“Superheroes in New York?” An elderly man sneers after
experiencing the chaos that sees The Hulk, Iron Man, Thor, Captain America,
Hawkeye and Black Widow conquering an alien invasion in the middle of
Manhattan. The man is no ordinary extra providing a comedy element to the
conclusion of the much anticipated film adaptation of The Avengers. No this
cameo appearance features Stan Lee, the man behind the creation of those
muscular dudes half a century ago in the pages of the legendary Marvel comics.
The Avengers, which opened in cinemas in the United Kingdom
on the 26th of April marks initially, the slam-bang convention of
incredible superheroes that would send a comic con nerd into multiple orgasms
and also sees the release of the summer’s biggest blockbuster. Ever since the
introduction of Robert Downey Jr’s Iron Man in 2008, it has wetted audiences’
appetites, building through post credit snippets of what will be the ultimate
comic book film, and now it has finally arrived.
Featuring along with Iron Man is The Incredible Hulk,
starring yet another actor, (Mark Ruffalo) Thor, the hammer happy Nordic God
(Chris Hemsworth) and Captain America (Chris Evans). Adding to the superhero
quartet are two prime Avengers, femme fatale Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett
Johansson) and archery expert Clint Barton, (Jeremy Renner) who have both
featured in Iron Man 2 and Thor respectively.
With the ultimate super hero match up, directing duties was
given to Joss Whedon, the man behind TV’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel and Dollhouse, plus the recent horror/comedy film The Cabin in the Woods and the Internet miniseries Dr.
Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, a musical comedy.
Zak Penn’s initial script has been reworked for an
impulsive, all – star party guarantying fast paced fun, mind blowing special
effects and skilful production without really forcing anyone to truly think
about it. In a nutshell, The Avengers is a pop – culture smash that shouldn’t
be taken seriously. Created to keep audiences satisfied and engrossed, rather
than aim for transcendence and Oscar success.
The story (and yes there is one) is in essence a sequel to
2011’s Thor, where the film curtains with the blond muscleman’s evil adoptive
brother Loki (Tom Hiddleston) plunging into a wormhole, presumed dead. However
the malicious Asgardian has gained possession of the Tesseract, an empyrean
cube that holds the power of infinite replenishable energy, as well as a two –
way door to the cosmos. Acknowledging the immediate danger and threat, S.H.I.E.L.D.
director Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) mobilises the abstracted superheroes to
combat Loki and his alien army.
Director Joss Whedon has stated that what persuaded him to
govern the film was the disparity of the various superheroes and their egos.
“These people shouldn’t be in the same room, let alone on the same team and
that is the definition of family.” This said, for an extensive time, The
Avengers becomes a multi million pound version of a daytime television tabloid
talk show, in the same league of Jerry Springer, as a dysfunctional family
fighting between each other. With six superheroes battling each other for
screen time, the combat is at times as energy consuming among them as it is
between them and Loki. Individually they have authoritative personalities and
four of them have starred in their own movies, so a decent amount of time spent
in The Avengers involves the confrontation of their boastful egos. Acting
styles are also brutally mashed up along with the ultimatums, with the method
acting of Mark Ruffalo, who replaced Edward Norton as Bruce Banner intertwined
with the arrogance and pompous of Robert Downey Jr, who provides most of the
movie’s internal jokes. Add to that the grandiloquence of Chris Hemsworth
against the naturalness of Chris Evans and you get an understanding of the vast
differences between each character.
With these distractions some what negotiated, the film
explodes into its finest hour, a meteoric battle over the skyscrapers of
downtown Manhattan where Loki’s cyborg army meets the supreme skilled Avengers.
The $220 000, 000 budget, fully shows with some incredible action sequences,
seeing dozens of superstructures collapsing into complete debris, vehicles
exploding and giant Godzilla – like flying robotic lizards gliding around the
New York skyline. The intense carnage results in the Avengers victorious (of
course) and Loki pulverized to an inch of his life by the Incredible Hulk. The movie’s climactic conclusion
sees the gleaming Deco spire of the Chrysler Building, just a block away, to
conduct electricity back to the Tesseract, nearly costing the life of Iron Man,
but world disaster is prevented.
The 145-minute running time flows smoothly and with such
great entertainment on display throughout, the feature elapses pretty fast. The
Avengers, overall is a pleasing superhero movie and a worthy inclusion of the
marvel adaptations, which will generally appease fans throughout. Whedon does a
fantastic job in giving all the stars their close-ups, on the way to restoring
order to the universe, the Marvel universe that is. With unbelievable special
effects, solid acting and intense character development, The Avengers is an
absolute must for Marvel fans, as well as viewers with an appetite for carnage
and mass scaled action. The film also brings to attention the best Bruce
Banner/Hulk seen yet. His phenomenal intelligence is unparalleled with Tony
Stark’s and his compassion for human lives is what drives the good-natured side
of his character. Ruffalo’s unsteady and inconsistent personality matches the
role to perfection and is one of the many highlights of the film.
