Nick Fury and the international agency S.H.I.E.L.D. bring together a team of super humans to form The Avengers to help save the Earth from Loki & his various membered army.
Big, brash and very funny, Joss Whedon’s Avengers Assemble is equal to the sum of its parts – and for once, that’s no faint praise. Suit up.
As the first of this summer’s three superhero blockbusters (the others are The Dark Knight Rises and The Amazing Spider-Man), Avengers sets the bar impressively high, and that it does it with a smile is all the more refreshing. A lot of this stuff has been done before, and recently – but never quite as well as this.
There's not much to see after they've sorted out the pecking order, but until then it's fun to watch Whedon pitch his heroes against each other. Child's play, maybe, but entertaining all the same.
The Avengers have been assembled and, for the most part, they fit together superbly. A joyous blend of heroism and humour that raises the stakes even as it maintains a firm grip on what makes the individual heroes tick.
It's a Marvel.
Josh Whedon has pulled together an action movie of real wit, fun and spectacle, with some remarkable setpieces.
Thanks to the skills of Joss Whedon – and a fantastic Hulk – Marvel’s ensemble superhero caper is witty, exciting and fun.
A plot twist or two wouldn’t have gone amiss, and the picture is overlong, but this is a welcome start to summer blockbuster mayhem.
All in then, a super, heroic effort by Whedon that should please the fanboy and non-fanboy audience alike. With superhero inflation now running higher than ever, Whedon and every other superhero film director will have a hard job topping this.
Of course it's about one hundred times brighter than Transformers and Michael Bay's imbecilic spinoffs, and should keep multiplexes everywhere in its competent grip. But I didn't love it.
With this many crimefighters on the same screen, it’s little surprise this is largely a terrifically enjoyable experience – one that’ll please both fanboys and the public at large.
It's an enjoyably absurd and absurdly enjoyable extravaganza, both delirious and surrealist.
The film’s not a game-changer in the same way as Chris Nolan’s Batman reboot, but then it never tries to be – it’s simply a well-executed, highly enjoyable summer popcorn movie, which is exactly what it should be.
Struggling to find any truly iconic moments, the film doesn’t linger long in the mind and will surely be much diminished on the small screen.
So, is it as good as we all hoped it would be? Damn right it 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.
The special effects are impressive but not especially imaginative, and the film is unduly protracted.
Online anger erupts over blockbuster's 'racelifting'.
Emily Wight, Genevieve Roberts, The Independent on Sunday, 08/04/2012
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General release. Check local listings for show times.