Avengers 3D

The biggest comic book film in history, has finally hit our screens - Was it worth it after all the smoke and CGI clears?

Finally the movie that all comic book fans, young and old, have been waiting for, has arrived. With a bang and a thump and more CGI than you can shake a stick at, Marvel comics and Paramount have collected the greatest collection of super heroes ever to grace page and screen and thrust them upon cinema goers for the movie event of 2012

The Hulk, Iron Man, Captain America, The Mighty Thor and the slightly less well known, Black Widow and Hawkey, are brought together by Nick Fury (Samuel L Jackson), under the S.H.I.E.L.D Banner, to fight the forces of darkness from another world under the leadership of Thor's evil younger brother Loki (Tom Hiddleston). And all of this over a small glowing cube, called the Tesseract that conveniently holds enough power to run the universe until the end of time. Bring all of these forces together to battle for the ultimate prize and you are going to have one hell of a bun fight.

Even to the average non comic book fan, those who didn't sit through to the end of the credits of, Iron Man 2, Thor, Captain America and the Green Lantern to see the next piece in the puzzle, this still has to be the movie event of the year. A brain fry of CGI madness, huge stars and a better story than many would have predicted along with some brilliant one liners, make this a really good watch for fans of most ages.

The only let down for me, in a film that will probably go down in history as an epic, was the lack of character development for Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) and Hawk Eye (Jeremy Renner), both of whom admittedly did not have full length features (Quite a few in the case of Hulk) to establish their characters. The story as a whole, flowed very well, riddled with one liners from Robert Downey Jr (Iron Man) and Mark Ruffalo (The Incredible Hulk) in the best portrayal of the Green Monster and his deep, dark a brooding alter ego, that I have ever seen.

Chris Hemsworth reprises his role as the Mighty Thor, showing off immense strength and adding another string to his credibility as a decent actor, but it is Tom Hiddleston who stole the show with his portrayal of the ambitious, arrogant and manipulative Loki. Even is his silences he is menacing and a true pleasure to watch for the whole of the 2 hours and 22 minutes for which this film runs (don't worry it does seem a lot shorter than that in the action roller-coaster of a ride.)

Chris Evans as Captain America, probably plays a bigger role in this film than he should. His character is not strong enough to hold the film (unlike that of Downey and Ruffalo), and I am not sure he is a strong enough actor to pull this one off. His character is a little boring in places, but to his credit he keeps at it and probably improves on his last outing as the all American hero.

Samuel L Jackson as Nick Fury is inspired as always, leaving the audience wondering which side of the battle he really is on? The lovely Gwyneth Paltrow does a good job as Pepper Potts, but sadly only makes brief appearances. Clark Gregg returns as the very likable Agent Coulson for the fourth time in the Marvel Comics films and gives a superb showing surrounded by so many other strong characters. The surprise of the film comes from 20 year old Canadian Cobie Smulders who plays the role of Agent Maria Hill and gives a performance that will hopefully ensure that this first feature outing will soon be repeated. Her character is gripping and demands attention.

The film ticks almost all of the boxes across a number of genres and will suit almost any sort of movie fan. The 3D once again is not used to its full potential, but I would recommend seeing this more than once in order to follow all the action, which can be a bit much at times, while still being really enjoyable. I am excited for the next installment and hope that it will not take Paramount as long to make the follow-up

8/10