The Super Hero team up of a lifetime, featuring iconic Marvel Super Heroes Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Thor, Captain America, Hawkeye and Black Widow. When an unexpected enemy emerges that threatens global safety and security, Nick Fury, Director of the international peacekeeping agency known as S.H.I.E.L.D., finds himself in need of a team to pull the world back from the brink of disaster. Spanning the globe, a daring recruitment effort begins.
Reviews
The Daily Mail
Chris Tookey
“A superior example of its kind, with sequences on a par with the best Spiderman and Batman movies. And technically, it’s a real marvel.”
20/04/2012
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The Scotsman
Alistair Harkness
“Whedon provides little payoffs for those paying close attention and sows seeds for possible future instalments ... 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. ”
26/04/2012
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The Daily Telegraph
Robbie Collin
“A seasoned writer of oddball fantasy shows such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Firefly, Whedon is the ideal man to marshal such a broad and colourful cast. His script, structured like a stand-up comedy set with punchlines, reversals and callbacks, keeps things accessible and fluid once the awkward set-up is past. This is good news for Downey Jr, whose Shatner-esque delivery is markedly less irritating when he has something funny to say, but even better for Johansson’s Black Widow, who is now a level-headed action heroine in the Buffy mould ... Commendably, Whedon and his small army of assistant directors also apply the ‘once more with feeling’ formula to Avengers’ action sequences, reupholstering imperfect set-pieces from other recent blockbusters. ”
27/04/2012
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Time Out
Tom Huddleston
“This is as close as cinema gets to a fairground ride: it’s shiny, noisy and exhilarating. Whedon directs with a sledgehammer, bashing the audience, Hulk-like, with action piled upon action, explosion after explosion. And if it can, at times, seem a little busy, the cumulative effect is thrilling.”
25/04/2012
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The Times
Kate Muir
“While there is plenty of kapow! action, and everyone is well-equipped with hammers, lightning bolts, deflector shields, explosive arrows, rocket-powered suits and whatnot, the pleasure lies in the minor battles between the individual superegos before they become a team of six. The Avengers’ arch-enemy is Tom Hiddleston as Loki. Although he is evil and dressed like a Matrix extra, he seems charming and intelligent, and would top your placement at dinner. ”
27/04/2012
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Total Film
Jonathan Crocker
“With X-Men and X2, Bryan Singer showed how you could disguise a compelling ensemble drama as a superhero actioner. This is exactly Whedon’s speciality – as well as creating cult TV phenomenon Buffy, he worked on the scripts for X-Men and Toy Story – and his screenplay drags together a group of characters with pretty much zero interest in each other. How? By locking big egos in small rooms and letting the funnies fly. Lifting the movie’s pace every time he steps on screen in the first half, RDJ’s Tony Stark catalyses the Avengers with machine-gun wit.”
20/04/2012
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The Sunday Times
Edward Porter
“ As utterly cartoonish superhero movies go, this one’s a treat. For starters, the action scenes are big, dynamic and lucid, and there are lots of them. What’s more, while this bumper load of superpowered crashing and bashing is never allowed to crowd out the characters’ personal stories, it does mean those stories have to be compressed. In the heroes’ solo movies, the character-arc stuff has usually been padded out tediously; here, there’s just the right amount to punctuate the action.”
29/04/2012
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The Evening Standard
David Sexton
“Let’s get that over with straightaway. If you like superhero movies at all, you’ll absolutely love Avengers Assemble. It’s got everything.”
27/04/2012
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The Guardian
Peter Bradshaw
“For me, no superhero crew without Kick-Ass's Hit-Girl could ever be truly awesome, but this one is registering strongly on the awesome-o-meter nonetheless. It's an enjoyably absurd and absurdly enjoyable extravaganza, both delirious and surrealist.”
26/04/2012
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The Independent
Anthony Quinn
“Sorting out the backstories and getting all these guys into one room means that the first half of the film is pretty talky, though Whedon's script sparks up the exposition with some smart one-liners and comebacks, most of them courtesy of Downey Jr, the flash, flip prankster of the bunch. It's when battle commences and the supertoys come out of the box that non-committed viewers might find their attention wandering. Immoveable objects can only encounter irresistible forces so many times before it becomes a bit routine. Hammer of Thor versus the bulk of Hulk? Who cares?”
27/04/2012
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The Financial Times
Antonia Quirke
“Hiddleston recently commented (defensively) that superheroes provide a “unique canvas upon which our apocalyptic nightmares can be projected and played out …” As DC and Marvel dominate the cinematic landscape, let it not fall over our eyes that any of this stuff is Shakespeare, people. You’d never have caught Richard Burton coming out with that kind of thing. ”
26/04/2012
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The Independent on Sunday
Nicholas Barber
“As snappy as his film is, Whedon can't quite make Avengers Assemble seem anything more than a marketing novelty, principally because he hasn't come up with a story that's big enough to squeeze in this many larger-than-life characters. ”
29/04/2012
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The Observer
Philip French
“If superheroes are multiples of the ordinary variety, the world as perceived by Hollywood is currently in as dire straits as it was during the great depression when the comic-strip masked avengers were first created.”
29/04/2012
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The Spectator
Deborah Ross
“It’s a 3-D bonanza with battleships, iron dragons, explosions galore.
But frankly, my lovelies, I could have done with less action, and the back stories? Rather more.”
28/04/2012
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