Marvel: Avengers Assemble (2012)

This. Film. Is. AWESOME! Go see it! No, seriously, stop reading this review and go see this film. Why are you still reading this? Go! Now! Fine! I’ll actually talk about the film and explain why it’s awesome. I will try my best to avoid spoilers for those who haven’t yet seen it, but there are certain lines of dialogue I want to go over.

First of all I’ll talk about the name change. While, as far as I’m aware, every single other country in the world calls this film ‘The Avengers’, the UK decided to rename it ‘Avengers Assemble’. Or rather ‘Marvel: Avengers Assemble’, just in case you don’t know this is a Marvel product. You see, here in the UK there was an old spy television series called ‘The Avengers’, and the subsequent 1998 film based very poorly on the television series. The name change was so people don’t confuse the two. The problem was they did the name change after several months of advertising it under the original title. I can understand why they did it, but after so long there really was no point. And as one of my friends on Twitter said, “If you get the modern day Avengers film mixed up, you don’t deserve to go see it”.

Firstly, there may be some people who complain about a lack of an introduction to the film. How we don’t get any information about the characters, the glowing cube, or who the guy with the staff (Loki, played by Tom Hiddleston) is. Of course, if you want an introduction to all these characters and plot devices, go watch ‘Iron Man’, ‘Iron Man 2’, ‘The Incredible Hulk’ with Edward Norton, ‘Thor’, and ‘Captain America: The First Avenger’. Got it? Good, let’s roll.

The plot follows Loki stealing the Tesseract, the glowing cube which has unlimited powers, in order to summon an army which will let him take control of Earth. To stop him, Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), Black Widow (Scarlet Johansson) and Agent Coulson (Clark Clegg) enlist Tony Stark/Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), Steve Rogers/Captain America (Chris Evans), Thor (Chris Hemsworth) and Dr. Bruce Banner/The Hulk (Mark Ruffalo).

The story is just awesome, it mixes action, humour and sorrow extremely well, and it pulls off the characters brilliantly. It mixes the characters and their traits perfectly; Stark’s brash and cockiness, Rogers’ strict and professional manner, Banner’s slight paranoia and emotional responses to name a few. Thor is a bit more difficult, he’s a noble man who is proud to know the people of Earth, but he is astounded and mocks the humans for some of their mishaps and squabbles. Banner and Stark get on well due to their intelligence, but they clash with Fury’s secrecy and Rogers’ stern stance.

The effects are truly spectacular, they’re truly brilliant. And if you’ve read my previous posts, you know what my stance on CGI is; if I say that the effects are brilliant in this film, then they are more than perfect. The aliens, the Chitauri, actually look realistic, the alien machines look like they're actual metal, their weaponry is awe inspiring, the large scale battles and fights, such as the one between Iron Man and Thor, are brilliant.

Oh God yes! Iron Man fights Thor. That alone should make you want to go see this film. I’m not spoiling anything, it’s in the trailer. It is really interesting to see how the characters attempt to outmaneuver each other and get the upper hand.

The acting is superb, everyone is perfect in their roles. Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth and Tom Hiddelston all appear to have been born for the roles. Scarlet Johansson pulls off the Black Widow character superbly, pulling off the seriousness, caring and the manipulative characteristics. Mark Ruffalo was simply brilliant, I admit I can’t see Edward Norton in the film now. There was one scene where Ruffalo says “I’m always angry”, and it’s that line which proves that Ruffalo was the perfect choice for Banner.

Samuel L. Jackson of course brings his A game, and Jeremy Renner shows why he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor (for his work on ‘The Hurt Locker’). It is always great as well to see Lou Ferrigno and Paul Bettany return to do voice work for the scene-stealing Hulk and Jarvis respectively as well.

Okay, this film is not going to win any best film nominations at the Oscars or the Baftas, unfortunately, but this is a brilliant piece of film making. Joss Whedon shows why he is one of the best directors around today and, even if it is now May, I think this film will be the best of the year. I mean, what else is there to look forward to? Apart from ‘The Amazing Spider-Man’, ‘The Dark Knight Rises’, ‘Star Trek 2’, ‘Prometheus’ and ‘The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey’. Okay it has a lot of competition, but this film is perfection. There, you happy now? Good, now go see this film!