Marvel's Avengers Assemble (2012)

Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPoHPNeU9fc

Dir: Joss Whedon

Starring: Robert Downey Jr, Chris Hemsworth, Chris Evans

                After many months of anticipation and at six films leading up to it Marvel’s Avengers Assemble finally arrives in cinemas courtesy of Joss Whedon.

                Loki (Tom Hiddleston) arrives on earth and steals The Tesseract, a source of great power. He plans to use it to open a gateway for an alien species to come through and together they will take over the planet. Director of S.H.I.E.L.D, Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), assembles the earth’s most extraordinary heroes, Captain America (Chris Evans), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Ironman (Robert Downey Jr), Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo), Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) and Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) to defend the earth.

                Firstly, we have to get this out of the way. This is not the greatest Superhero film of all time. The film has sat upon so much expectation, at least six individual films setting up each individual character up until this point, containing various hints and cross over characters which have all been leading up to this one film. It is a wealth of expectation which is simply impossible to live up to. However, the film is certainly entertaining and it should please fans and the uninitiated in the audience. There is plenty of action and even more humour, as to be expected in a Joss Whedon script, to keep anyone entertained for its running time. After a slightly slow beginning, the fun starts when all of the heroes are thrown together and the one liner’s start to fly. All of the characters are juggled well and they each get their chance to shine. Unfortunately Captain America is a bit dull and Hawkeye and Black Widow suffer in comparison to their more super powered colleagues but they do get to have a good part in the action. Thor is fun and Tony Stark is back to being the funny arrogant guy we fell for in the first Ironman (2008) film, an improvement on the more grating Tony Stark of Ironman 2 (2012). However, the real revelation is Bruce Banner/The Hulk, played greatly by Mark Ruffalo, who, once he lets the green man out, is the most fun and has two of the funniest parts in the film. Tom Hiddleston is a great enemy in the guise of Loki, even if his army of aliens are a bit too faceless and are basically just there as cannon fodder. You need not worry if you have not seen all the other films before this, each character is introduced and drawn well so you can quickly get a hold on who they are.

                The film does have a few problems. It takes a while to get going as all the various pieces of the Avengers have to be introduced and brought together. It is also too long, but the longer running time does have to be expected considering the amount of varying characters and character arcs it has to bring together. There is never any real threat as you know none of the main characters are going to die and of course they will win in the end but this doesn’t mean that the journey is any less fun. As is typical with many American Superhero films, you are shown the might of America rising up to take down foreign invaders and you don’t really feel the world is in danger since they aliens only attack from in part over Manhattan. The action is entertaining and a good spectacle but it ultimately isn’t overwhelming and is fairly rapidly fading from you reviewers memory.

                It’s not the best Superhero movie of all time and it’s not the best Joss Whedon film out at the moment. It is a good, entertaining, funny and fun Saturday night film. Go and enjoy yourself for a couple of hours, just don’t expect it to change anything.

4 out of 5 Buttons

The Cabin in the Woods (2012)

Trailer:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXfc12BqFkc

Dir: Drew Goddard 

Starring: Kristen Connolly, Chris Hemsworth, Anna Hutchinson

               

                Joss Whedon co-writes this new horror comedy which has a lot more to it than the title might suggest.

                A group of teens go and stay a night in a wooden cabin in the woods where they are attacked. So far, so cliché but not everything is what it seems.

                The Cabin in the Woods is a film which has obviously been birthed from a great love of horror films and the horror genre. Drew Goddard and Joss Whedon have a lot of fun playing around in the bloody pools of the horror genre and they have created a film which is hugely entertaining and will stand up to repeat viewings. It is a must see for any fans of horror and will probably be a film written about by film students in courses around the country. The film it most closely resembles is Scream (1996), but The Cabin in the Woods takes it further, aiming its subversive sights on the whole of the horror genre rather than just the slasher movie.

                There are only a couple of criticisms for the film. If you came expecting a stereotypical horror about teens being killed in the woods then you may be disappointed but hopefully you will find the film a lot more interesting, imaginative and entertaining than the film you were originally expecting to see and the film still has plenty of killing to keep you satisfied. It is also not particularly scary. It does have a few jump scares but it does firmly have its feet in the comedy half of the horror/comedy genre. Unfortunately it is pretty much impossible to have a truly scary horror comedy because as soon as you have a laugh then any tension is dispelled and so any potential scares are subdued. Luckily the film has more than enough laughs to keep you entertained and those easily scared will jump at times, but it is worth losing the scares for the film to be able to take so many horror genre clichés and features and subvert them so entertainingly.

                Easily one of the most entertaining films you’re going to see this year. It’s clever, funny and even manages to throw in some scares. Far more entertaining than many of the regular horror films which get churned out each year. Horror fans will love it.

4 out of 5 Buttons

(Note: the review is shorter than normal as I have tried to stay away from as many spoilers as possible and as such am not able to go into the finer points of the film without spoiling its plot and therefore your enjoyment. Hopefully, the review has given you a good enough sense of my opinion on it without ruining the film for you.)

The Woman in Black (2012)

Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uc3zBhG9D30

Dir: James Watkins

Starring: Daniel Radcliffe, Ciaran Hinds, Sophie Stuckey

                Susan Hill’s famous ghost story gets another adaptation, this time on the big screen courtesy of classic horror production company Hammer.

                Arthur Kipps (Daniel Radcliffe) is a young lawyer whose wife died in child birth. A few years later he is still struggling with the loss. His work has been suffering and his boss gives him a last chance. He sends him to a mansion to sort out the papers of a deceased woman in a small village. However, Arthur starts seeing figures around the supposedly deserted mansion.

                The classic ghost story is a genre which is rarely seen nowadays in horror, a genre which has become overcrowded by torture horror, pointless remakes and found footage movies, so it is a nice relief to for such a film to be out as such a high profile release.

                The Woman in Black is quite an old and well known story so some of it does feel familiar. The outsider city man coming to a small village, the villagers being against him and trying to make him leave, people hiding secrets and bad things happening to children are all clichés which we’ve seen many times before but the familiarity doesn’t drag the film down. It manages to create a fairly creepy atmosphere; the scenes of Arthur Kipps alone at the house are particularly tense. However, it spoils the atmosphere by going for the loud noise jump scares so often favoured in modern horror films. The scares mostly come from glimpses of things in the background or behind Arthur, be they a moving figure or ever just a face, and these would work well to build up an almost unbearable atmosphere if they were backed with sparse soundtrack but the film spoils it slightly by going for the shock. This may cause an instant reaction from the audience but it dispels some of the tension that’s been built up. The effective horror films are the ones that leave you with an ominous feeling once you’ve left the cinema, they leave you fidgety and on edge, not the ones that you look back on and say it made you jump. A pigeon can make you jump but they don’t leave you scared.

                Another problem with the film is the casting of Daniel Radcliffe. His acting is perfectly good but he never seems old enough for the role. You never really believe that he is a widowed father; he seems more like the young child’s older brother. This doesn’t become a problem when we are left with Radcliffe in the mansion but it will be a nagging thought left in your head.

                The film realises its setting effectively and all the actors play their roles well. The build up of tension in the mansion at night is genuinely effective and the scares can make you jump, you just wish there was more to the horror.

                A good attempt at a classic ghost story which unfortunately still relies too much on loud noises and jump shocks. It is often creepy but rarely truly scary. It ends up as an entertaining watch but pretty forgettable. More atmosphere and less jumps for the next ghost story please.

3 out of 5 Buttons