From the moment Captain America was released last year [and an Avengers preview ran after the closing credits] , we knew it was time: the grandiose stage was finally set for the Avengers to make their spandex slash metal-clad appearance.
There was no way that Avengers Assemble was ever going to escape being released without the accompanying lorry-load of hype and the fact that the legendary Joss Whedon was at the helm only, understandably, heightened anticipation.
The story goes that the energy cube thingy that Red Skull (Hugo Weaving) was gonna use to blow up the world in Captain America is stolen by Thor’s bruv, Loki (Tom Hiddleston), to open up a porthole into earth for an army of otherworldly types to come in and enslave humankind. Consequently Nick Fury (Samuel L.Jackson as opposed to David Hasselhoff) and his S.H.I.E.L.D. pals assemble the Avengers to deal with Loki’s passive-aggressive, middle-child issues, cue: Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), Captain America (Chris Evans) and The Hulk (Mark Ruffalo). Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) is also around for a bit of the time.
Scepticism is the default perspective towards a film of this magnitude containing comic book characters. The Hulk, probably the second biggest reason to come and see this film, was also an area of great trepidation: would this Hulk, in a perp line-up of Hulks, be the right one? I can tell you that Mark Ruffalo was the man for the job and, in a nice touch, the Hulk is voiced by Lou Ferrigno. The script was genuinely funny and fast flowing and there were some moving moments of brotherly/sisterly bonding between the super-ones in amongst the special effects and big-ass battles. It does indeed bear the hallmark wit and intuition of director and co-writer Joss Whedon.
It would be quite hard to pick out the star amongst all the starry hubbub; Robert Downey Jr is his usual awesomely arrogant Iron Man, Chris Hemsworth gets a lot of best-line action as Thor and Mark Ruffalo is quietly authoritative as Dr Banner, the brilliant scientist with the anger-management issues. Even Scarlett Johansson was entertaining. The weak spot (and there weren’t many noticeable ones on first watch) has to be Loki. Yeah, he’s grandiose and malicious but as one dastardly mastermind would say: he’s the diet coke of evil. Not quite evil enough.
It may not be the most insightful film ever made but Avengers Assemble was an incredibly fun film to watch and compares favourably with most superhero films released within the last ten years. Exhilarating and exciting.
Maryann has awarded Avengers Assemble four torches of truth
