Ever since Marvel announced plans to finally produce an Iron Man movie, rumours of an Avengers film have been circling the internet. At the time, it seemed like a distant pipe-dream, but Marvel Studios have been prolific since Robert Downey Jr first donned the metal suit in 2008, and now having successfully acquainted audiences the origins of The Hulk, Captain America, and most recently, Thor, the stage is finally set for earth's mightiest heroes to convene and punish evil in a more convivial fashion.
Nick Fury's Avengers are assembled when Loki, demi-God and brother of Thor, returns to earth after recruiting an army with a view to acquiring the tesseract- an all-powerful cosmic cube that would grant him the amenities to rule over the Earth and its people. Fury and his long-suffering aide Agent Coulson must convince the super heroes to work with, and not against each other to prevent the enslavement of the human race.
Buffy The Vampire Slayer creator Joss Whedon is the man given the unenviable task of orchestrating the long-awaited super hero orgy that is Avengers Assemble (as it has been clunkily renamed in the UK to avoid confusion with the dreadful 1998 movie of the same name), and fan boys and girls around the globe will be delighted to hear that he has done a pretty excellent job.
The main challenge facing the filmmakers was always going to be the same one facing Samuel L. Jackson's Nick Fury: finding the right balance between the individual members of the Avengers collective. As Whedon showed in the recent The Cabin in the Woods, he has an excellent comic touch, and through this, his screenplay manages to capture a perfect tone that marries the machine-gun quipping of Tony Stark; Steve Rogers' anachronistic jingoism; and Thor and family's camped up histrionics (Tom Hiddleston's Loki has the unadulterated pleasure of calling someone a 'quim'). His script is perfectly pitched, but crucially, he has understood that it is imperative to develop a chemistry between the protagonists before they start blowing things up. It is also testament to the strength Marvel's characters that no one is left outshone, even when it comes to dealing with the less developed personalities.
The heroes we know and love are all on sparkling form, and Jeremy Renner's Hawkeye and Scarlett Johansson's Black Widow escape tokeness with the help of an interesting introduction and some intriguing, yet unobtrusive back-story. The stand out performance, however, is newcomer Mark Ruffalo, who took up the reins of the green beast after contract negotiations broke down with Edward Norton in pre-production. Ruffalo offers a shyer, less intense Banner, but his restrained performance is never eclipsed by the locker-room bravado of his fellow Avengers. Some clever plotting also ensures that the inevitable transmogrification from man to monster is as rewarding as it should be. After misfires in both Ang Lee and Louis Leterrier's adaptations, The Avengers finally offers the Hulk that we've been waiting for; an implacable and unpredictable ball of raw power that steals the show as soon as the threads of Bruce Banner's trousers begin to buckle.
Marvel have been pretty consistent in delivering in terms of set pieces and special effects and, unsurprisingly, The Avengers looks stunning. The decision to screen the film for the press in 2D is perhaps the beginning of an admission that the medium could be on the way out (fingers crossed), and the film's vivacious dénouement will certainly suffer from the gloomy, blurry side effects that sporting the 3D glasses will bring. The pacing is spot on and the third act ensures that all the summer blockbuster boxes are thoroughly ticked. Whedon and his Avengers have left a very high watermark for the remaining super hero movies of the summer.
Avengers Assemble hits all the right notes. It's as big, loud, funny and daft as it needs to be, but more importantly, it's terrific fun. Marvel's best so far, and you'll struggle to remember a more entertaining trip to the cinema.
135 mins (12a)
★★★★★
Avengers Assemble is released in the UK 26 April