Avengers Assemble // DVD Review
This month our chef is Joss Whedon and his ingredients are prime beef, short-crust pastry, mushrooms, and a piece of dog-shit.
If you are unfamiliar with the format of the BBC daytime show ‘Ready, Steady, Cook!” allow me to enlighten you: A world class chef is presented with a random bag of ingredients by a member of the audience from which (s)he must produce a sumptuous - and photogenic – feast. This month our chef is Joss Whedon and, metaphorically speaking, his ingredients are prime beef, short-crust pastry, mushrooms, and a piece of dog-shit.
If you, like me, have weathered ‘for-fuck’s-sake’ stares from cinema ushers while you waited for the post-credits vignettes after Iron Man, Captain America, Thor and The Hulk then you’ll be delighted to see that this culmination of Marvel’s multi-hero vision is a flawed but, ultimately, damn fine film. It could easily have been a confused hotchpotch of explosions and posturing in the hands of, say, Michael Bay, but Paramount’s calculated risk of allowing the relatively untested Whedon to direct and co-write has really paid off. He has the geek-chic credentials to keep the Com-Con purists on board, and he keeps the story flowing with the light touch, intelligence and wit that one would expect from the mind behind Buffy…, Dollhouse and the criminally overlooked Firefly. The story is driven by the characters and punctuated by the (utterly awesome) action set-pieces, instead of vice-versa.
So, what’s the turd in the Wellington? Well, alongside a suave genius, a demigod, a beautiful assassin and a tortured colossus we have Captain America, a star-spangled anachronism whose “powers” are to sling a metal frisbee and say things. No worry, though. I hear that in The Avengers 2 (also to be helmed by Whedon and due for a 2014 release) he gets fucked to death by Captain China after over-borrowing from him. Here’s hoping…
Jay Freeman
