[johnny_ultimate]

So here it is. After several establishing films and hundreds of millions of dollars (both budget and box-office) The Avengers arrive (or Assemble, if we're to reflect that peculiar marketing subtitle) on screen, together for the first time. While not all of them enjoyed the luxury of individual feature-length introductions, anyone whose followed the recent torrent of Marvel films will recognise all these faces and characters. For the first time in big-budget cinema, we have a collective of comic books' most famous heroes - Iron Man, Hulk, Thor, Captain America, Black Widow, Hawkeye and various other cameos and bit-players - fighting evil together. But why, for a film with no shortage of personalities, does it feel so characterless?

(The rest of this review contains light to moderate spoilers, although I have mostly avoided specifics: if you're sensitive to that sort of thing, don't say I didn't warn you!)

Anyone who has seen the preceding films will know the basic gist of this. **** hits the fan for Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) and S.H.I.E.L.D. when Thor's mischievous and arrogant brother Loki (Tom Hiddleston) makes off with the magic glowing blue cube thing that opens the gate to another galaxy or something. Fury is forced to assemble a crack team to deal with the potentially apocalyptic threat. Some are reluctant (Mark Ruffalo replacing Ed Norton as The Hulk / Dr. Bruce Banner) while others like Captain America (Chris Evans) are eager for the distraction. This unlikely force finally brought together, they are tasked with defeating Loki and preventing an even greater evil. But can this band of misfits even stop arguing for long enough to achieve that?

For a film that basically has had five or six feature-length prequels and scene-setting, The Avengers sure takes an awful long time to get going. We're asked to endure the guts of an hour of sluggishly paced setup before things inevitably kick off. Getting everyone in the same place proves a particularly troublesome task for the writing team: Thor's (Chris Hemsford) belated arrival is notably underwhelming, and illustrates a strange disregard of the character's cliffhanger at the end of his dedicated film. The dodgy pacing - at over two and a half hours, the film consistently struggles to hold our attention - is the film's biggest flaw, and simply doesn't have enough narrative surprises to justify what is in essence quite a simplistic and predictable plot.

Things improve significantly as the film enters its second act. Director Joss Whedon is allowed to play to his strengths - the characters are forced into a relatively confined space, and their dynamics and interactions become the film's saving grace. The dialogue is sharp and witty, and the talented cast play off each other in fun ways. While Robert Downey Jr's Tony Stark remains the most compelling of the bunch, most of the extended cast are given a chance to shine: a sharply written and directed scene where Scarlett Johannson's Black Widow confronts Loki stands out on both a directorial and performance level. We get a glimpse of that clever and brilliant Joss Whedon: the same guy who made us truly care for the crew of The Serenity, and pretty much dismantled the horror genre from the inside-out with Cabin in the Woods a few weeks ago.

However, ultimately the heroes emerge as one-dimensional beings: at worst, differentiated only by their costumes and superpowers. The curious, potentially fruitful character motivations established in Thor, Captain America and others are all effectively abandoned, making this feel like somewhat of a stop-over between the inevitable dedicated sequels. There's a brief moment when you're lead to think Spoiler: Natalie Portman might show up to make things interesting, but alas it's not to be. Instead, it's only the MacGuffins and a handful of characters that reappear (including Stellan Skarsgaard, and series regular Clark Gregg as Agent Coulson). After almost five years of teasing The Avengers, it's a little tragic that The Avengers itself just seems to tease another five years of sequels. Visually, the film is consistently clean and cartoonish. It's a little characterless, but suits the light-hearted tone. An Spoiler: unexpected fatality is a rare dark moment in a film distinctly lacking the element of surprise.

The film's final act unfortunately features the same weaknesses of the first while retaining some of the charm of the second. It's basically an extended action scene. Unfortunately, the film's main threat is a metallic extra-terrestrial army that recalls several other recent blockbusters, and not blockbusters where comparisons are necessarily a favourable thing. Such an uninteresting and generic enemy is at odds with the colourful heroes, who at least get a chance to flex their super muscles in entertaining ways. There's fun to be had watching six different heroes at work, and there's the odd thrilling moment where they actively join forces to great effect. The Hulk gets all the best gags, though: in this case literal punchlines.

What ultimately disappoints about this crossover is its lack of personality, which is unusual for a film so full of distinct personalities (both in-front of and behind the camera). There's little to differentiate it - apart from scale and sheer bulk of protagonists - to any of the films that preceeded it. On a purely entertainment level, The Avengers delivers some light thrills and the odd good-natured chuckle (there's a great gag directed at retro gaming enthusiasts). Yet Whedon and the characters struggle to separate themselves from the crowd, and in the end it all just kind of blurs into your typical popcorn nonsense. It's shallow, silly and loud. If you approach it on those terms, then The Avengers will offer you a mostly harmless night's entertainment, no doubt about it. But there's the distinct feeling that there's a much better film threatening to emerge here. It never does.

[kronsington]

I have let this movie stew in my mind over the weekend and the time has come to post some thoughts. I find sometimes with these huge movies, that is almost strange to actually sit down and watch them once they are out. The build up, hype, rumours and discussion are so much that's just a relief to watch the movie.

Straight off the bat, I liked it a lot, and I'll discuss that. Looking back, my expectations were perhaps too high going into the movie and ultimately they didn't quite reach those levels. But I think Whedon did a fantastic job with what he could and judging by the 97% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, huge box office numbers and very positive buzz, that appears to be the general opinion. I think the movie started quite slowly and didn't really get going until Hulk emerged and trashed the Helicarrier. Loki's arrival on Earth seemed very rushed and contrived and I didn't like the early sequences where he brainwashes the SHIELD guys etc. For the most part, the action was great, it was very funny in parts and the dynamic between the characters was handled very well. I had hoped for more secret villains i.e Red Skull or someone else, in the end all we got was a post credit tease of Thanos. While the final action sequence was truly spectacular, it kind of felt like a video game at times and there was never even the slightest threat the Avengers were not going to succeed. Some reviews say the film felt "characterless" and to a small extent I can see that. The bickering and banter at times was fun, but the characters felt different to what we have seen before.




Stark/Cap: Clearly, the two main men on display. There was a nice back and forth between the two, I had hoped for a scene where they talked of Stark's father, who appears in CATFA (i believe this will be on the dvd). Unsurprisingly they got the lions share of screen time and IM gets the ultimate money shot hero moment towards the end. There were nice touches of Cap's man out of his time arc, i.e talking about the Heli-carrier running on "some kind of electricity" and being chuffed when he got a pop culture reference. I don't see why they felt the need to include Potts/Stark romance, I would have kept this for IM3. It was pretty much what I expected from these two.


Hulk/Thor: Like most people are saying, I think Hulk was the best thing about the movie. He looked great, got all the best comedy moments- "Puny God" and Ruffalo was an excellent addition to the cast. He has a bemused, resigned acceptance of his condition talkinf about how he tried to kill himself but "The other guy" swallowed the bullet. Hulk works brilliantly in this kind of movie, as a supporting role basically, we know his two earlier movies were hit and miss when he was front and centre. I like the character of Thor but thought his arrival was very underwhelming and he was given very little to do which was disappointing.


Hawkeye/Widow/Loki: I reallt think they could have ditched HE and BW. Hawkeye did nothing and had zero charisma. BW had so much screen time and while i know they need a token bird in the movie, her character isnt interesting and could have been ditched. The 4 main guys above could easily carry the movie. Hiddleston was great as Loki and had some excellent interactions with all characters.


Others: Was Coulson's death a turning point for the Avengers? His geekiness towards CAp was a nice touch. I found a lot of the SHIELD stuff quite boring at times. No real interest in Fury or the chick from How i met your mother.


Overall, hats off to Marvel. They have delivered an excellent blockbuster and probably the best of all their movies. Huge undertaken for Whedon but they pulled it off. I went in with too high expectations but need to keep these in check for future flicks. After all the specualtion of who Loki's army were, in the end it didn't really matter at all. I didn't really get what was happening off earth- who was the creepy alien guy etc.

I could discuss more but that's it for now

7.5/ 10