Film Review: Avengers Assemble

Director: Joss Whedon

The sixth instalment in the franchise sees all of the super heroes come together to save the world. The idea for the film actually started in 2005 after Marvel studios received a grant from Merrill Lynch to develop the film but stalled and was revisited in 2008 after the success of the first Iron Man film. The budget for the film was $220 million following lengthy production and isn't scheduled to be released in the US until Friday 4th May 2012.

An exiled Norse god called Loki (Tom Hiddleston), who is Thor's brother, comes to Earth through a portal created by the Tesseract which is an energy source with unknown potential. He quickly steals the Tesseract from S.H.I.E.L.D. which he intends to use to take over the world so that he will be in charge and have people bow down to him. In response, Nick Fury (Samuel L.Jackson) reactivates the Avengers Initiative in the hope of getting the Tesseract back so he sends various agents out to locate Iron Man, Captain America and The Hulk whilst Thor also appears back on Earth to try and reason with his brother Loki but to no avail. It is left to the Avengers to protect the world from Loki and his army whilst getting the Tesseract back.



Movie Poster

The first thing that strikes you about the film is that the action sequences are very well done, as you would expect. There are some superb special effects on display and my only criticism is that having watched it in 3D I thought they could have developed this aspect even more. The second thing is there are a lot of funny moments in the film and I found myself laughing a lot more than I expected with the Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) providing some of the more hilarious moments.

The mix of different characters and super heroes coming together to fight as one is an intriguing one, most are used to fighting alone and without instruction. It creates some great scenes where Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) can provide his cutting quips whilst everyone tries not to anger Bruce Banner at the same time. It keeps what is otherwise a quite formulaic and familiar plot interesting for what is actually quite a long film. The excellent script writing is the reason Avengers Assemble rises above so many similar films.

3.5/4 hugely entertaining and funny, blockbuster already