Avengers Assemble

This review is over a year late now, but then this entire blog is completely out of sync with the time period in which it is written in. Nothing is suppose to be bang up to scratch with all the newest releases (hence why I'm still in the process of critiquing the 2005 series of Doctor Who). So seeing as it is my aim to review works which are not brand spanking new, who really gives a damn that this film came out in spring 2012?

Anyhow, on with the post.

Although I don't care for comic books in and of themselves, I have been rather charmed over by some of the movie adaptations which have been popping up during recent decades. Films such as the politically metaphorical X-men, the emotionally enchanting Spider-man 2 and the gritty re-imagining of Batman Begins has opened up this genre of storytelling to me; revealing what wonders such narratives can deliver to the world.

The recent explosion in quantity, however, has also created an entire library of poor quality superhero flicks. Features such as Fantastic Four, Daredevil and Ghost Rider all turned out to be diabolical clangers of the worst kind (in my opinion).

So I chose to keep my cynical hat on during the release of a new superhero, and Avengers Assemble (as it is titled over here in the UK to avoid confusion with the 1960's television series which was completely unrelated to the marvel universe) was no acceptation to such skepticism.

Most people I knew were wildly impressed by the promotional material which was released prior to the film itself. I, however, decided to curb my enthusiasm.

As mentioned previously, the past decade has seen a colossal boom in Superhero movies. They've taken over the box office in their numbers; showing little signs of slowing down any time soon. Such success can only guarantee that this vast number of titles will continue to increase into the near future, and with that, the possibility of ideas running dry is not one that we cannot rule out.

Although Avengers Assemble was based upon a preexisting piece of source material, I couldn't help but get the feeling that the whole film was nothing more than an idea fabricated by producers in order to try and keep a strained production line of capital generating movies alive.

It almost felt like a failing boy band; desperately releasing a greatest hits compilation to try and keep the cash flowing into their bank accounts. Avengers Assemble was a top trump comic book compilation (minus Spidey, due to studio copyright purposes). This was marvel's greatest hits package.

On top of these concerns, the whole feature appeared too over the top for my liking. Flying aliens the size of skyscrapers; dashing chase sequences amongst the Manhattan skyline; special effects upon special effects; and a whole entourage of iconic superheros all fighting side by side. It felt like James Cameron having a nervous breakdown and spending all of his earnings on a single project.

But gosh was I wrong. So hilariously, stupidly, pathetically, hopelessly wrong.  Because this film was far from disappointing. It was an absolute feast of a flick as a matter of fact. It was exactly how a Hollywood blockbuster should look.

Avengers Assemble works on so many levels and really did deserve the staggering success which it was flourished with upon its release.

The film was written and directed by the king-of-nerds himself, Joss Whedon. Whedon is possibly most known for creating the iconic TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, however he is also known for creating a number of cult classics which were never given a chance by broadcasters.

Firefly is one example of such a show. The series sports a huge cult following and seemed to receive all round positive feedback from its audience. Firefly is a gritty, cowboys-in-space type science fiction series that had its plug pulled before the first season even had time to air all of its episodes. Before the show even had the opportunity to spread its wings and grow to its full potential, it was put to sleep by the networks that funded it.

Firefly's passionate fan base did manage to get Whedon to make a movie spinoff of the series in the name of Serenity, however a second season never managed to see the light of day.

This was not the only project by Whedon to get pulled before it was given a chance to take flight, and such a fact created a specific image of this writer/director in the eyes of many.

He was a writer for the fans of science fiction, the underdog of Hollywood and the man with the ideas which failed to impress the capital driven networks. People saw that he had talent as a storyteller, and this made such cancellations an act of foolish injustice in the minds' of many.

The narrative to Whedon's career makes the grand success of Avengers Assemble all the more satisfactory. I say this because the film went on to make a staggering $1.5 billion at the worldwide box office.

Here was an intelligent and talented writer, who after years of fan admiration was jettisoned into the public mainstream conscious in one of the most spectacular ways imaginable.

Whedon's intellect and skills stand out for all to see in Avengers Assemble, particularly in terms of the masterful spacing out of the film's plot.

Despite my initial concern toward the film becoming a greatest hits compilation, the movie had a lot to cover from the very get go. Here was a multimillion dollar blockbuster which was essentially a spin-off/sequel hybrid to four separate superhero movies. Not only did it have to stay true to four detached narratives (five, if you also include Iron Man 2), but it had to make perfect sense to those who had never seen any of the preceding stories. The story had to both impress the literate fans of the film's mother stories and cater for a new audience all together.

Such a multi-serving story would be an incredibly difficult task for any writer/director to pull off. Four films had already covered the origins of the characters' of Avengers Assemble, the universe for this story had already been established from multiple angles and the narrative was also quite far into its time stream.

Yet Whedon succeeds at this herculean task. His supreme skills at executing stories and characters means that he can inject all the knowledge that the viewer needs on an almost subliminal level. He makes the whole process of paving out the foundations of a narrative seem all too easy.

Without even being aware, viewers are informed on who is who and what does what from the very early stages of a story. This frees up the rest of the run time to focus on the entertainment factor.

And the film itself is rather gigantic in its scale. The special effects are brassy and boisterous, the universe of the story is as big as can be and the number of protagonists are high in their numbers. Most films with this much action taking place in them would sooner or later collapse upon themselves. Films of such scale often loose their way amongst all the chaos. But once again, Whedon's fine writing abilities makes the whole film function smoothly. From start to finish, he makes his way through the narrative without taking his eye off of the ball (in this case, the ball being the story).

The film is funny too. At the time of watching, a lot of the jokes seemed to slip right past me. Seemingly random events would take place, sparking the audience into a frenzy of laughter. Don't get me wrong, I did notice what was going on in these scenes, and I knew that they were meant to be funny. The only difference, however, was that they were making me go "what the fuck?" as opposed to "that was hilarious." But after I let the experience of the whole movie settle down in my head, I looked back on these scenes and began to realize just how comical they were.

The soldier resuming his space invader game after Nick Fury exits the room; Tony Stark jabbing Bruce Banner out of curiosity toward the Bruce/Hulk transformation and Hulk throttling the villain Loki around the room like a rag doll were scenes of absolute hilarity.

I honestly do not know why the comical excellence of these moments refused to chime with my sense of humor upon first viewing. I like to think that my brain was unable to process just how funny this material was, but that is probably a load of bullshit, as I was actually terribly hungover when I first saw this film which would have made me slow to react to these moments.

Another marvelous addition to this blockbuster beast would have to be the performances of some of the leading actors. Everyone seems to be having such a fun time taking part in this. Robert Downy Jr. seems to be having the most fun of them all; now appearing to be 100% relaxed in his role as the multimillionaire crime fighter Tony Stark.

The line up of recent marvel films have been quite theatrical in their structures, so to see everyone enjoying themselves so much in their roles helps to amplify the comical fashion of this superhero infested universe.

But no film is perfect and even Avengers Assemble has its faulty sides; even in the areas which I have praised above.

Firstly, there is an issue with the character of Black Widow, as played by Scarlett Johansson. Her presence in this film just feels completely pointless and wasted. Now I haven't read the original source material that the film is based on, yet I'm assuming that she is a part of the initial Avenger crew, however she just feels so out of place here.

It's not that she isn't given little material to perform with, it's just that she almost feels as though she's been forced into the plot. Her presence is like that of a shard of glass that has been wedged into someone's foot. No matter how hard it tries to stay inside the foot, the body will ultimately do all that it can to eject it. Despite the film having a writer as talented as Whedon on board, the narrative seems to be rejecting every attempt to keep Black Widow in the same story as all of the other characters.

A lot of the time I also can't help but feel that producers forced this character into the plot to be "something for the lads". The film does have that bad habit of emphasizing this character's sex appeal quite often, which can suggest that she is there to be perceived as eye candy for a part of the film's demographic.

When I asked people about what they thought of Johansson's part in this film, most people responded by telling me how fit they thought she was. When I told them that I thought the film would have survived without her character being a part of the script, they began to accuse me of being a closet homosexual (these people really weren't the brightest bulbs in the chandelier. And they were only 19, so I guess they still have time to mature).

But maybe I am being a little unfair on this character. After all, Black Widow didn't have her own film to help build up her protagonist potentiality, whereas Iron Man, Hulk, Thor and Captain America all did. This promoted them to an iconic status, meaning that it was all two easy for them to overshadow Johansson's part.

Jeremy Renner's Hawkeye character also suffered from the exact same problem. Again, I'm pretty sure that this was all down to the fact that Hawkeye has not had his own film prior to this release; hindering him from possessing the same iconic power of the other protagonists.

Then there is Hulk. Now I think Mark Ruffalo delivers a fine performance as Bruce Banner/Hulk, and is even better at the role than Edward Norton was (I love Norton, but his performance in The Incredible Hulk suggested that he really had zero interest in the role). I also think that Whedon did a great job at writing him into the narrative.

I think that the main issue here is one which seems to be inherent in the character itself, as he just seems to be very difficult to adapt to the silver screen.

Ang Lee's 2003 Hulk failed quite miserably upon its release. It appeared that Lee wanted to try and create an art house version of this character, which resulted in a rather bizarre film all together. I haven't seen this movie since I was thirteen, but when I look back on it, I can quite clearly remember it being a very unusual piece of work. I think I might have to go back and give it a second viewing, but as my opinion currently stands, this experimental take on the Incredible Hulk really wasn't to my liking.

Then, in 2008 a revised reboot was released. The Incredible Hulk was an improvement over the 2003 version, but it still wasn't good enough to warrant a sequel. The final result was quite a bland piece of work.

I can't quite put by finger on why Hulk struggles to work within the film format. I have an inkling that maybe it is a mixture of both the character's invincibility and his transformation process.

Firstly, the fact that Banner is invincible as Hulk removes all of the tension whenever he has turned into the big green fella. It doesn't matter how many missiles are fired at him, we know he is going to be ok, making it a movie with no risk to the character which were are suppose to care about. This was the same problem with the film Wolverine. The original 1999 X-men movie managed to make this character work by focusing on the character's personality, back story and relationship with the other mutants, however by the time that X-men The Last Stand made its way into existence, I began to grow bored of the him, as I knew that there was no mortal risk which he would meet within the story.

Secondly, I think the transformation process restricts a lot of Banner's character development. Banner becomes Hulk whenever he gets angry, which means as soon as someone pisses him off, he becomes a big green beast which smashes the shit out of everything. Although this may sound good on paper, it means that we cannot see how the character of Banner would react in different situations. The key of good stroytelling is to show how our protagonists react and make decisions in specific situations. We want to see how the protagonists react when they become upset, scared, angry or confused. With Banner, we just cannot get this sort of character development.

Avengers Assemble attempts to solve this problem by changing the nature of his transformation process, but the only problem is that they come up with a solution which doesn't seem to make any sense.

It turns out, that the trick to controlling the unwanted presence of Hulk is that Banner is "always angry". Maybe I'm missing something here, but I just don't get how this works. Do they mean that he's a character who is constantly pissed off 24/7, giving him the ability to transform at will? If so, how do they explain the scene in the film where he inadvertently turns into Hulk and starts attacking his allies? Also, for a character who is supposedly always angry, he shows no signs of this. He always seems calm and in control, which means that we as an audience are never aware of what is really going through Banner's head?

However, Hulk is dealt with better here than in the previous two films, and they actually do manage to make him much more entertaining. As I mentioned earlier, Ruffalo delivers a great performance and is very likable. Also, some of the scenes they give Hulk are hugely entertaining (particularly the scene I mentioned earlier where he throws Loki around the room).

Hulk is still a problematic character, but I think that they are slowly beginning to figure out ways of making him work on the big screen.

My final quarrel with Avengers Assemble is that some of the action sequences are played out a little too long. Despite Whedon possessing the ability to space out plots in a rather entertaining and excellent manner, he can sometimes play them out a little too long. The most memorable example of this is when the airbase - which our heroes use as their headquarters - comes under attack, Whedon decides to shoot an incredibly long action sequence which mostly consists of Iron Man repairing a damage to the ship for what feels like ten whole minutes. Luckily for the audience, Whedon makes his action sequences both coherent and highly entertaining; making this an issue which doesn't affect the scene as much as it could have done.

The problems which I discussed above may sound as though I am contradicting all of my good points on Whedon and his ability to execute great storytelling, however I honestly do not feel that this is the case. These problems are only a few faults in what is otherwise a fantastic piece of work. There maybe one or two characters and scenes which fall flat in my opinion, however the rest of the film holds up incredibly well, making me forgive these supposed cock-ups. He did a grand job, and as mentioned previously, no film is perfect.

Overall, Avengers Assemble is a brilliant piece of entertainment. It works on so many levels and really does show that there is still a lot to get out of the superhero genre. I hope that Whedon uses his new blockbuster status to bring us more mainstream films of this caliber in the near future, as he seems to be able to do a better job at delivering huge entertainment flicks than many others.