Film review: Avengers Assemble (12A)

Thanks to the skills of Joss Whedon – and a fantastic Hulk – Marvel’s ensemble superhero caper is witty, exciting and fun

****

Directed by: Joss Whedon Starring: Robert Downey Jr, Mark Ruffalo, Samuel L Jackson, Scarlett Johansson, Tom Hiddleston, Chris Hemsworth, Chris Evans

MOST comic book movie sequels up the ante by increasing the bad-guy count. Avengers Assemble takes the opposite approach: it ups the hero quotient. Bringing together Marvel’s recent slate of superhero box office superstars for the first time, the film makes good on all the teasing and groundwork laid by the two Iron Man movies, The Incredible Hulk reboot, Thor and Captain America by doing something surprising: it makes all their fan-courting insider references seem irrelevant.

This isn’t to say that writer/director Joss Whedon (the fanboy maverick best known for creating Buffy the Vampire Slayer) has dismissed what came before. On the contrary, Whedon provides little payoffs for those paying close attention and sows seeds for possible future instalments. It’s merely to point out that trying to, say, recall what exactly happened in the bonus scene after the end credits rolled in Thor is not a prerequisite for enjoying the film at hand. Like the first Star Wars movie, Avengers Assemble is the kind of blockbuster that drops us into a fully formed universe and confidently expects us to keep pace without too much handholding or prior knowledge.

That’s a good thing, not least because it prevents the presence of its four franchise-headlining heroes from overwhelming the film. Treating it like any good star-studded men-on-a-mission movie, Whedon capitalises on the need to spend time bringing the film’s titular team together to generate comedy sparks, largely by making a spectacle out of their clashing personalities.

Robert Downey Jr’s wired, witty take on Iron Man’s playboy alter-ego Tony Stark makes him the catalyst for this, and he certainly delights in mocking arrogant Norse god Thor (Chris Hemsworth) for his flamboyant attire, Captain America (Chris Evans) for his dated boy-scout heroism, and head of S.H.I.E.L.D. Nick Fury (Samuel L Jackson) for trying to force him to work with others after initially rejecting him for being too much of a lone wolf.

This time, however, Stark is matched in the funny stakes by Mark Ruffalo’s take on the Incredible Hulk’s puny human proxy Dr Bruce Banner. Unlike previous iterations, Banner is neither tortured soul nor humourless shell. Instead, by the time we meet him, he’s worked through a lot of the self-obsessed downsides of being a superhero (there’s a glibly funny but pathos-filled reference to a botched suicide attempt). This immediately frees up Ruffalo – one of the most casually brilliant screen actors currently working – to have a blast as Banner, especially as he gets to subtly undermine Stark’s usual role as the smartest guy in the room, and have fun playing on the other characters’ fears of what he ominously refers to as “the other guy”.

And what of this “other guy”? Just as the Hulk becomes the team’s secret weapon in their attempts to prevent Thor’s evil brother Loki (a magnificent Tom Hiddleston) from destroying the world, he performs the same function for the film as a whole courtesy of Whedon, who judiciously deploys the character’s primal “Hulk SMASH” instincts for maximum onscreen destruction and unexpected laughs, and Ruffalo, whose motion-captured performance ensures Banner’s humanity doesn’t disappear when the green guy comes out to play.

But it’s not just about the star players. Whedon provides the second-tier characters with meaningful arcs of their own, starting with Jackson’s Fury, whose motivations for assembling the Avengers prove more complex than anything hinted at in the previous movie. And Scarlett Johansson’s Russian super-assassin Black Widow also takes a more prominent role; her desire to atone for her ruthless past compelling her to put her non-superpowered life on the line.

Those who know Whedon’s work will recognise and appreciate such impulses. He’s a master of undercutting sentiment and tension with a gag, but he’s just as capable of bringing a lump to the throat or spiking the hairs on your neck when it counts. With a bigger budget, he also has to deliver blockbuster action and, while he can’t quite prevent the final city-levelling showdown from adhering to the standard Marvel formula (heroes face off against a giant out-of-control creature/robot/army), he imbues the chaos with a narrative purpose that prevents us losing sight of the characters amid the explosions.