Review: Avengers Assemble

It's been billed as the biggest superhero movie of all time and four years after audience lost their minds with an Iron Man post-credits scene, the Avengers have finally arrived. Was it worth the wait?

As we learnt a decade ago from a fellow Marvel superhero film, “with great power comes great responsibility” and in the case of director Joss Whedon (Serenity, Buffy the Vampire Slayer), it’s difficult to overstate the level of responsibility he was granted.

Whedon was essentially given the incredible, yet largely thankless task of bringing together five over-arching Marvel Studios films from the past five years and to meld them into one super-budget, somehow seamless transition. The result is Avengers Assemble and if you’re a Marvel or Whedon nut, feel free to add an extra star to our above verdict.

Beginning with a breathtaking action sequence within that is surprisingly light on superheroes (no offence, Hawkeye), we’re re-introduced to Thor antagonist Loki (Tom Hiddleston), who is seeking the power of a conveniently powerful plot device known as the Tesseract, a cosmic cube with which he seeks to open a portal for an alien army to help him conquer the planet.

Yes it’s fairly lightweight concept, but it’s ably supported by a truly heavyweight team of heroes, all of whom have fantastically well-scripted interactions, not to mention physical confrontations, prior to eventually teaming to protect the planet and ‘avenge’ a surprising second act plot development.

With the pen of Whedon, the verbal banter between WW2 super-soldier Captain America (Chris Evans), triumphant Norse god Thor (Chris Hemsworth), the surpressed rage of Bruce Banner, aka the Incredible Hulk (Mark Ruffalo, not the most recent film’s Ed Norton) and smart-arse billionaire Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr) is not just sparkling and extremely witty, it always rings true.

Though fans will rush to cinemas to find out who would win a tussle between Thor or Hulk, or Iron Man and Thor, the real interest I found was in how each interacted with one another, as it seemed extremely well considered. For example, of course a selfless soldier like Captain America would be at odds with the percentage-based battle tactics of Iron Man, while the genius inside the suit, Tony Stark, forms an easy chemistry with the scientist Bruce Banner.

Every hero is also given plenty of screen time to establish their presence (Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow is a real stand-out) and almost everyone gets their own rousing, heroic moment at one point or another, especially during a jaw-dropping final battle in a ruined Manhattan. Hell, even Marvel Studios stalwart Agent Coulson gets his own action hero quip in the film at one point.

However, it should be noted that I had a particular problem with one fundamental flaw in the concept and execution of film such as Avengers Assemble, which stretches back to last summer’s Thor. That was a superhero epic that had hugely fantastical elements lightened for fear of scaring off casual audiences with the use of extremely broad comedy.

With Avengers Assemble, the fantastical elements of Thor are absolutely ran with (clearly, you need an intergalactic threat to seem credible against this lot) but it comes at a cost when considering the previous reality that had been established in the fellow Avengers’ separate movies. For example, four years after Tony Stark took on Middle Eastern terrorists having been held captive by them, it’s now a little jarring to see him flying away from a giant floating alien serpent.

Super or superfluous action?

This gripe - suspension of disbelief – renders incredible action sequences a little flat, as you realise that what you're watching has no real bearing. For example, I quickly grew bored during the first Wolverine/Sabretooth fight in the risible Wolverine: X-Men Origins because watching two people with superpowers isn't that fun.

There's nothing at stake and this is a real problem with Avengers Assemble - Iron Man and Thor aren't actually going to really hurt one another, fans just want to see them fight and that's what you get. You’re essentially watching at $250 million, the most expensive fan fiction ever created, albeit fiction from someone who really knows what they’re doing.

Later, these relatively superfluous action scenes are compounded by the third act arrival of Loki's army, who after being well established with a sense of foreboding, result in scenes that are the equivalent of watching the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles indiscriminately beating on the random “Foot Soldiers” from the cartoon series.

They're absolutely hopeless against the Avengers and thus there’s no feeling of peril, unlike in the X-Men movies, nobody on this team is disposable whatsoever so while the fight scenes are dazzling and extremely well coordinated, they do lack an emotional punch.

Having said that, Avengers Assemble remains a fantastic superhero film and a truly staggering achievement in both filmmaking and screenwriting. While some will argue whether Avengers Assemble will belong at the very top tier of superhero movies, it is what promises and more - the first ever truly "all-star" superhero movie.

That kind of potential brings its own unique, crowd pleasing, fan-fulfillment joys and as I've mentioned, a few unique flaws along the way, but if you’ve come this far with Marvel Studios’ exceptional take on superhero films since 2008, you should treat yourself this weekend.