Avengers Assemble (for Impact's Review)

Around fifteen years  ago, ironically on the set of a Mutant Enemy production, I was talking to writer/director Tim Minear about the nature of fantasy on the big-screen… noting that the momentum of technology was affecting every aspect. Where once it had been a challenge to get a single superhero on the screen, the wave of new CGI techniques and a new generation of savvy studio executives (raised on the edgier side of the comics world) meant that the day when a multi-hero outing would be wholly viable was speeding towards us like a bullet.

The X-Men and Fantastic Four arrived to varying degree of fanfare, Heroes proved that you could spin a few moderately-powered plates on a single TV canvas, but it is with this month’s Avengers that one can truly say that the ensemble-extraordinaire has definitively come of age. Four existing centre-pieces of their own respective franchises coupled with some new additions and thrust together in one cosmic outing, all tied together by Minear’s oft partner-in-crime Joss Whedon.

The danger with the Avengers (or, Avengers Assemble as the UK has sought to market it) is that there would be just TOO much heroic bandwith.  This isn’t the kind of opportune coupling we’ve seen in meta-movies such as Alien Vs. Predator or Freddy Vs. Jason. Would the intended on-screen friction between iconic characters be reflected in the more pragmatic skirmish for equal screen-time, would Loki be anything but low-key, would it be a case of  – frankly – the egos have landed?

The good news is that Whedon has ultimately created an almost perfect superhero smorgasbord, deftly giving all his main characters – and several supporting players – a decent amount of screen-time. None of them feel like guest-stars in another’s movie and though the tone of each of the previous outings has been slightly different, they co-exist here with no more suspension of disbelief needed than before.  The film certainly takes its tone and some of its outline from Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch’s acclaimed run on the Ultimates comic, but Whedon doesn’t slavishly follow that blueprint and definitely brings his own cadence to proceedings. The action quotient is all there, centre and proud and providing enough derring-do, explosions and conflict to please even the most discerning action fan - and guarantee excellent opening box-office. In only his second big-screen directing gig (the first was, of course, the under-appreciated Serenity) Whedon provides the scale of CGI spectacle that a Michael Bay film regularly provides, but also imbues it with a heart, soul and sense of whimsy that Bay couldn’t match on his best day.  By the time a similar city is trashed in a similar way to last year’s Transformers, the difference is we actually care.

Quite seriously, there are moments when you will catch yourself beaming from ear-to-ear and several scenes you’ll want to break into applause. Some of the ‘moments’ are just THAT good.

Johansson’s Black Widow is sexy from start to finish, Hemsworth’s Thor is earthy and stoic. A slightly under-used Renner makes us want to know more about Hawkeye (though we may have to settle for his Bourne Legacy later in the year) and if Chris Evans’ Captain America seem a bit starched to begin with, then at least we get to see Steve Rogers’ innate leadership qualities rise to the fore before the day is done (and thankfully we lose the silly mask towards the end).

The obligatory pithy one-liners one expects from a Whedon script are there in abundance but they act as genuine punctuation to the mainstream action, replicating the feel of the comics that inspired it. Downey Jnr’s flamboyant Stark zings away, deliberately needling his associates;  Jackson’s Nick Fury and Clark Gregg’s Agent Coulson are dry and sardonic amidst the chaos, but it’s ironically - and genuinely surprisingly – the perfectly rendered Hulk that steals a couple of the best crowd-pleasing moments and Ruffalo brings us the best Banner since Bixby.

The plot itself is decent, centring around the cosmic cube/Tesseract glimpsed at the end of Thor but which is really no more than a maguffin to give our heroes a common threat and get them together. Whedon takes his time in bringing that team into full play as a coherent unit rather than merely mismatched, unpreditctable egos and by the time they actually have something specific and very personal to avenge, we finally see them as a collective united nation rather than a group of rogue states.

The film is being released in 3D, a format that has truly evolved from the unsubtle techniques and red/green paper glasses of the past, but which is sometimes still used as a gimmick and reason to charge more for a cinema seat than being a necessary tool.  Make of this observation what you will, but mere minutes into the movie I’d forgotten it was a 3D outing entirely. If you see the 2D version you’ve probably lost nothing – equally, if you see the 3D outing, you won’t be distracted every few minutes by ‘oooo-look-at-me’ depth-of-field shots.

Any niggles? Perhaps Tom Hiddleston’s Loki disappears for too many segments as his minions do their worst and the heroes battle amongst themselves and his over-all battle plan is a bit vague, but each time he returns he is deliciously evil and puts the arch into arch-villain merely by sneering and delivering malevolent put-downs.  Hiddleston’s quite clearly having the time of his life.

It’s hard to find any major fault with this first Assembling of the Avengers.  There are some genuine surprises and plot-points that haven’t leaked out and action fans and comic fanboys may well make word-of-mouth as potentially  formidable as The Hunger Games. Thanks to decades of comics and a series of quality feature films also acting as prologues, the audience know what to expect… and Whedon and his cast deliver it and more...with aplomb.

A mid-end-credit epilogue gives a hint of where another Avengers outing may go and who the villain could be… but for now, the tapestry of the Marvel Universe is intact, rich and stitched together almost seamlessly. The upcoming Spider-man may be a worthy revamp, The Dark Knight may Rise in our high-brow estimations, but the Avengers is ununapologetic, unprecedented, perfectly-pitched fun.  It’s quite simply a superb summer blockbuster.

'Nuff Said.

9/10