Avengers Assemble

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ based on 2 reviews.

tl;dr: It's no small feat to weave together this many characters and somehow make them all feel equally relevant, interesting, and enjoyable to watch. Funny, action-packed, and just so much fun; the comic-book team up to beat when it was released and now just brilliantly packed with teases of everything that has come since.

Collections

Marvel Cinematic Universe Marvel

Series

Avengers

Review

Spoilers Ahead: My reviews are not spoiler-free. You have been warned.

Just as funny and action-packed as I remember from the cinema, plus crammed full of Easter Eggs now. It's fascinating going back and watching a film from so early in the now universally known MCU and seeing background characters that you recognise from major roles in other films or the TV shows. The amount of known Hydra agents on board the helicarrier is insane in hindsight. Serious props to Fiege and everyone else involved for maintaining that level of continuity.

Otherwise, the introduction of Loki is kind of odd now. He's become such a well-known character, but at the time we'd only seen him in Thor, so some of his mannerisms now seem a little off. Still, the overall acting is spellbinding and the casting is fantastic, so I'll forgive the occasional "yeah, you'd do that better now" moment.

It also remains incredibly tight and funny. Marvel has had a run of brilliant films since the first Avengers, each upping the ante of the last, so it's impressive just how upped the ante already was at this point. The action still holds up to more modern films, the plot still works, and the humour is just as unrelenting and brilliant as I remembered.

It was a little funny re-watching one of the earliest post-credit scenes that really had people excited, though, as the Thanos reveal now just seems corny. However, the line by the leader of the Chitauri is not something I'd picked up on before; he specifically states that attacking Earth isn't as easy as promised, in fact it is like "courting death itself". That's a pretty huge statement, given Thanos' character background. In the comics he spends most of his life in service to, and in love with, Death (which, in the Marvel universe, is a real person; a woman). "Courting death" is what Thanos sees himself doing during the original Infinity War, which is done in her name to win her respect. So, saying waging war on Earth is like "courting death itself" is a pretty clear indication that Thanos now sees Earth, out of all of the planets in the galaxy, as a target worthy of his crusade.

Rewatch

Finally busted out the Bluray! Of course The Avengers still holds up, but going back to it with the full arc now done was a lot of fun. Not sure I agree that Loki has any "off" moments any more, but it does bug me a little now that Thanos effectively sends Loki to Earth to retrieve an infinity stone with another infinity stone. I'm not sure how much of a retcon the staff is but it just feels a little odd. I was also surprised at how well the Hulk's initial CGI still works; I'd actually say it's aged better than some of the later films, which increasingly creep towards the uncanny valley of looking too much like the underlying actor.

Oh, and that end credits sequence gets sillier each time. The fact they teased Thanos coming that early I think was a mistake; tease Thanos, sure, but it's the line saying he's coming himself which makes no sense. And yeah, I picked up on that whole "courting death" thing this time around, too, feels funny that they went in a totally different direction in the end. I'd also forgotten the opening sequence entirely, which felt a little weird now.