Sunday, April 15, 2012

Review of Avengers Assemble - Spoiler Free


I had the wonderful privilege of getting to see an fan exclusive screening of Marvel's Avengers Assemble last night, and it was absolutely brilliant.  It far exceeded all my expectations and was a perfect example of what a superhero blockbuster should be.



The plot is simple enough: Loki, vanished into a wormhole at the end of Thor, makes his way to Earth to steal the Tesseract (the magical cube from Captain America: The First Avenger) for an alien race.  In exchange they will provide him with an army so he can take over and subjugate the human race.  Nick Fury is forced to put together a supergroup consisting of Tony Stark, Bruce Banner, Captain America and Thor in an attempt to stop him.

It's a simple plot but it's no simple task to juggle so many characters in a two hour film, but it's a task that Joss Whedon performs remarkably well.  He has four main heroes, two assassins (Black Widow and Haweye), Nick Fury, Agent Coulson, Loki, and the alien threat to balance and give time to, and he's managed it perfectly.  You can really see everyone's motivations and everyone is given a character arc.

The whole film is cast and acted perfectly.  Loki is a compelling and menacing villain; Mark Ruffalo really makes the part of Bruce Banner/The Hulk is own; Tony Stark is as usual cocky, witty and terrifyingly intelligent; Captain America is still trying to adapt to the modern world; Thor is conflicted between doing the right thing and having to fight his little brother.

I've never seen anything by Joss Whedon before but this film has convinced me to go off and find more: the script is flawless, the action sequences superb and the story is just handled with so much skill and attention to detail that it took my breath away.

All in all, I just couldn't find anything wrong with this film.  It's intelligent, funny, scary, sad, action-packed and just plain entertainment.  The team behind The Dark Knight Rises should be very, very scared.

4 comments:

  1. Nice embargo respect there...

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    1. Actually, there was no embargo on the fan screenings :)

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  2. "The team behind The Dark Knight Rises should be very, very scared."

    No. Just no.

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    1. I do mean with regards to box office takings rather than content :) Though I enjoyed it so much that it may have slid straight to the top of my superhero films list. I'll need a repeat viewing. And I'll also need to see The Dark Knight Rises, obviously!

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