Avengers Assemble

Rating: 9/10 (5 May 2012)

The Marvel comic book based films have made millions at the box office, and everybody must have been thrilled with a number of the best superheroes of the series being put together in the same film, and presuming you have seen the previous films with them it has been building up to this. Basically Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), director of S.H.I.E.L.D., is meeting some colleagues in a remote facility where the energy source the Tesseract has been found and activated, opening a gateway transporting the Norse god Loki (Tom Hiddleston) from Asgard to Earth. He steals the powerful cube and takes over the minds of personnel like Clint Barton aka Hawkeye (The Hurt Locker's Jeremy Renner) and Dr. Erik Selvig (Stellan Skarsgård), and this forces Fury to reactivate the Avengers Initiative, recruiting some of the world's most powerful and special heroes, starting with Natasha Romanoff aka Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson). She goes to find Bruce Banner aka The Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) who is hiding somewhere in India for his scientific knowledge of the Tesseract - no mention of "The Other Guy", while Agent Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg) approaches Tony Stark aka Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) who also has technological knowledge - and his powerful mechanical suit, and Fury also brings Steve Rogers aka Captain America (Chris Evans) up to date with the situation, and he is still trying to get used to the modern world. While Loki disappeared into the abyss he was approached by the alien race the Chitauri, led by The Other (Alexis Denisof), and they came to an agreement that if they got the Tesseract they would help him take over the Earth. Suited up, Captain America and Iron Man travel to Germany where Loki is meant to be hiding and trying to ignite and stabilise the power of the cube, showing his evil intent to many people kneeling before him, he surrenders though when they fight and catch him. In this process though the villain's half-brother Thor (Chris Hemsworth) arrives, also transported from Asgard, and he plans to take and deal with him in his own way, and this turns into a fight between him, Iron Man and Captain America, but it eventually stops. Loki is placed into a cell, designed to hold The Hulk inside if Banner turns, and now with Thor recruited as well the Avengers argue about how to handle the alien dictator, and there is the revelation that S.H.I.E.L.D. plan to harness the Tesseract to develop weapons. Fury explains that he heard about what happened in Mexico, when Thor was previously on Earth, and that the attack makes Earth an easy target, and the weapons will be good defence for a similar attack, and as the argument continues Loki's mind controlled agents infiltrate the ship, the Helicarrier. Captain America and Iron Man try to start the engines again, while Thor tries fight against Banner who has become The Hulk and may destroy the ship from the inside, and fighting with Barton, Romanoff discovers a hard hit to the head will knock possessed people back to normal. In the struggle Loki kills Agent Coulson and escapes the ship, Banner as Hulk and Thor are ejected from the ship and fall to the ground, and Fury uses the death of Coulson to encourage the Avengers left to come together, work as a team and save the world. They know that the villain wants to become ruler as well as destroy cities, and using Dr. Selbig he has created a device to open the gateway and allow the Chitauri to invade and attack Manhattan, and it is up to Captain America, Iron Man, Black Widow, Hawkeye, Thor and The Hulk to save the day. In the end, after Dr. Selvig is revived, so much explosive fighting, and a prevented missile blowing up in space, Loki is taken back with the Tesseract by Thor to Asgard, the Avengers go their separate ways, until a new threat to the world emerges, and the final scene sees The Other meeting his master, who turns and reveals himself to be Thanos. Also starring Cobie Smulders as Agent Maria Hill, Gwyneth Paltrow as Pepper Potts, Paul Bettany as Jarvis, Sudden Death's Powers Boothe as World Security Council, Jenny Agutter as World Security Council, Harry Dean Stanton as Security Guard, Lou Ferrigno as the voice of The Hulk and a cameo by Stan Lee. The cast are all fantastic, Downey Jr. with all the quips, Evans as the sensible fighter, Ruffalo as the man trying to control his temper, Hemsworth as the arrogant warrior, Johansson as the confident female, and Jackson as the intelligent controller. It should be noted that the title was changed in Britain from The Avengers because there would be confusion with the Honor Blackman/Dianna Rigg TV series, and also there were small complaints about Spider-Man and Wolverine absent, but it doesn't matter. Anyway, the story and scripting are very well made, and what steals the show is the brilliantly paced fight sequences filled with the most spectacular and ground breaking special effects to create all the superhero gadgets and gimmicks, invading creatures, and constant explosions, this is definitely one of the greatest superhero movies of the last few years, a must see action fantasy. It was nominated the Oscar for Best Visual Effects, and it was nominated the BAFTA for Special Visual Effects. Very good!