MARVEL ADVENGERS 3D Movie at Movies @ Gorey cinema opens Thursday 26th   

Marvel Studios presents in association with Paramount Pictures “Marvel’s The Avengers”–the Super Hero team up of a lifetime, featuring iconic Marvel Super Heroes Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Thor, Captain America, Hawkeye and Black Widow. When an unexpected enemy emerges that threatens global safety and security, Nick Fury, Director of the international peacekeeping agency known as S.H.I.E.L.D., finds himself in need of a team to pull the world back from the brink of disaster. Spanning the globe, a daring recruitment effort begins. Starring Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Hemsworth, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner and Samuel L. Jackson, and directed by Joss Whedon, “Marvel’s The Avengers” is based on the ever-popular Marvel comic book series “The Avengers,” first published in 1963 and a comics institution ever since. Prepare yourself for an exciting event movie, packed with action and spectacular special effects, when “Marvel’s The Avengers” assemble in summer 2012. In “Marvel’s The Avengers,” superheroes team up to pull the world back from the brink of disaster when an unexpected enemy threatens global security.

The Avengers: Film Review

9:01 PM PDT 4/19/2012 by Todd McCarthy

 

 

 

The Bottom Line

The biggest Marvel movie yet, destined for the box office stratosphere.

Opens

April 25 (international), May 4 (U.S.)

(Disney)

Cast

Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Hemsworth, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner, Tom Hiddleston, Clark Gregg, Cobie Smulders, Stellan Skarsgard, Samuel L. Jackson, Gwyneth Paltrow, Paul Bettany

Director

Joss Whedon

Director Joss Whedon pulls off a stunning feat in bringing balance to this superhuman circus, engineered to charm the geek core and non-fans alike.

The All-Star Game of modern superhero extravaganzas, The Avengers is humongous, the film Marvel and its legions of fans have been waiting for. It’s hard to imagine that anyone with an appetite for the trademark’s patented brand of fantasy, effects, mayhem and strangely dressed he-men will be disappointed; not only does this eye-popping 3D display of visual effects fireworks feature an enormously high proportion of action scenes, but director Joss Whedon has adroitly balanced the celebrity circus to give every single one of the superstar characters his or her due. Worldwide box office returns will be, in a word, Marvelous.

VIDEO: ‘The Avengers’ Premiere Red Carpet Interviews 

Over the past several years, Marvel has, with accelerated speed, expanded its cinematic repertoire of over-muscled, generally double-identitied heroes not otherwise encumbered by exclusive contracts with other studios—most notably The Hulk, Iron Man, Thor and Captain America–to arrive at the point where this summit meeting of superhuman good guys could be assembled. (A prominent relative, Spider-Man, has his own reboot coming up this summer.) After this, the characters will go their separate ways (Iron Man 3 starts shooting next month, with second chapters of Thor and Captain America set to roll within the year) before gathering again before too many movie summers pass. With the bundle this one will make, the pressure will be on make it happen sooner rather than later.

As creatively variable and predictably formulaic as the Marvel films have been, this one will not only make the core geek audience feel like it’s died and gone to Asgard but has so much going for it that many non-fans will be disarmed and charmed. This is effects-driven, mass appeal summer fare par excellence, that sought-after rare bird that hits all the quadrants, as marketing mavens like to say. As enormous as the production is, though, the appeal of the ensemble cast makes a crucial difference; you get enough but not too much of each of them and they all get multiple scenes to themselves to shine.

PHOTOS: ‘Avengers’ Premiere: Red Carpet Arrivals

To boil down the particulars of this latest attempt to bring ruin to all we hold dear, sinister Thor villain Loki (Tom Hiddleston, looking like Richard E. Grant’s effete younger brother), has gained possession of the tesseract, an all-powerful substance contained in an opaque cube that not only provides unlimited sustainable energy but a portal to outer space. “I am burdened with glorious purpose,” Loki purrs while taunting eye-patched S.H.I.E.L.D. master Samuel L. Jackson (finally with something to do in a Marvel film) with the promised arrival of his army of outer space warriors.

Down but not out, the good guys begin assembling on board one of the cooler modes of transport seen anywhere in a while, a giant (and beautifully rendered) aircraft carrier that can rise out of the water to become an invisible space ship—hence, a helicarrier–and serve as a first-rate staging area for operations against Loki. Among those arriving on board are Bruce Banner, otherwise known as The Hulk (Mark Ruffalo, the third actor, after Eric Bana and Edward Norton, to give the green giant a go); Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow (Scarlet Johansson), a sultry scarlet-haired assassin first seen turning the tables on nasty interrogators despite being strapped to a chair; Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Loki’s long-locked brother and bearer of the universe’s mightiest hammer, and Mr. Old School himself, Steve Rogers, aka Captain America (Chris Evans), a World War II hero who’s not quite up to speed on all the latest super-technology but who does carry an impenetrable shield. For his part, Robert Downey Jr.’s Tony Stark, better known as Iron Man, joins incipient girlfriend Pepper (Gwyneth Paltrow) for a brief-tete-a-tete before deigning to lend his special expertise to the cause.

Although they really should be saving their energy for the the battle against Loki and his minions, the Avengers team can’t resist getting into it with each other from time to time. One could say that this is just gratuitous time-killing, but it could as persuasively be argued that watching The Hulk duke it out with Thor for bragging rights as to who’s tougher is what such a film is all about; at least there’s nothing perfunctory about it, as there is when superheroes routinely dispatch aliens and enemies who exist just to get blown away. The friction between Iron Man and Captain America, for example, is all about style and attitude; the former is far too irreverent and glib for the latter, for whom patriotism and coming to the rescue are not laughing matters.

PHOTOS: 28 of Summer’s Most Anticipated Movies: ‘Avengers,’ ‘Dark Knight,’ ‘Prometheus

‘With only one feature directorial credit to his name, the middling 2005 sci-fier Serenity, Whedon of Buffy fame would not have been the first name on most people’s lists to tame a potentially unwieldy project. But from a logistical point of view alone, Whedon imposes a grip on the material that feels like that of a benevolent general, marshaling myriad technical resources (including an excellent use of 3D) while, even more impressively, juggling eight major characters, giving them all cool and important things to do.

Never, though, does the film stall to dwell on individual characters just to give them screen time; the heroes are almost always doing something that relates to the challenge at hand. Even when the impudent Loki is held prisoner in seemingly inescapable circumstances, there is still forward movement, which crests and then crashes with tsunami force near Grand Central Station in Manhattan; uncountable numbers of alien warriors arrive from the skies, accompanied by strikingly designed metal leviathans that undulate like skeletal monsters of the deep as they cruise over New York seeking targets.

In this titanic battle, which occupies most of the film’s final half-hour, all the Marvel heroes’ talents are put to the test. In addition to Iron Man making a quick trip to outer space to deal with an incoming missile, special agent Clint Barton, or Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner), is so good with a hi-tech bow and arrow that you imagine they’ll have to dragoon Katniss Everdeen into the sequel as a guest star just to see who’s better. For his part, Jackson’s Nick Fury has his hands full restraining army generals from nuking the Big Apple in order to off the aliens.

PHOTOS: ‘The Avengers’: Comics vs. Film

It’s clamorous, the save-the-world story is one everyone’s seen time and again, and the characters have been around for more than half a century in 500 comic book issues. But Whedon and his cohorts have managed to stir all the personalities and ingredients together so that the resulting dish, however familiar, is irresistibly tasty again. A quick coda reveals, to well-versed fans at least, who the new adversary in the next installment will be, underlining a reality as absolute as the turning of the Earth: Especially after this, Marvel movies will go on and on and on.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/avengers-film-review-robert-downey-jr-scarlett-johansson-samuel-l-jackson-314291

 

 

 

Marvel’s The Avengers

By Justin Chang

 

Chris Hemsworth and Chris Evans star in Marvel’s superhero pic ‘The Avengers.’

A Walt Disney Motion Pictures Studios release of a Marvel Studios presentation in association with Paramount Pictures of a Marvel Studios production. Produced by Kevin Feige. Executive producers, Alan Fine, Jon Favreau, Stan Lee, Louis D’Esposito, Patricia Whitcher, Victoria Alonso, Jeremy Latcham. Directed, written by Joss Whedon; story, Zak Penn, Whedon, based on the Marvel comics by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby; “Captain America” created by Joe Simon, Kirby.

Tony Stark/Iron Man – Robert Downey Jr.
Steve Rogers/Captain America – Chris Evans
Bruce Banner/The Hulk – Mark Ruffalo
Thor – Chris Hemsworth
Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow – Scarlett Johansson
Clint Barton/Hawkeye – Jeremy Renner
Loki – Tom Hiddleston
Agent Phil Coulson – Clark Gregg
Agent Maria Hill – Cobie Smulders
Professor Erik Selvig – Stellan Skarsgard
Nick Fury – Samuel L. Jackson
Pepper Potts – Gwyneth Paltrow
Jarvis – Paul Bettany

However questionable an idea it may have seemed initially, and at times along the way, Marvel’s cinematic master plan for its comicbook all-stars pays off in extravagant fashion with “The Avengers.” Like a superior, state-of-the-art model built from reconstituted parts, Joss Whedon’s buoyant, witty and robustly entertaining superhero smash-up is escapism of a sophisticated order, boasting a tonal assurance and rich reserves of humor that offset the potentially lumbering and unavoidably formulaic aspects of this 143-minute team-origin story. With fan-ticipation reaching Hulk pressure-cooker levels, Disney’s domestic and international returns will be nothing short of stratospheric, ancillary streams close to eternal.

In preparation for this long-anticipated convergence, Marvel ambitiously envisioned not one series but an entire family of interlocking, self-perpetuating franchises, kicking off with 2008′s enjoyable “Iron Man” and continuing, in more erratic fashion, with “The Incredible Hulk,” “Iron Man 2″ and last year’s “Thor” and “Captain America: The First Avenger.” Under the stewardship of producer and Marvel exec Kevin Feige, it’s been a lucrative enterprise if not a consistently thrilling one, and for all but the most die-hard devotees, attendance has sometimes seemed a matter of obligation as well as pleasure. “Stay tuned,” the post-credits teasers may have urged, but after awhile, they seemed to send a different message: “Bear with us.”

“The Avengers” fully keeps the promise implicit in that plea, taking one of the dominant movie trends of recent years — the nonstop proliferation of comicbook-based superheroes — and pushing it to orgiastic new levels of CG-inflated, 3D-augmented geek-out mayhem. Expensive and expansive though it may be, however, the film is no bloated behemoth. As written and directed by the ever genre-savvy Whedon, it’s a clean-burning, six-cylinder entertainment that exudes discipline in every particular, from the script’s balance of sincerity and self-effacing humor to the well-integrated visual effects to the keen sense of proportion that governs the ensemble. Whenever the possibility of boredom or excess rears its head, Whedon finds an elegant solution.

Crucially, sequences that might have played as laborious buildup are handled in a brisk, straight-ahead manner that quickly focuses attention while methodically elevating the stakes, scene by scene. A new threat of global annihilation looms from the outset when Thor’s megalomaniacal brother, Loki (Tom Hiddleston), arrives on Earth in a petulant huff and steals the Tesseract, the all-powerful energy cube found at the bottom of the ocean in “Captain America.”

Overruling his colleagues in the shadowy law-enforcement agency Shield, Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) seeks to mobilize an elite squad of save-the-dayers known as the Avengers. A superhero summit is held aboard Fury’s enormous airship, though it’s more like a misfit meet-and-greet. The script deftly blends comedy, tension and on-the-fly character recaps as these life-size action figures, some of whom have superhuman egos to match their abilities, come into contact.

The best lines, naturally, go to dryly sarcastic playboy billionaire Tony Stark/Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), who immediately clashes with earnest WWII relic Steve Rogers/Captain America (Chris Evans). An amusing early sequence finds these two squaring off with imperious god Thor (Chris Hemsworth) before they realize they share the same objective: Recover the cube before the evil Loki, ironically pronounced “low-key,” harnesses its power to summon a nasty intergalactic army that will enslave humanity.

Providing an extra dash of suspense is the deceptively reserved Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo), serving in a strictly scientific capacity, as his transformation into the uncontrollable Hulk would (and eventually does) threaten the safety of everyone onboard the ship. That includes Fury’s whip-smart operative, Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), who more than holds her own amid all the chrome and testosterone, and gets more of a chance to flesh out her troubled backstory here than she did in “Iron Man 2.” Specifically, she has a vested interest in breaking the spell Loki has placed on her old ally, Clint Barton/Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner, briefly glimpsed in “Thor”), a skilled archer with uniquely deadly arrows.

The prior pics tried to position each hero at the center of his own personal psychodrama, but here the balance feels right; these fighters work better, and hold one’s attention more effectively, as a unit. In a prime example of Whedon’s ability to turn problems to his advantage, the Hulk, seemingly the weakest link in terms of character engagement (Ruffalo is the third actor to play the role in a decade), comes satisfyingly into his own as the Avengers’ secret weapon.

While Downey consistently steals the show with his desert-dry delivery, each actor in the freshly re-energized cast gets the chance not only to crack wise, but to touchingly express the self-doubt that lies at the heart of every superhero. The inevitable question of whether the world needs this motley crew is answered most sweetly by Shield’s Agent Coulson (Clark Gregg), a series fixture who stands in here for the film’s targeted fanboy audience. On the other side, Hiddleston gamely handles his villain-in-chief duties, which mostly consist of issuing petulant putdowns (“You crave subjugation!”) to the entirety of the human race.

Apart from a punchy setpiece in Stuttgart, Germany, Whedon confines the action to the airship for much of the picture, all the better to maximize the impact of an extended climax that involves, as it must, the catastrophic destruction of a major metropolis. Most memorable for the image of a giant blue sphincter excreting armed-and-dangerous floaties over the city, this endgame is too pro forma to convey real danger, images of civilians fleeing en masse notwithstanding. Even still, the battles are excitingly staged, with a sweep and coherence that actually gain something from the 3D conversion, especially when the camera starts to pinball from building to building in a breathless flurry of digital zooms and tracking shots.

Production is technically immaculate, with Seamus McGarvey’s lensing as sharp and focused as Jeffrey Ford and Lisa Lassek’s editing, though composer Alan Silvestri’s big, surging themes could have been more commandingly deployed.

“The Avengers” is the first Marvel production to be released by Disney since it purchased the comicbook giant in 2009, and it won’t be the last: The coda sets up a sequel that likely won’t materialize until after a round of “Iron Man,” “Thor” and “Captain America” follow-ups that will keep the studio occupied through 2014.

Camera (Deluxe color), Seamus McGarvey; editors, Jeffrey Ford, Lisa Lassek; music, Alan Silvestri; music supervisor, Dave Jordan; production designer, James Chinlund; supervising art director, Richard Johnson; art directors, Ben Edelberg, Jann Engel, Greg Hooper, William Hunter, Randy Moore; set decorator, Victor J. Zolfo; costume designer, Alexandra Byrne; sound (Dolby Surround 7.1/Datasat), Jose Antonio Garcia; supervising sound editors, Frank Eulner, Christopher Boyes; sound designer, Boyes; re-recording mixers, Boyes, Lora Hirschberg; special effects supervisor, Dan Sudick; visual effects supervisors, Janek Sirrs, Jeff White; visual effects, Industrial Light & Magic, Scanline VFX, Weta Digital, Hydraulx, Digital Domain, Cantina Creative, Luma Pictures, Fuel VFX, Evil Eye Pictures, Trixter; prosthetic and suit effects, Legacy Effects; specialty costumes, Film Illusions; specialty costumes and makeup effects, Ironhead Studio; supervising stunt coordinator, R.A. Rondell; fight coordinator, Jonathan Eusebio; stereoscopic conversion, Stereo D; associate producer, David J. Grant; assistant director, Lars P. Winther; second unit director, John Mahaffie; second unit camera, Brad Shield; casting, Sarah Halley Finn, Randi Hiller. Reviewed at El Capitan Theater, Hollywood, April 12, 2012. (In Tribeca Film Festival — closer.) MPAA Rating: PG-13. Running time: 143 MIN.

 

http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117947410?refCatId=31