'Avengers Assemble' dir. Joss Whedon

It is not too difficult to imagine the reception Joss Whedon received when he pitched this film:-

Execs: Six of them, Joss?
Whedon: Yeah, six, why not?

Why not indeed? Well, given the seemingly limitless supply of superhero films, a more pressing question might be why?

Well, beyond the current trends of more is more and bigger is better and the financial motives that lie behind those sentiments, 'Avengers Assemble' does not do too bad a job of answering why it has been made. The first third of the film is somewhat confused as the each of the heroes get given perhaps one or two scenes in which to characterise themselves. It is unsurpising that as a consequence most of the film's best lines come from Robert Downey Jr's Ironman, the most interesting and well rounded of any of them.

The plot is, well, almost beyond comprehension, making occasional comments on renewable energy and allegories to a 'Terminator'-esque relationship with high technology. This technology unleashes Loki, played with glorious malevolence by Tom Hiddleston, who decides to unleash an army of aliens against Earth. His motive is a long-running brotherly disagreement with Thor (Chris Hemsworth), who when not hitting objects with a hammer, delivers grave speeches about what is coming next.

Trying to anticipate what's coming next are an organization called SHIELD, led by Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) who gets Captain America (Chris Evans), Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) and Ironman together for the coming fight. An unstable element is introduced to the group more for his brains than his potential brawn, Mark Ruffalo's The Hulk otherwise known as mild mannered scientist Bruce Banner. No prizes for guessing how long the 'mild mannered' section lasts.

Once the heroes get together, the inevitable massive fight scene shortly follows. Their version of the cloudbase from 'Captain Scarlet' finds itself in some serious difficulties, plagued as it is by Jeremy Renner's brainwashed Hawkeye. When Johannson makes the mistake of making The Hulk angry, defeat seems close. Fortunately, Captain America saves the day, a sequence stemming out of the conflict between Evans' simple heroism and Downey Jr's neat line in modern cynicism.

After a little more characterisation for Johannson and Renner and the inevitable 'we're having a crisis' scene in which Samuel L. Jackson gets angry, it is on to New York for the final confrontation. What follows is a fun if preposterous turn of events, the highlight of which is a duel between Loki and The Hulk. The ending, whilst equally absurd, fits into the spirit of the rest of the film neatly.

As with all ensemble hero films, this does seem to suffer from having too many main characters. Black Widow and Hawkeye seem particularly underdeveloped and some of the continuity seems a little inconsistent. How can a human character get a bloody nose in one sequence and be perfectly fine when thrown against a wall minutes later? 'Avengers Assemble' does not attempt to answer this question but perhaps it is best if it does not try. It is, after all, nothing more and nothing less than a fine example of popcorn cinema.