The Avengers

Title: The Avengers
Rating: 4/5
Genre: Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi
Starring: Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Hemsworth, Jeremy Renner, Tom Hiddleston
Director: Joss Whedon

It would seem the build up to this has been monolithic, above and beyond anything else in recent memory and rivalled perhaps only by “The Dark Knight” and the ensuing circle jerking that surrounded that. It comes at perhaps a perfect time as well, after being saturated with little hints at the end of films and after two Iron Man films, two Hulk films (because they didn't like the first one), Thor, Captain America, and numerous others 'outside the Avengers mythology,' if they'd waited much longer the anticipation would have fizzled out and people would have stopped caring. I stopped caring in fact, skipping the last couple of hero origin stories and only returning because of my inherent “Joss Whedon” fanaticism (I'm not sure how many can lay claim to owning “Dr. Horrible” on DVD and to have watched it quite so many times as myself). I've already seen the start of people exclaiming how incredible the film is, but like “The Dark Knight” it doesn't live up to the ridiculous hype. Don't get me wrong, both are good films, but not great, and there's still plenty of room for improvement.

The ride isn't a short one, but there are a lot of characters to fit into this film and it couldn't be done any other way. It's also commendable how quickly someone such as myself can come to grips with them all (excluding Hawkeye, I still don't really have a clue who he is apart from being an archer with good eyesight, Legolas with less hair); someone who hasn't seen all the preceding films and isn't a major comic book nerd, their personalities quickly came to light and allowed things to get moving. And returning from his joust with Thor is Loki, a scrawny looking Asgardian god returning to waltz off with the tesseract, a cube of infinite energy that nobody seems quite able to figure out how it freakin' works, and use it to open a portal to another world and allow aliens to arrive and decimate the Earth for Loki to rule, in return for giving them the tesseract to do whatever with, and it's up to a ragtag group of 'Avengers' to stop him. Got that? A god stealing a magical cube to open a portal for aliens to blow stuff up, facing off against an angry guy in green, a philanthropist billionairre weapons contractor, a spy, an archer, an army experiment from the 40's and another god. It honestly seems less bizarre when you're watching it. The plot does come with it's own set of problems, however. It was always going to be a difficult task to create a tale involving all parties equally, including enough screen time for each actor – a task I must admit he dealt with deftly – but there are more than a few head scratching moments that detract from the end result.

» Click to show Spoiler - click again to hide... «

Not in the least the very opening; Loki with the ability to control people didn't once think, hang on, this Nick Fury guy might be handy to have on board! The lynch pin for the entire film, the man capable of assembling this team that eventually thwarted the alien race, this dude wouldn't be handy to have on side? You knew about the Hulk, did your intelligence source forget to mention the bloke with the eye patch? What about the Hulk himself; half the film spent discovering Loki's plan to make him see green and decimate the vessel and the other half where we're told that he could control his alter ego all along. You mean you decided to smash the ship and try to kill a couple of our other heroes willingly? Even the scientist reveals he's a bit of a dick at the end, apparently never really fully under Loki's control (revealed when he mentions he put in a safety off switch) but just wanted to see what the tesseract could do for shits and giggles.

The aliens are played down to such an extent that their major ships don't seem to do much but wander into buildings, the smaller 'flyers' not smart enough or agile enough to move between the city streets and between them all the only ranged weaponry comes in the form of a slow firing and rather pathetic feeling energy weapon, harmlessly bouncing off our heroes too lazy to get out of the way, reminiscent of the staff weapon of “Stargate” fame. Their defence leaves much to be desired too, given that Black Widow seems to be able to decimate them with a handgun; Hawkeye causing chaos amongst the flyers with a freakin' bow and arrow. For an alien threat, they never really manage to come off as all that threatening, and just what kind of mentality leads to “we're under attack! Well, better nuke ourselves.” No dipshit, you nuke the ENEMY - just how did you get to be a General?

There weren't quite as many quips as I'd have liked either, Iron Man (Downey Jr.) steals much of the screen time with the eccentric persona that made his own films so enjoyable to watch and whilst it felt there was a couple of missed opportunities, Thor (Hemsworth) got a few good lines about his brother and the 'pathetic humans' in there, the irony of a man protecting humanity whilst mocking them perhaps never quite used to it's full potential but present nonetheless. Black Widow (Johansson) gets a couple of moments too, and Hulk (Ruffalo) gets perhaps the biggest laugh compensating for his rather bland alter ego. Heading further down the ladder lies Fury (Jackson) and the lack of decent lines, used more as a pivot for the rest of the cast to revolve around, and at the bottom lies Loki (Hiddleston) and Captain America (Evans), the latter playing too much of a wussy caricature of a hero going “lets talk this out guys” that comes close to being grating, and the former never really coming across as menacing at all. His small stature and slow movement rather than come across dark and mysterious, as though he has the strength and confidence that he doesn't really need to try despite facing off against more than just his brother this time, using words spat with venom, well it all falls a little flat; closer to a rebellious teenager sent to the naughty corner to think about what he's done than an evil genius.

It's fortunate that despite all this negativity it truly works where it counts: the action. From the opening moments it's set piece after set piece, bordering on a sense of a 'beat 'em up' video game, pitting hero against hero one after the other and letting their abilities come to surface, showing the audience just what they can do and where their strengths lie. And when push finally comes to shove, and it's time for them all to work together and get past their personal differences, they all find themselves with roles to perform, tasks they are capable of doing better than any other; Hulk's strength and ability to cause chaos for the enemy, Iron Man's speed and agility coupled with Hawkeye's ability to act as a human radar, scouting the area for the rest to follow. It's not all random explosions and shaky camera's (though they do still feature heavily), the group behave as a team, fighting intelligently utilising one another for support, and that sense of camaraderie does not go amiss.

Nothing here feels as though it's re-inventing the wheel, it's a comic-based action film like all the rest; we are introduced to a threat, we poke at the flaws of our hero, they learn something and combine that knowledge with too much CGI to win, the lesson in this instance being how to play well with others. It's ultimately the same formula that the rest have adhered to, complete with the bloodless action and light tone to the proceedings. No doubt fans who love this style will find much to their liking here, and with good reason, it is genuinely amongst the best of its kind, but for those that became tired of the predictable format it doesn't quite match up. I half imagine Marvel as a real life “Loki” at this point, mind controlling pivotal figures and yelling at the masses to kneel before him, and dutifully we do, unaware that we ever had much of a choice to begin with. For me there are too many plot holes and not enough puns; an all-star cast has been assembled for an all out action film and none of them feel as though they were put to good use. Fix that and we'll have something genuinely great on our hands.