Joining Up The Pieces.

Rating: 5/10 (14 May 2012)

Being left feeling slightly underwhelmed by the sudden ending of Iron Man 2,my expectations for this dream team match up were greatly increased by Kenneth Branagh's Thor,which brilliantly mixed a mythology- building epic plot with explosive action scenes and pitch perfect performances.Checking to see who had been chosen to take on this mega project,I was thrilled to discover that the man behind the stunning TV shows Buffy,Angel and the tragically short-lived Firefly had been given the chance to take on this huge "event" film.With my excitement building up over the involvement of Joss Whedon,I decided to take a look at the assembling of The Avengers.
The plot:
Thrown out by his returning brother Thor from the kingdom which he had craved to rule,Loki starts licking his wounds by negotiating a deal with a deadly warrior army called the Chitauri,who he eventually gets to accept, his plan of stealing a powerful,new energy source which is secretly being tested by a classified US government agency called S.H.I.E.L.D.Catching S.H.I.E.L.D. leader Nick Fury completely by surprise,Loki and the Chitauri's quickly grab the new energy source,and run off as fast as possible,due to having a plan of using the new energy as a "link" for the Chitauri's planet to fully connect up with Earth.Realiseing that the planet Earth is in dire straits,Nick Fury decides to take drastic action,and begin the formation of a "special projects" group called The Avengers
View on the film:
During the movies opening 15-20 minutes writers Joss Whedon (who also directed the film) and Zac Penn initially make the film look as if it will be going in a similar direction to Penn's (co-written) wonderful 2003 film X2,as each of The Avengers are given their own mini introductions that allows a good amount of expectation and excitement, to build for the moment when all of the separate plot threads will join up.
Disapointingly,Whedon and Penn interrupt what should have been a gradual build up to the moment when a number of iconic characters share the screen for the very first time,by weirdly making almost all of the non-action scenes in the film feel very anti-climatic.Shortly after the introductions,Whedon places all of his characters in one confined location for 40-50 minutes of the movie.Whilst the isolated location initially hints at an opportunity for the gang to be given a little bit more depth,Whedon and Penn sadly kill the excitement dead in its tracks,thanks to the setting doing the near impossible of making a bunch of superheros look unbelievably dull.Although the screenplay sadly drains most of the excitement from the film,
the terrific cast impressively give the movie a "livly" feel which happily stays prominent for the last half an hour of the movie.Reuniting after their fantastic performances in David Fincher's stunning 2007 film Zodiac,Robert Downey JR and Mark Ruffalo each give great performances that make them the clear stand outs of the movie.Wearing a sneaky Black Sabbath t-shirt,Downey gives Tony Stark/Iron Man a wickedly sharp tongue,which smoothly unleashes the best dialogue of the film.Showing a strong Woody Allen-ness to his performance,Ruffalo makes every scene featuring Bruce Banner/The Hulk a joy to watch,thanks to making Banner someone that is surprisingly a "normal" guy,who along with being able to step up when needed (in purple underwear!),is also someone who would prefer to be left on their own,and would probably blush with shyness as soon as a girl started to take a liking to him.