Looks like Earth might need something a little old-fashioned,” warns Samuel L Jackson’s generally furious General Fury, as the battle lines are drawn in Marvel Avengers Assemble.
He’s talking about Iron Man, Captain America, Thor and The Incredible Hulk; collectively known as The Avengers, the Travelling Wilburys of the superhero set. But if it’s old-fashioned heroism Earth needs, Earth is out of luck. Despite its pedigree (the team was launched by Marvel in 1963 as a response to DC’s Justice League of America comic, featuring Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman), Avengers is a noughties-era blockbuster to the core.
Joss Whedon’s lavishly enjoyable, chewily-titled film (the branding’s there to warn British cinema-goers that John Steed will not be making an appearance) is an assemblage of everything that’s good about contemporary popcorn cinema; just as importantly, it’s a rejection of everything that isn’t. Avengers might be short on bright ideas of its own, but co-writer and director Whedon has a magpie’s eye for stealing other people’s, and an enviable knack of improving them.
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