Review No.78: Avengers Assemble

So it's time to review the film that everybody had seen apart from myself and the friend who accompanied to an early afternoon screening of Avengers Assemble. That's at least what I thought however the screen wasn't as empty as I thought it would be as there was a smattering of patrons already sitting down when we got there though I got the impression that many of them had already seen this at least once. I really don't know how much plot detail I should go into here as I feel the majority of readers will at least have a small knowledge of what the film is about namely the assembly of all the of the Marvel superheroes who have appeared in their own films over the past couple of years. So we have Captain America, Thor and Iron Man combining with The Hulk who is now played by Mark Ruffalo, Scarlett Johansson plays Black Widow who she has previously portrayed in the Iron Man franchise and Jeremy Renner as Hawkeye who had a brief cameo in the Thor movie. The plot itself revolves around Samuel L Jackson's Nick Fury, the link between all of these Marvel movies, who has to gather together these various heroes after Thor's step-brother Loki steals the Tesseract in order to open up some sort of space portal to get an alien race known as the Chitauri to invade. The essential struccture of The Avengers is collecting all the various characters, get them together, getting them to argue, separate them, reunite them and then get them to save New York by vanquishing all the aliens. Along the way everybody gets their time to shine and do their party piece whether it be Thor with his hammer, Captain America with his shield, The Hulk generally destroying things or Iron Man being generally witty they get their five minutes of fame. If you haven't seen it don't read the rest of this paragraph but essentially The Avengers prevent another 9/11 from happening only this time they fend off aliens rather than terrorists afterwards we are given a collection of news footage criticising The Avengers' tactics which I found very reminiscent of Team America. There was also a final scene in which Loki's failed atempts are punished by the head of the Chitauri which essentially set up either a sequel to this film or to Thor or perhaps both.

People who know me will know that I'm not a big fan of Hollywood action films however I did enjoy both Thor and Captain America for different reasons while I also thought the first Iron Man film was fantastic. As I previously mentioned all of the superhero get to do the thing they're best known for and I would best surmise Avengers Assemble as sort of being a Greatest Hits Mixtape which should've had the tagline - you liked what they did before, then see them all do it at the same time. This is a benefit in some cases as I don't think there was much more that could be done with the character of Captain America given Chris Evans' limited range while Thor made me giggle more than anything else as did Hemsworth's lines here though saying that Hiddleston's egocentric Loki provided a good villain who, like any good baddie, was set on world domination. I am looking forward to the third Iron Man film if only to see more of the bickering between Gwyneth Paltrow and Robert Downey Jr. which again was a highlight of this film however the latter's quick-talking was a bonus in this film and did provide some of the stand-out moments of the script. I would've liked to have seen more of Mark Ruffalo's Hulk as most of the plot surrounding him seemed to be waiting until he turned green and started smashing everything around him. I am aware that there have been two previous Hulk films but I would've like to have seen another one with the excellent Ruffalo in the lead role as his brief appearances as Bruce Banner were very well done. Renner and Johansson were also ill-served by their screen time which hinted at a past relationship between the two and I do hope that he at least does get his own prequel film to flesh out the character before a second Avengers film. There is a lot of wit in the script and when I have heard friends discuss the film it is the one-liners that they best remember which again I quite enjoyed and found myself laughing several times throughout. There was though a fair bit of exposition throughout with most of it being delivered by Jackson as he walked and talked with Robin from How I Met your Mother explaining various plot points to her. The final battle scene is about 45 minutes long but is extremely well-produced and visually stunning allowing each Avenger to demonstrate why they've been recruited in the first place however towards the end I did feel this battle had become slightly repetitive. It did take me a while to decide what I actually thought of Avengers Assemble however it was at the end of the day a Greatest Hits, or Greatest Smashes in the case of The Hulk, highlight reel where everybody got to do what they're known for which was both the best and worst thing about the film as it was entertaining but left little room for character development.

Verdict: A Greatest Hits Mixtape where everybody gets their chance to shine but characters don't really develop though overall it was fairly entertaining and kept my interest throughout so therefore I will award it a 7.5/10

Review No.49: We Bought a Zoo

After a taxing day sometimes you just want a film that looks good and you don't have to think too hard about so thankfully last night I chose to watch We Bought a Zoo. The film is directed Cameron Crowe who has previously made two of my favourite films, Almost Famous and Say Anything, but recently went off the boil with his latest effort Elizabethtown. His latest film is based on the memoir of British journalist Benjamin Mee who, along with his family, bought Dartmoor Zoological Park in Devon before re-opening it to the public. In the film Damon plays Mee who is still a journalist but here a widower with two children one a fourteen year old  teen rebel Dylan and the other Rosie a cute little girl. As he is played by Matt Damon he is attracting attention from the local ladies but when his son his expelled and he is reminded of his late wife he decides his family need to relocate. As the title would suggest they end up buying a zoo which the girl loves the idea of but the boy hates as he is dragged away from his friends. Benjamin also has issues as there is a lot of money to be paid out so the zoo can be up to inspection standards and at times he doesn't think he's going to be able to afford it. The plucky young zookeeper Kelly, played by Scarlett Johansson, keeps Benjamin's spirits up but at the same time wonders why he bought the zoo while Kelly's cousin Lily develops a crush on Dylan however his closed nature eventually pushes him away. As you would imagine at the end of the film live lessons are learnt, everybody becomes happier and everybody ends up where they should be.

I do think that We Bought a Zoo is better than Elizabethtown but only just and that's mainly because Matt Damon is a more superior actor than Orlando Bloom. The plot of the film is fairly simplistic and most of it is expressed in the title however there is hardly any grit to the film underneath the sweet surface. The two main big issues here are the Mee's financial status and Benjamin's relationship with Dylan however both are treated pretty poorly. The finances are solved in a way which felt a little convoluted while I found the Dylan character had little depth partly due to Colin Ford's limitations with the issues between him and his father sorted out fairly easily after a lot of build-up in addition the romance between Dylan and Lily isn't really dealt with in a believable way similarly I didn't like the fact that Crowe had to put Kelly and Benjamin together before the film ended. There are some plus points in We Bought a Zoo with the majority of the cast being on top form notably Johansson who I've never been a big fan of and also Thomas Haden Church as Ben's brother and John Michael Higgins as the picky zoo inspector. While we're talking about cast-members I felt some of the others were ill-served notably Elle Fanning as Lily who essentially has to smile and act goofy and also Patrick Fugit whose role is basically walking around with a monkey on his shoulder. The themes of bereavement are dealt with well mainly due to Damon's believability and also his chemistry with the young actress who plays Rosie. Credit must also be given to Rodrigo Prieto whose cinematography on the film is spectacular and as this is a film directed by Crowe the soundtrack is also splendid with a score by Sigur Ros' Jonsi combined with tracks by Bob Dylan and Cat Stevens among others. A film with highs and lows I would recommend We Bought a Zoo for anybody who just wants to watch a predictable but heart-warming film with plenty of plus points to count out the negatives

Verdict: Though it has some great supporting performances, wonderful cinematography and a splendid soundtrack there's no getting away from the fact that We Bought a Zoo is incredibly cheesy so for that reason I'll have to award it a 6.5/10