Avengers Assemble

Basically, before the The Avengers / Marvel’s The Avengers / Marvel Avengers Assemble (delete as appropriate) movie could begin to be made, we’ve all had to sit through many films concerning the Marvel characters that make up this ensemble. Good for Marvel as they’ve earnt millions, but perhaps not so good for the discerning cinema goer when it comes to the overwhelming poor quality of those films. For every Iron Man there’s been a Hulk and a Thor. So it’s with some trepidation then that you might approach this shindig, especially as virtually any superhero film of recent years with more than a few main characters has struggled with over exposition. Fear not though as whilst this isn’t a great film (unless you’re 13 years old), it is lots of fun. In part its due to scripter / director Joss Whedon who’s got more than enough experience now to know what makes the audience tick in this genre. The somewhat po-faced seriousness of some of the other films has been dropped and the mood has considerably lightened. There’s also a vast improvement on the acting front with the majority of them all (like I can be bothered to list them here!) getting the right mixture of seriousness and ham. This is best reflected in the performance of Tom Hiddleston’s villain Loki. In Kenneth Branagh’s mediocre Thor he came across as a cry baby seeking attention whereas here he adds a welcome touch of menace to his scenery chewing (and gets the films biggest laugh when he talks down to Mark Ruffalo’s Hulk. Ruffalo himself blowing previous Hulk incarnations Bana and Norton out of the water with his great performance). Too much to go into story line wise here, but the gist is that Nick Fury calls upon the members of SHIELD to form up in order to fight Loki and stop, yes you’ve guessed it, a dastardly scheme. What follows are some sharp gags and plenty of set pieces for the audience to enjoy, including a great three way dust up in a forest between Thor, Iron Man and Captain America. It’s just a shame that the ending lets it all down as it becomes the standard effects heavy destruction of a major city we’ve seen plenty of in recent times and it bares a more than unfortunate resemblance to the finale of the last abysmal outing of Michael Bay’s robots. There’s also perhaps one too many cameos thrown in which proves a bit too distracting at times (and I’ll eat my hat if the average Marvel comic reader knows who Jerzy Skolimowski is). Having said that there’s enough trivia and facts here, both on screen and off, to have fanboys in raptures (or up in arms). Like I said it’s great fun, but at the end of the day it doesn’t really have much new to say. Whedon himself has even mentioned this with what is my favourite director’s quote of the year thus far when he uttered “The whole movie is about finding yourself from your community. Obviously this will be expressed through punching…”. This also loses a mark for yet more completely pointless end credit sequences (What? They join all the films together you say? Get out) and waste of time 3D. Overall though the positives out weight the negatives and this will be a tough act to follow in the Marvel world.

The OC Film Sting Final Verdict
Enjoyable stuff. Just a shame we had to sit through such a load of dross to get here. Rating: 7/10.