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Avengers Assemble
May. 2nd, 2012 08:14 amWhen I first heard about this I thought it might be a bit of a mess, with too many main characters and too many wacky concepts thrown together to make a coherent film. Then I found out it was being written and directed by Joss Whedon, king of ensemble casts with wacky concepts, and I knew all would be well.
To be honest, it is a bit of a mess. There's a vague plot, of sorts. It has an underlying anti-war/WMD message that starts to go somewhere interesting in the second act, but is completely undermined by the third. The first half hour is difficult to engage with if and a bit confusing if you haven't completely brushed up on the previous films in the franchise. (Oddly, there's a line of exposition to remind us who Loki is, but nothing until nearly halfway through the film to remind us where the Tesseract came from, despite it being the main plot MacGuffin.)
None of this really matters though, nor does it stop me wanting to see this film again. On IMAX. The joy of watching Avengers Assemble isn't in the story. It's in watching several ridiculously larger-than-life egomaniacs bouncing off one another, sometimes literally. Once the Big Four start to "assemble", the film really takes off.
Having Joss write dialogue for Robert Downey Jr's Tony Stark couldn't be better, and Stark steals most of the scenes he's in. Special mention also for Mark Ruffalo's Bruce Banner (the third Hulk in as many films), who plays an understated yet complex contrast to his big green alter-ego. The relationship between Stark and Banner, two geniuses, is great to watch. And as for Banner turning into "the other guy", well... Stark may have the best lines, but it's Hulk who gets the biggest laughs.
Chris Hemsworth's Thor is basically the same as before (no bad thing), but just a little bit more human (good). Tom Hiddleston's Loki continues to be an interesting and surprisingly vulnerable bad guy - a god with a massive inferiority complex. And Samuel L Jackson's Nick Fury has a hell of a lot more to do this time round. I felt slightly sorry for Chris Evans's (No, not that one!) Captain Rogers/America and Scarlett Johansson's Agent Romanoff/Black Widow, who have the boring job of playing it straight against the rest of the main cast, but someone's got to do it.
The action is a huge amount of fun, and it's nice to see it done right. You may have heard me moan before about ludicrously quick camera cuts where you can't follow what's happening. I always think camera-work should showcase the fight choreography, rather than be used to hide its shortcomings. There's no worry about that here. All the action scenes in Avengers are inventive, brilliantly choreographed and show off each character's strengths and foibles. They're a seamless part of what's going on, rather than an eye candy distraction from the story and character interaction. Camera-wise, there's one very long tracking shot in the final battle in particular, that I immediately fell in love with and hoped would never end.
Avengers Assemble is probably not going to win any awards. It only works at all because the characters and world they inhabit are already well established by the previous films in the franchise. What it is, though, is big and silly and loud and enormous fun. It does what it does extremely well, and is highly recommended :o)
There's an extra credit cookie scene part-way through the end credits. A black mark to Cineworld for raising the house lights just as it was starting. That's on top of the black mark they already earned for not showing it on IMAX at a convenient time.
To be honest, it is a bit of a mess. There's a vague plot, of sorts. It has an underlying anti-war/WMD message that starts to go somewhere interesting in the second act, but is completely undermined by the third. The first half hour is difficult to engage with if and a bit confusing if you haven't completely brushed up on the previous films in the franchise. (Oddly, there's a line of exposition to remind us who Loki is, but nothing until nearly halfway through the film to remind us where the Tesseract came from, despite it being the main plot MacGuffin.)
None of this really matters though, nor does it stop me wanting to see this film again. On IMAX. The joy of watching Avengers Assemble isn't in the story. It's in watching several ridiculously larger-than-life egomaniacs bouncing off one another, sometimes literally. Once the Big Four start to "assemble", the film really takes off.
Having Joss write dialogue for Robert Downey Jr's Tony Stark couldn't be better, and Stark steals most of the scenes he's in. Special mention also for Mark Ruffalo's Bruce Banner (the third Hulk in as many films), who plays an understated yet complex contrast to his big green alter-ego. The relationship between Stark and Banner, two geniuses, is great to watch. And as for Banner turning into "the other guy", well... Stark may have the best lines, but it's Hulk who gets the biggest laughs.
Chris Hemsworth's Thor is basically the same as before (no bad thing), but just a little bit more human (good). Tom Hiddleston's Loki continues to be an interesting and surprisingly vulnerable bad guy - a god with a massive inferiority complex. And Samuel L Jackson's Nick Fury has a hell of a lot more to do this time round. I felt slightly sorry for Chris Evans's (No, not that one!) Captain Rogers/America and Scarlett Johansson's Agent Romanoff/Black Widow, who have the boring job of playing it straight against the rest of the main cast, but someone's got to do it.
The action is a huge amount of fun, and it's nice to see it done right. You may have heard me moan before about ludicrously quick camera cuts where you can't follow what's happening. I always think camera-work should showcase the fight choreography, rather than be used to hide its shortcomings. There's no worry about that here. All the action scenes in Avengers are inventive, brilliantly choreographed and show off each character's strengths and foibles. They're a seamless part of what's going on, rather than an eye candy distraction from the story and character interaction. Camera-wise, there's one very long tracking shot in the final battle in particular, that I immediately fell in love with and hoped would never end.
Avengers Assemble is probably not going to win any awards. It only works at all because the characters and world they inhabit are already well established by the previous films in the franchise. What it is, though, is big and silly and loud and enormous fun. It does what it does extremely well, and is highly recommended :o)
There's an extra credit cookie scene part-way through the end credits. A black mark to Cineworld for raising the house lights just as it was starting. That's on top of the black mark they already earned for not showing it on IMAX at a convenient time.
