REVIEW: Avengers Assemble

Hello. I’m a Marvel comic book fan. Now before you put on your bio-hazard suit for fear of catching nerd, I am actually a normal guy. I, like many of my kind, blend almost perfectly in with society. We live among you, wade through the Jesters toilets with you, stand in the Chick O Land queue with you at 2.30am. You would never know. But every so often, like a full moon to a werewolf, an event occurs that renders our disguises useless. We go flocking in our hordes towards the nearest cinema, all pretences of nonchalant disregard cast aside, pushing in front of children as we quiver in anticipation. The event: The Avengers have assembled.

Avengers Assemble is every comic book nerd’s wet dream; like the mythical Sobar Quad Vod, elements that are potent by themselves have been concentrated into a concoction that will strip the paint off your walls. Since the scent was laid in Iron Man 2 in 2010, Marvel have been teasing the educated comic buff with hints and clips in subsequent films Thor and Captain America. Finally, we have the climax; and I must say, it was worth the wait.

What do you mean the U2B is full?!

We told you not to go rolling around on Jesters' dancefloor!

The Avengers Initiative, a top-secret plan to amalgamate some of the worlds ‘most remarkable people’ into one kickass team, has to be put into action when Asgardian chief douche-bag Loki (Tom Hiddleston) plans to steal a shiny blue energy source, the Tesseract, in order to lead an alien army to throw Earth into a new age of dominion. The six super- hero protagonists, Captain America (Chris Evans), Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), the Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) and Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) are called upon by Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) to stop him, and save the planet.

Unlike our gherkin coloured friend the Hulk in 2003, the Avengers have been done full justice. The visual effects are stunning, the fight scenes beautifully choreographed and the quality of acting perhaps the best of any Marvel film to date. Samuel L Jackson makes Nick Fury the most badass he’s ever been, Johansson has never been sexier as the Black Widow (guys; watch out for the scene where she’s tied to a chair. I would almost certainly have been arrested had I voiced my thoughts in a 12A film), and Hiddleston as Loki is on a level of Brit- accented psychotic evilness on a par with Hannibal Lecter (particularly the scene when he’s locked in a perspex cell, playing mind games with Black Widow).

They don’t call him ‘Hawkeye’ for nothing.

Joking aside, this is not just a film for die hard comic geeks. Unlike many of its predecessors, Avengers Assemble has no shortage of laughs; The Hulk has some fantastic slapstick moments worthy of Monty Python, and Tony Stark/ Ironman treats us to some quality one-liners and quips. The intensive, demi-god-robo-warrior-super-soldier-assassin-alien fight scenes can be appreciated by anyone who doesn’t lick windows in their spare time. And Ladies, as a regular Mens’ Health subscriber, I can tell you non homo-erotically (well, maybe a little bit) that the quality of biceps in this film is spot on, with Thor, Hawkeye and Captain America all begging to be asked which way the beach is.

The highlight of the film has to be the climatic all-or-nothing alien brawl in the final scenes, where the CGI and special effects reach a pinnacle of visual wizardry. Watch out for the panoramic shot of the Avengers in a defensive circle surrounded by oncoming alien hordes; it’s iconically breathtaking.

Avengers Assemble is well worth a watch and I would recommend it to anyone. Just take the excited fanatics dressed in cardboard superhero outfits at the front of the queue with a pinch of salt.