Starring: Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, Tom Hiddleston, Jeremy Renner & Samuel L. Jackson
Rating: ★★★★½
Ever since X-Mencame out twelve years ago, comic book movie fans have been waiting for this moment... and it is finally here. It’s the Avengers! Iron Man, Captain America, The Incredible Hulk, Thor, and to a lesser but equally exciting extent, The Black Widow, Hawkeye and Nick Fury, all finally in one action packed movie together! It’s enough to make comic book geeks go wild with ecstasy... which I’m sure they did. But it hasn’t just been comic book fans who have revelled in the electrifying ensemble, since The Avengershas broken many box office records, and continues to do so.
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| The Avengers Assemble! |
Marvel Studios has cleverly been building up to this moment for quite some time now, making several movies that feature all of these characters so that this film needs little exposition. Loki (Hiddleston), the extraterrestrial villain from Thor, returns to Earth with an army of aliens to enslave and destroy humanity. After Loki attacks Nick Fury (Jackson) and obliterates his research lab, he has only one option: to reactivate the ‘Avengers Initiative’, which will bring together several super humans in the hope that they can work together to protect the world.
If you have already seen the Iron Man, Captain America, and Thor films then you will already be aware of the characters individual plights and origins, but you don’t necessarily have to have viewed these movies to enjoy this one. Bruce Banner, aka the Hulk (Ruffalo), Agent Romanoff aka The Black Widow (Johansson) and Hawkeye (Renner) have appeared in other movies before, the latter two as cameos, but here they are given some nice exposition to help us understand more about them. I was very happy to see The Black Widow play a very important and integral part to the plot, as she was the most likely character to fall by the wayside, mainly because she isn’t actual a ‘super’ human and is a woman (we all know the fate of most female superheroes all to well). Fortunately, she does a lot more than just look sexy, and proves that superheroes can be female too; you just have to give them a strong role to play, and not depend on their physical appearance. Because of this, for me, Johansson was the real star of the show, in a film crammed full of excellent characters.
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| The Black Widow is someone you definitely don't want to mess with... |
Downey Jr. is once again excellent as the arrogant Tony Stark, Ruffalo gives a compelling and likeable performance as the brazen Bruce Banner, and Samuel L Jackson does what he does best: by being Samuel L Jackson. Evans and Hemsworth are good at providing additional sustenance, although for a majority of the running time they seem to just stare blankly at one another, Renner as Hawkeye gets to have fun playing against the rules, and Hiddleston is once again wonderfully detestable in his scene stealing turn as the wickedly evil super villain Loki. With a cast like this, you have to wonder whether or not their agents counted the words in the script to make sure that their actor got the most lines, the best part, and, most importantly, the first credit (which goes to Downey Jr.).
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| Hawkeye and the Hulk do their best to save the day... |
The action sequences are visually stunning and absolutely breathtakingly amazing. The film is good enough to end after the desecration of the Helicarrier, but it doesn’t finish here, instead this is just a taster for the exhilarating and fantastic finale, in which the aliens destroy New York City. I don’t think I have ever seen such an epically enthralling and spectacular fight scene, which allows every single character the chance to flex their muscles and prove their worth.
The plot is witty and involving, and generally moves rapidly so that we can see what we paid for. At one point, on the Helicarrier, I felt that the scientific ramblings and extensive exposition was beinging to bog the film down, but luckily this was rectified very quickly with an extended action sequence. There is even a moment of real peril, in which it certainly looks like one of the main characters will die, which is done effectively enough for you to actually believe that it might really happen!
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| Captain America and Thor ponder what to do next... |
I’m sure that most of you reading this review have probably already seen The Avengers, but if you haven’t then you really should. You don’t have an excuse! Go and see it right now! It’s the second most important movie of the year (after The Dark Knight Rises, which will, of course, break all of the box office records, and Skyfall, the new James Bond film coming in a close third- maybe I shouldn’t hold out hope for it after the dreadful Quantum Of Solace, but as a Bond fan, I have to!!), and it’s just a great fun filled, explosion laded, humorous and perilous ride, in which people try their hardest to defeat a bad guy and save the world.
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| Loki is a villain in every sense of the word! |
Like many others, I’ve waited for this movie for a very long time, and I was not disappointed. It’s the kind of film that you want to immediately see a second time, because you kind of have to: so much goes on in the finale that you probably have to view it several times to take it all in! The one thing I’m concerned about is how they will go about making the sequel. I genuinely don’t know if they can top this one, but if they manage to, then I’m sure it will be absolutely amazing!
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