Director: Joss Whedon
Starring: Chris Evans, Robert Downey
Jr, Samuel L. Jackson, Scarlet Johanson, Mark Ruffalo and and Chris
Hemsworth
Review by Stewart Loud
Review by Stewart Loud
Did you ever have that conversation
with your mates when you were a kid at school, about how great it
would be if they made one massive comic book movie that had loads of
characters in it like some sort of special event cross over? I did.
We'd talk about who'd be in it, what stories they could use, possible
set pieces and ideas for the action scenes. Even play with the idea
of writing to film companies with our ideas. but deep down we were
always sure it would never actually happen and even if it did it'd
likely just turn out to be a load of shit that bore little
resemblance to the comics it was based on. Comic book movies when I
was a nipper were few and far between and what was around very rarely
came close to doing the source material justice.
Things have definitely changed a lot
since then because the Avengers movie has finally become a reality
and it is without doubt the best comic book movie I've ever seen.
Not only is it quite literally a dream come true for millions of
comic book fans the world over but I'd say it's the reason eyes and
ears were invented. A masterpiece of entertainment. Joss Whedon, I
salute you!
THE PLOT: (I promised not to put any
spoilers in here so this is a loose plot outline only) Asguardian
mincer Loki has forged an alliance with a group of aliens called the
Chitauri. I'm told that these guys are the Ultimate comics version
of the Skrull. Together their plan is to steal the mysterious blue
Tesseract cube Red Skull was using to power his weapons in Captain
America, then take over planet Earth and enslave the human race.
Their main motivation for doing this does seem to be that they just
don't have anything better to do that weekend but who cares? They're
the bad guys and that's what bad guys do!
Obviously Nick Fury is seriously
nonplussed by both this and how crap the conventional US military has
been turning out to be recently (in Hulk for instance) so he's set
about putting together a team of extraordinary and powerful
individuals, super heroes if you like, to kick all the asses too big
for any normal man's boot to kick.
This whole film is freaking brilliant!
It feels like a world breaking Marvel event from start to finish. And
I'm not talking about a crap event like Shadowland or one that falls
apart a bit, half way through like Secret Invasion or one that's just
full of holes like Fear Itself. No this is a World War Hulk/Siege
style event. Not as clever or ground breaking as House Of M or Civil
War but you could read it over and over again and still never get
bored because -damn!- it's just so much fun.
There's the obligatory bit of
disagreements and infighting between the heroes that you get at the
start of most quality team-ups but they quickly get down to kicking
ass as a team, and my God, do they ever! Every single one of the
Avengers who features in this film gets to kick a ridiculous amount
of ass. Far more ass than they ever kicked even in their own movies
where they were the stars.
The main thing that makes this possible
is the fact that they've all had their origins and back stories
explained in previous films. The build up for the plot of this film
has already happened in the sneaky little clips after the credits of
almost every Marvel movie released over the past 4 or 5 years. No
prologue. No 10 minute re-cap of what's gone before. Joss Whedon
doesn't molly coddle anyone who might not have seen all the other
films (and I respect him even more for that) No, the film hits the
ground running flat out and doesn't stop until the credits role
up.....and then starts running again briefly, after the credits with
another little taster clip of what's to come. So don't get up and
leave the cinema like half the jack asses when I went to see it.
“Where are you all going? There's
more!” I shouted. The cinema goons even turned he lights up as soon
as the credits started so you couldn't bastard see it properly! I
still saw enough to know what's what though. Him? Really? No way!
This is undoubtedly the film the fans
want and deserve. I'm a big fan of Buffy and the ill fated Firefly
series so I was always confident that Joss would deliver but I'd say
this surpasses even the brilliant Serenity as his greatest work yet.
Fans of his unique humour won't be disappointed either. Avengers
Assemble is as funny as it is action packed. All the main cast give
great performances and they all look very at home in their roles with
the exception of Black Widow who I thought they maybe should've
chosen someone a bit older to play the part but hell, she looks
cracking in the costume while she's somersaulting around kicking
people in the face.
The film's budget must have been enough
to cancel out 3rd world debt too because it makes
Transformers 3 look cheap in comparison. I have never seen New York
city get fucked up so spectacularly. The special effects, sets and
destruction really are second to none.
I'm well aware of how heavily
anticipated this film has been and I'm sure none of you need my
drunken ramblings to convince you that you should get out and see
this film as soon as you can if you haven't already but I enjoyed
Avengers Assemble so much, I just had to write about it. I seriously
can't remember the last time I enjoyed a film as much as this.
Essential viewing.
SCORE
5/5
SPOILER ALERT!!! SPOILER ALERT!!!
Here are just two things that niggled
me slightly about the film though. Reading this bit won't ruin the
film for you and they're only very minor points but it will give away
a couple of small details about what happens in it so stop reading if
you ain't seen it yet and you don't wanna know NOTHING ABOOT IT
before you watch it.
1:
Hulk goes from being a totally out of control monstrous liability
who's just as much of a threat to his friends and allies as he is to
the bad guys, to being in almost complete control of his actions with
no problem following rudimentary orders and instructions in the space
of 2 transformations without any explanation of how or why.
Seriously. One time he transforms and slaps Black Widow around (That
bit was a bit silly too. She'd have been a bag of broken bones after
that), attacks Thor, the helli carrier and anyone else he spots
before he falls off the carrier and through a warehouse roof.
Then the next time he transforms (which
it suddenly turns out he can do whenever he chooses) He does exactly
what Cap tells him, only attacks the bad guys....well, mostly
anyway..... and even rescues one or two people. Fabulous to watch but
still a little confusing.
2:
The human armed response to the extra-terrestrial
invasion of New York is shockingly poor. It's a bloody good job the
Avengers were there because it's almost like the US government
couldn't be bothered to mount a serious defence effort. Apart from a
few cops with hand guns and a handful of hum vees with mounted
machine guns, there's almost no conventional resistance at all. No
SWAT, tanks, helicopter gun ships, jet strikes, tomahawk cruise
missiles. Nothing.
Then
when things look like they're not going too well after the first 10
minutes or so of the alien horde fighting pretty much nothing except
6 people, the shadowy council who Nick Fury answers to decide to just
cut their losses and Nuke the entire city. We even see the jet
fighter carrying the payload take off from the helicarrier so if they
were in range to deploy air craft, why didn't they launch everything
they had to defend Manhattan Island as soon as it kicked off?
Then
when the nuke arrives, Iron Man just guides it through the open
portal and uses it to obliterate the Alien staging area. Why wasn't
this the target in the first place?
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GHOST RIDER 2
TROLL HUNTER
TRANSFORMERS 3
BATMAN: UNDER THE RED HOOD
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