Sunday 6 May 2012

The Avengers Assemble [Review]

Joss Whedon’s super movie finally hit cinema screens this month. Receiving overall positive praise across reviews I was looking forward to see the film that sees Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, The Incredible Hulk, the Black Widow and Hawkeye teaming up under the stewardship of SHIELD’s Nick Fury to do battle with evil God Loki and his army of alien invaders – a sort of cross between the Terminator and Ivan Ooze from Power Rangers – whilst also overcoming their own interpersonal issues.

Having only seen the Hulk and Iron Man films that led into this ensemble piece I was worried that I wouldn’t follow the characters and although the opening is a scattergun of introduction scenes and plot set-up I don’t feel that I missed much in not seeing Captain America and Thor, though there is plenty of hokum, gobbledy-gook and jargon in the first fifteen minutes that could leave you scratching your head. I think I would understand more of the opening with these films under my belt but if you haven’t seen them it’s not a deal breaker.

The premise of the Avengers Assemble (Assemble added so we don’t confuse superheroes in spandex with agents in bowler hats led by Joanna Lumley) is an ambitious one and does require a bit of suspension of belief to get all the characters together. The star of the show is without doubt Robert Downey Jr as Tony Stark / Iron Man who gets lots of the quality one liners and the best of the script, and is to all intents and purposes the main character of this piece. This is really what the lacklustre Iron Man 2 should have been like. Credit also to Mark Ruffalo as Bruce Banner / The Hulk whose acting style is perhaps not as incredible as everyone seems to be saying (he sounds rather bored in the first half), with him being neither better or worse than the recent two portrayals of the character, but the Hulk makes a big impact, pardon the pun, and comes runner up as the character with the best lines and scenes.

The rest of the cast is rounded up with a mish-mash of superheroes from Marvel’s back catalogue but most are pretty redundant in the scheme of things compared to the might of Iron Man and the Hulk and it feels at times that they’re shoe-horned into the plot to make use of their limited powers. Out of them only Thor really seems useful with the others basically fodder for killing off the minions whilst the others battle the big boys.

The first hour of the Avengers Assemble is very hard work and drags as it flips between storylines and set-pieces. The opening with Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury is a kick-starting opening but it’s Scarlet Johansson as the Black Widow who gets the best opening. Captain America’s de-frosting and the origins of the power source that is central to the plot gets a bit of a muddy explanation and, at least in the screening I went to, the muddiness and blurriness of the darker action scenes was disappointing.

However, from the half-way point as the characters work out their personal issues in a superhero-style soap, the film improves and though the big ending battle is a, admittedly excellent, CGI-fest there is still time for some well-scripted moments and key battle scenes.

I really wanted to enjoy the Avengers. There are lots of good lines in it, especially from Tony Stark, and some very good performances from all the actors including Tom Hiddleston as Loki, and the CGI was, in the most very good, aside from some obvious green-screen scenes near the end. Sadly, though, the film is just missing something that I’ve enjoyed in previous superhero pieces. The mix of superheroes, myth and magic and reality doesn’t quite piece together properly and the film tries to do too much during its running time, though granted this was always going to be a challenge. None of the set pieces are particularly thrilling and it’s mostly just fight scenes with little tension, and a lot of the films big pieces like the battle on the flying craft look like someone carrying the script for Transformers collided with someone reading that of Battleship and ending up mixing up the paperwork in the ensuing flurry of paper. Thank God from Clark Gregg as Agent Coulson who brought some life into the film alongside Downey Jr.

I enjoyed The Avengers Assemble as a popcorn film and its witty lines but the opening hour was too lacklustre for my liking and the end battle not exciting enough to redeem the film. If you want a fun popcorn superhero flick then you’ll enjoy it but it’s certainly no Spider-man 2 or The Dark Knight. There’s only so many times I can see Thor bashing someone with a magical hammer, Hawkeye firing an arrow at someone or Captain America, er, protecting himself with a multi-coloured shield in one film before I get bored.

6/10

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