The Avengers in Theaters Now

Wow. Go see The Avengers in the theater now! Friday was its first day out. If you liked Iron Man, Thor, and Captain America, you will love this one even more. If you haven't seen those movies, watch them before you see this to give yourself a little more context on the characters.

This movie, while having some great conflict and action, is also laugh-out-loud funny. And with a cast of seven main actors, it's amazing how well the movie holds together and how fully each character is portrayed. Balancing such a cast can't be easy, but every character is well-represented and matters. It would have been easy to have Black Widow and Hawkeye be only supporting characters, but no, this movie makes them stand out as much as the others we are more familiar with (speaking as someone who knows these characters from movies alone and not from comic books). Even The Hulk is fabulous. Now, I know nothing about The Hulk, but he seems like a pretty boring brute of a superhero. I realize now that what is intriguing about him is his shy Dr. Banner personality, but this movie makes both sides cool.

The basic premise of the movie is this: Thor's adopted brother Loki has come to Earth to use the power of the Tesseract (the blue energy cube last seen in Captain America) to rule humanity. Nick Fury calls in six superheroes to form a team called The Avengers to save the world. As one superhero puts it, where you fail to protect, you avenge. The problem is these guys aren't team players. Each is used to being the top dog in the situations they've faced, so before they get to the big battle, they duke it out like animals vying for supremacy. It's pretty interesting to see who does or doesn't come out on top.

In case you've been living on the moon (or comic books and superheroes just aren't your thing), this is the cast: Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man, Chris Evans as Captain America, Chris Hemsworth as Thor, Mark Ruffalo as The Hulk, Jeremy Renner as Hawkeye, Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow, and Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury. Joss Whedon directs. Some of the secondary characters from previous movies reprise their roles.

The Avengers is wholesome family fun, providing your kids are old enough to watch sci-fi battle action. It's PG-13 and clean.

I can't really say anything more without spoiling. You just need to see this one yourself, and if you can, see it while it's still in the theater, just because...why not? It's worth it. And stay past the initial credits (before the black screen credits) to see footage of a new baddie for a future movie. By the way, if you see The Avengers in Kendallville (maybe other places, too), you get the added bonus of watching the latest trailers for The Dark Knight Rises and Brave.