195, The Avengers Assemble

Here we go - a childhood dream finally immortalised on the big screen.  The culmination of the last however many years of Marvel movies, bringing together some of the greatest screen Super Heroes of modern day.  I could refer to the Marvel Chronicle and state that this movies origins date way back to the year 'dot' with the first comic of whoever or I could even say that start by saying this movie started the thought process off with David Hasselhoff donning the Nick Fury eye patch in the 1998 TV shows but that is just doing this masterpiece a huge injustice.

For me, the Avengers build up started with Iron Man 1 in 2008 and here's my thought process as to why.  This initial movie introduced us to Tony Stark, Pepper Potts & Agent Coulson.  Then, later that year The Incredible Hulk (with Edward Norton) had a non credited role with Downey Jnr again, opening our eyes to the first pairing.  Avengers 1 & 2 accounted for.  Skip forward 2 years to 2010 and Iron Man 2 hits our screen with Stark, Potts & Coulson back once again but this time Jackson dons the patch to play Nick Fury and Scarlett Johansson appears as Black Widow.  Here we know have our 3rd Avenger and their Leader on the register. 

Chris Hemsworth rocks up in 2011 as Thor where we also meet Loki, Skelsgard and Hawkeye (albeit briefly) and an appearance from Coulson opens our eyes up a bit more to 'Shield'.  Bad Guy, Scientist & Avengers 4 & 5 now on board which leaves Captain America himself, Steve Rodgers who launched onto the multiplex later that year and with a tag line of "The First Avenger" bought together the Shield / Stark Legacy with Fury taking a part alongside him.  Along the way there are some voice over roles including Paul Bettany as Starks speaking computer 'Jarvis' who maintain their posts and in 2012 The Avengers Assemble brings them all together with a new Hulk on board in the form of Mark Ruffalo and if you have managed to keep up with that lot, read on..........

This movie is Epic! on ALL levels.  The cast is awesome.  Downey Jnr and the rest of the motley crew show off their individual talents to mass effect and as expected, ego's flair for a majority of the movie until a moment of clarity brings them all together in one of the best end sequences captures on movie since, well - since forever.

Its not the just mind blowing action, plot or even the expected Stan Lee cameo that make this movie brilliant - there are moments of humour, surprisingly from the Hulk and keep a look out for the "Any Which Way but Loose Moment" between Hulk & Thor - "Right Clyde!"  I showed my age and sadly, laughed aloud - a little too aloud.

Until now we didn't know too much about Hawkeye and although we have met the Widow, her back story was vague but these two happily seem to come as one - working together under Shield as spy / assassin roles and fit in smoothly with the rest of the band of heroes, adding an element of humanity to the proceedings. 

Hulk in my mind is the best re-incarnation yet, seemingly carried on from the Ed Norton version they call him in from the cold to beef up the good guys and the Stark / Hulk 'bro-mance' manages to keep you entertained with Starks genuine admiration for the Dr as well as a cheeky need to see him freak out.

Thor as the "God" among the group initially finds it the hardest to fit in, with Loki being his brother n'all and the focus of the movie does seem to have more in common with these two than the rest, the rest of the Avengers involvement only seemingly required because of this Godly battle taking place on our dear old planet.

Captain America is the honoured Hero of the group with the history to back it up and manages to gather the most admirers in his wake, including Coulson but his lack of recent knowledge does put him at a slight disadvantage, played out comically with a few one liner quips against his more modern counterparts.

Nick Fury is Nick Fury, nothing much to talk about there - he doesn't really do much and as for Loki, He's brilliantly acted and a lot meaner and tougher than he was in his first outing.

The Army that descends through the space portal to destroy earth looks amazing in "Real D" so with huge Kraken like monsters flying around taking out building with a single swoop it takes all of the Avengers working together to actually start to make a dent in their armour but when the action really starts to take off about 45 minutes from the end it becomes a non-stop roller coaster ride of explosions, teamwork and overall awesomeness.

I hoped this would be the Superhero movie to end all Superhero movies and it was.  Stan can sleep well knowing if he didn't do another thing, this would be more than good enough to sign out of the movie business.  Luckily - there not going to do that and the Avengers 2 is already in discussions but before we get any where near to that we have announcements on Iron Man 3 & Thor 2 so its not planning on even slowing down to catch its breath before the Marvel circus comes to town once more.

Having following these characters as I have for pretty much all of my life I feel I can say the following in the company of friends.  Robert, Chris, Mark, Chris Scarlett, Jeremy, Tom, Clarke, Stellan, Samuel, Gwenyth & Cobie - Thank you.  You've been brilliant.