Film Review: Avengers Assemble

I hadn't seen any of the Marvel films leading up to Avengers Assemble, bar one of the Iron Mans. Nevertheless, the joy of the geekdom must be contagious because I found myself moving from perfectly apathetic to actively seeking out the cinema of my own volition. What resulted was something awesome and a triumph of the genre, with peppy banter, great action set-pieces, and a remarkable tightrope act of balancing between sentiment and farce, using light moments of the latter to dilute the threat of the former.

Nick Fury, director of SHIELD (played as a morally ambiguous consequentialist by the brilliant Samuel L. Jackson) brings together the joint forces of Captain America (Chris Evans, tipping the scales of old-school sanctimonious patriotism), the Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr in full wise-cracking flow), the Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), and Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner). Such a gathering of human, super-human, and divine beings is necessary, for SHIELD has been playing with its new toy, the Tesseract, and has found itself in deep trouble. Deep trouble which comes in the shape of Thor's brother Loki (Tom Hiddleston), who, fashioning himself as a would-be tyrannical king of Earth, is leading an alien invasion across the time/space boundaries opened up by said Tesseract.

Tom Hiddleston is superb, bringing nuances and humour to a character who in other hands could so easily have become a typical pantomime villain, undermining the whole piece. As it is, he excels and hints at even more which he could bring to the table. A treat for Avengers Assemble 2 perhaps, which was always a given, especially with a worldwide box-office of over $1.2billion to date. All performances are well-executed, with particular mention going to Mark Ruffalo, whose understated, restrained scientist brings a wonderful fully rounded sense of humanity and character to all aspects of Bruce Banner, not just the big green monster within. The only weak link is Captain America and that is because nothing has been done to rescue him from being an anachronistic insertion; awoken from an ice-induced sleep, he is characterised by older God-fearing, patriotic values, which sit untidily with the dynamic of the rest of the team. A deliberate and appropriate device, it might be said, but still one which seemed to distract rather than entertain.

The reason that Avengers Assemble avoids a 'too many cooks spoil the broth' comparison is due in part to the script, which allows all characters to co-exist equally, and due in a large part to the skilful direction of Joss Whedon behind the camera. No stranger to sci-fi and fantasy, certainly, but it must have seemed a daunting task at the beginning. Nevertheless, he makes it incredibly entertaining with a rate of a quip a minute, visually appealing, suitably uncomplex, and above all, effortlessly crowd-pleasing.

Has Avengers Assemble already stolen the show from the rest of this summer's blockbusters? No. But that is not a criticism. What it has wisely done in a season seeing the climax of Christopher Nolan's epic Batman trilogy and a reboot of Spiderman which hopes to atone for the sins of the last Tobey Maguire-starring film, is create an area within the genre and set the bar in that area. Skilful, inventive, and funny, it has left plenty of space in the dark and profound for Batman and lots more space besides for Spiderman. It shows one way of creating a superhero film and has proved itself the best in that.

4.5*

Everyone's a winner



It's a certain sort of achievement, to be sure. There's really no earthly reason why loos shouldn't win awards just like gardens and companies and professionals do ... and yet ... and yet ...

The Wig Sanctuary

For unwanted or abused toupees ...

Fight, Fight, Fight!: The Theatre Award Season Commences

Tonight, within the undoubtedly sumptuous setting of the Savoy Hotel, the theatre awards season really gets going with the presentation of the Evening Standard Theatre Awards. With a slew of famous names presenting the awards (Karen Gillan and Gemma Arterton to name just two, presenting the awards for Best Design and Best Actress respectively) and Dame Edna Everage in the role of host bringing the requisite razzle-dazzle and frivolity this promises to be a brilliant evening with which to kick-start the season. In the spirit of frivolity, however, what would make it even more exciting would be if the winners were decided by fights …

Bout 1: Bertie Carvel, nominated for Best Actor for his role as Miss Trunchbull in Matilda, versus Dame Edna for the (imaginary) honour of Best Man Dressed As A Woman.

Bout 2: Richard Dear fights himself for the sake of his two plays, The Heretic and One Man, Two Guvnors.

Bout 3: Husband and wife duo Kyle Soller and Phoebe Fox have a domestic over the Outstanding Newcomer prize.

Bout 4: Benedict Cumberbatch and Johnny Lee Miller fight alternate rounds as Victor Frankenstein and the Creature for the honour of Best Actor.

Whilst it's a shame that Dominic West didn't make the cut from the long list for his work in Butley and that Anne-Marie Duff didn't pick up a nomination for her widely-acclaimed performance in Cause Célèbre, the standard of talent represented in the shortlists is nothing if not phenomenal and certainly must have caused some tough decisions for the judges. It will be interesting to see who emerges victorious from the ring ...

Yes, We Know Who You Are

Doctor Who has done strange things to the word association part of my brain. The passive TV consumption part of said brain finds itself in a surprising position of strength against the rational conversational part and the ensuing conflicts have as their catalyst the character of Harriet Jones from series 1-4 of the rebooted Doctor Who show; whenever I see Penelope Wilton in anything, TV brain shouts 'Harriet Jones liiiives!' which is more than a little odd during viewings of Calendar Girls and whenever I hear the word 'MP' it is instantly followed (at least in my mind) by 'of Flydale North'. Attempts to become conversant in parliamentary politics have been hindered by the two second pause required to replace 'of Flydale North' with the appropriate constituency. Attempts to explain which MP is now following me on Twitter are equally problematic. Dear me.The politician with the greatest perceived effect on my life is a fictional one. What does this say about our esteemed party leaders ...?

Lost and Found and Run Over

One witch's hat on the road into Trowbridge. Infinitely more interesting than a soggy, muddy glove. This makes me very happy. It's the little things, you understand ...

How Do You Get Yours?

'Her Brown Back Hanging From Her Pearls'

The other evening I took off the various items strung around my neck and flung them rather haphazardly across the room. When I looked across, I saw they had fallen together, a set of headphones lightly wrapped around four strings of fake pearls. Without reflection, the phrase "her brown back hanging from her pearls" came into my mind. For me, it is one of the most striking turns of phrase - and certainly the one which has stuck with me most clearly and tenaciously - in F. Scott Fitzgerald's Tender Is The Night; whereas pearls hanging from any part of the body would be a typical, banal image, an easy image to marry with Fitzgerald's  repeated thematic treatment of the beautiful rich, the idea of a back hanging from pearls has always seemed to me somewhat macabre and has always presented itself in very visual terms in my imagination. The pearls became fixed, a superficial point (much like the indulgence in conspicuous consumption practiced by both Rosemary and Nicole) from which to hang various parts of Nicole Diver. Nicole herself, however, was verbally dismembered, her precarious grip on being whole presciently questioned in this image. The phrase came to me so violently when looking at my clutter that I wasn't sure whether I was hearing it in my mind, remembering an image from having read the book or seeing the words in front of me. The sight of the headphones entangled with the necklace played into this momentary confusion and led me to consider the method of literary consumption today. Although there is much to recommend the tactile experience of a physical book and equally plenty of advantages offered by e-books and Kindles there need not be a preferred or superior medium for all literature; a great image (and indeed, a great story) must surely be able to transcend this, if presented simply and concisely. In this case, the visual reminded me of what I had read which I then consolidated by capturing the visual in watercolours. Due to the strength of the phrase, I am certain that it would have retained its initial impact had I not read the Tender Is The Night, but rather listened to it on an audio file or book. That is not to say that all books can be equally served by all mediums; I have recently finished Ford Madox Ford's immense (in both senses of the word) quadrilogy Parade's End, whose impressionist language and open-ended sentences drawing out images and ideas often cannot make the same impact that Fitzgerald achieves so concisely. Rather, it is so beautifully and intricately constructed and uses such words - astutely chosen but both intellectual and now obsolete - that the audience needs to have the time to re-read the sentences and roll the words about on the tip of their tongue to be able to savour and thereby appreciate the flavour of them. I doubt I would have been struck in quite the same way had I dropped my headphones onto the branch of the Groby Great Tree. But somewhere in this rambling paragraph there is a perhaps an argument: all methods of literary consumption are viable and all are to be encouraged and explored, but some are more viable for different works. To quote Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, "it [is] an aesthetic choice more than a moral one". Here the aesthetic is that of the work and not that of the medium - it's just unfortunate (and unavoidable) that an aesthetic is only truly understood in retrospect.