the Nine Realms on the Yggdrasil, the World Tree. He is the Prince and the son of Odin, the King. His brother, Loki, tried to kill Odin and become King, although Thor stopped him and he was arrested. T'Challa/Black Panther is the King of Wakanda, an African nation, who uses an invulnerable suit to fight the crime in his country. Bruce Banner was an ordinary scientist until an experiment transformed him to where whenever he gets angry or scared he transforms into the Hulk, a monstrous being.

At S.H.I.E.L.D., Director Nick Fury tells his Deputy Maria Hill to activate the four heroes. Tony is called in by Fury. Steve is already there as he is an agent. T'Challa is visited by Fury, while Hill goes to find Bruce. The four heroes are asked to create a team of superheroes that can stop threats. They learn from Fury that a dangerous threat is coming and the world needs a team of heroes to protect it. Steve and Tony agree, though Bruce denies and T'Challa tries to get out of it. Hill reveals that Agent Clint Barton/Hawkeye, an arrogant archer, and Agent Janet van Dyne/Wasp, a hero who can shrink, fly, and shoot plasma blasts, will also be on the team. Suddenly, the clouds open and an entire ship flies down, landing in Times Square, crushing several buildings and hundreds of thousands of people. T'Challa and Bruce realize there is now way getting out of New York and join the team. Tony, Steve, T'Challa, Bruce, Clint, and Janet suit up and leave to investigate the ship.

Meanwhile, the CIA sends Agent Everett K. Ross to team with S.H.I.E.L.D. The heroes find the ship contains an entire race of aliens, called the Chitauri. The Chitauri fight them before Loki appears and leads them away. Thor shortly follows and joins the heroes. They report to Fury what happened and learn that in total 302,967 human people died in the ship crashing. Loki speaks to the civilians and reveals his plan to take over the city and exterminate anyone who he deems to be "useless". He also reveals he has destroyed all the bridges in the city and destroyed all airports, causing all 8 million citizens to be stuck. The heroes find Loki at his throne and try to kill him. Thor and Loki fight each other and Thor is almost killed until Wasp saves him. Loki escapes and begins the mass killing of all useless people, using an automated system. Fury discovers 7 million people will die in Loki's plan. The team splits up, Thor, Wasp, and Iron Man will find Loki and stop him, Black Panther and Hulk will save the citizens, while Captain America and Hawkeye fight the Chitauri.

Team 1 finds Loki and try to stop him again. However, Loki reveals that once he makes New York City his own, he will go to all the major cities, before all of the world. Fury reports this to his supervisors at the United Nations. Loki sends Thor back to Asgard, with no way to escape, strips Wasp of her suit and sends her out of the city, while he seemingly kills Iron Man by flinging him into space. Black Panther and Hulk manage to gain the citizens' trust and they are able to send them through underground tunnels set up by S.H.I.E.L.D. Captain America and Hawkeye discover that the Chitauri are all connected to their mothership, and if the ship is destroyed, then all of them will die. Thor manages to break through his prison and uses Yggdrasil's energy to send him to Earth, though it damages the Nine Realms. Janet finds the other S.H.I.E.L.D. base in Long Island and flies a Quinjet into New York City. Iron Man's suit caused him to be able to live on it's fuel, which is running out. He flies back into the city and finds Loki has built a device that will suck anything into the abyss of space.

The two fight and Tony opens it. Captain America flies the mothership into the wormhole and Tony closes it as the mothership is flying through, destroying it and all of the Chitauri. Hawkeye finds Captain America severely injured, having jumped out at the last second. Loki, his first plan having failed, decides to hook the wormhole up to New York City's underground, which would destroy it all, and then the entire world. The United Nations decide to blow up the city, to kill Loki and his device, that way the rest of the world will be safe. Fury tries to dissuade them, but they send it anyway. The missile almost hits the city but Thor appears and flies it out. However, there is no way to deactivate it and it will go off in a matter of seconds. Thor throws it into the ocean and it explodes, though the blast hits the shore, killing countless lives. Regrouping, the team finds an injured Loki trying to escape. His device is destroyed by Thor and Loki is arrested.

The city congratulates the team, with Wasp naming themselves The Avengers. In total, the team learns 4.5 million people were lost in the fight, with 3.5 million people dying just out of the missile going off, although it killed less than it would of if landing in New York City. The team goes their separate ways for now, though they agree that if the world ever needs them again, they will save the day. Wasp leaves S.H.I.E.L.D. for the time being due to having PTSD, while Bruce decides to return to Betty. In a mid-credits scene, the city is shown, much destroyed. A group of people, called Damage Control, learns they were hired by S.H.I.E.L.D. to clean this up. In a post-credits scene, Queen Veranke of the Skrulls learns of the event.

Cast

 * Bradley Cooper as Tony Stark/Iron Man
 * Chris Evans as Steve Rogers/Captain America
 * Charlie Hunnam as Thor
 * Chiwetel Ejiofor as T'Challa/Black Panther
 * Ryan Reynolds as Bruce Banner/The Hulk
 * Michelle Williams as Janet van Dyne/The Wasp
 * James Marsden as Clint Barton/Hawkeye
 * Charlie Cox as Loki
 * Matt Damon as Everett K. Ross
 * Rosamund Pike as Maria Hill
 * Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury

Production
After the success of the Iron Man, Captain America, and Black Panther films, along with the impending success of The Hulk and Thor, a film based around the comics team, The Avengers, entered development in mid-2007. Cooper, Evans, Hunnam, Ejiofor, and Reynolds had signed on for three Avengers film on their contracts, while Jackson signed on for ten films, including Iron Man and The Hulk, joining the cast of The Avengers in September 2007, a month after the six actors listed above had been cast. Michelle Williams joined the cast as Janet van Dyne in November, alongside Rosamund Pike as Maria Hill. Filming was due to start in June 2008, with an intended release date of May 1, 2008. Matt Damon and Charlie Cox signed on to reprise their roles as Everett K. Ross and Loki from Black Panther, for Damon, and Thor, for Cox, respectively, in December. Joss Whedon was hired to direct in February 2008, directing a script written by Zak Penn, who had previously written The Hulk. The film's release date was pushed forward to April 3, 2008. Filming completed on October 3, after four months of filming. The film was released on it's intended release date.

Box office
The Avengers grossed $301.9 million in the USA and Canada and $632.5 million overseas for a worldwide total of $934.4 million.

Critical reception
On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approval rating of 84% based on 268 reviews, with an average rating of 7.2/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Dark, thrilling, and occasionally quite funny, The Avengers is also visually stunning and emotionally satisfying." On Metacritic, which assigns a normalised rating to reviews, the film has a score of 78 out of 100, based on 36 critics, indicating "generally favourable" reviews. On CinemaScore, audiences gave the film an average grade of "A-" on an A+ to F scale.