Trailer Review: The Avengers Teaser

Posted by: Andrew Burns  •  July 27, 2011 @ 12:12am

Filed under: Reviews

The trailer may of only lasted just over a minute but those short 66 seconds that was enough to satisfy (and tease) decades worth of Marvel fans. Well, at least this Marvel fan anyway. Next summer, for the first time ever, 'Earth's Mightiest Heroes' are assembling on the big screen to form the massively anticipated The Avengers movie.

Now, this not your typical movie trailer, nor should it be. Dude it's the freaken Avengers we are talking about. You won't be able to watch it online (officially that is) and you defiantly won't be able to see it before any feature presentation on your next trip to the theaters. If you are geeking out about seeing this trailer and you can't find a leaked version online that hasn't already been taken down there is one place, and one place only, to get your sneak peek to Marvel's greatest team of superheroes. That place is in the theater after enjoying 124 minutes of Captain America: The First Avenger and the final credit roles. Then, walla! there it is. Yes, it might be a bit of a pain in the ass to sit through five plus minutes of credits while filmmakers get their textual recognition, but if you are fan of Captain America in the first place an extra couple minutes of your time will be well worth the wait.

So what's actually in this Avengers teaser I keep going on about? Amount wise not a whole lot. Yet just enough at the same time. Come on they don't call them teasers for nothing. After fading out from the credits we see Chris Evans as Steve Rogers, just as he was when the film had ended, in a gym destroying the crap out of a punching bag. An eye patched Samuel L. Jackson as S.H.I.E.L.D. director Nick Fury walks out of the shadows and asks Rogers to help him save the world. From then on out the teaser is just a series of super quick shots of each of the different superhero characters; cut just slow enough to catch a short snapshot of them in action. Then for a little comic book humour they decided to come up with and mix in a hilarious tag line for the film as some text says: "Some Assembly Required", referencing the classic Avengers comic book catchphrase.

Everyone is seen from Jeremy Renner suited up with his Hawkeye bow & arrow, to Scarlett Johansson in Black Widow leather, to Mark Ruffalo joining the Marvel universe for the first time as Bruce Banner. Evans gets Cap's more modern looking suit, Downey Jr.'s Tony Stark is still rocking his Mark 6 suit with the triangular chest RT, and Chris Hemsworth is somehow looking more mammoth than before as the God of Thunder; Thor. Other than a couple of glimpses of some 'hero in action' shots most of the images are of the team in costume at some kind of S.H.I.E.L.D. facility. I'm thinking inside a helicarrier. And if you don't know what that is you need to brush up on your geek before next summer.

Of course there are a few things you won't get to see in this teaser trailer that will be in the film. Even though you get to see Ruffalo as the third on screen version of Bruce Banner in nine years you won't his hulking green alter-ego. There is also a small moment where you can see Tom Hiddleston back as Loki (probably the film's main villain) but no sign of the cosmic cube that has been seen in the last two Marvel films. Both the Hulk and Marvel's powerful glowing Rubik's cube will no doubtingly be in The Avengers, so my guess is they are either still filming those parts or showing them would give too much of the story away. Or both.

Hanging on to the film rights for Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, and the rest of the Avengers group (that includes reacquiring the Hulk after Ang Lee's 2003 flop) was one of the best moves Marvel ever did. They took their time, assembled the right cast, and gave each movie the same story treatment they would as if they were writing for their comics. These new Marvel Studios films track records can only suggest next summer's Avengers film is going to be nothing short of awesome.

Tags: The Avengers, Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, Samuel L. Jackson, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner, Mark Ruffalo, Tom Hiddleston, Marvel Comics

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Andrew Burns loves film and comics, and can be found writing about when those worlds converge. You can follow him on Twitter at @myAndrewBurns.