The Avengers Assemble

They say that less is more. Well, Stan Lee doesn’t agree, as this month sees the release of Avengers, the film version of Marvel’s superhero gang-bang of the same name. Directed by Buffy creator and comic-con frenzy starter Joss Whedon, the story sees Nick Fury (Samuel L Jackson) putting together a team of superheroes including Iron Man (Robert Downey Jnr), Captain America (Chris Evans) and Thor (Chris Hemsworth). Also joining the array of I’ve-had-my-own-film costumed A-listers are Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) and The Hulk (Mark Ruffalo). Ok, so The Hulk has had his own film(s), but as everyone involved would rather forget that they had ever been made, we will too. With so many characters you might think that this film will suffer from too much squeezed into the running time, but with the characters already a familiar bunch, there shouldn’t be too much background and it can get straight to action. The main characters are wonderfully flawed. Thor is an egotistical misogynist, Iron Man is a narcissistic drunk and Captain America, well, he’s just a whiney little bitch. Ultimately this means good news for fans of Robert Downey Jnr’s brilliant one-liner delivery service, Chris Helmsworth’s smouldering bad-boy sex appeal and The Hulk, who is just sort of left in the background to break things, which was always the best bit. So why does my Smiley-sense tingle? Well, looking online revealed no clues, early reviews, sneak looks, whispered rumours, leaked memos etc, etc. There are articles, if all you care about is what Helmsworth thinks about the fact that Thor doesn’t have a cape in this film (he doesn’t give a shit), or why Nick Fury is black (because they wanted Samuel “Bad Mother F•••er” L Jackson to play him, foo’). If, however, you want any actual insight into the movie, tough. Will it be a Hulking smash hit or a Thor point for Marvel? See it to find out.

Smiley