Avengers Assemble

Four arrogant, beefed-up men, one curvaceous woman, and an individual with severe anger management issues for comedy value. How could Avengers Assemble be anything other than a success? If you saw, and enjoyed, any one of the previous Marvel films (see Iron Man, Iron Man 2, Thor, Captain America or, dare I say it, The Incredible Hulk) chances are you were eagerly awaiting the arrival of this comic book blockbuster. With so much at stake it was almost a sure thing that the big cheeses at Marvel Studios were going to let us down somehow, but after churning out some of the best films of the past four years it would seem Marvel have done the impossible. They have successfully produced the coolest, biggest, teenage-boy-arousing comic book film I have ever seen.
With so many huge, hammer-wielding, shield-throwing, general ass-kicking stars Avengers is the kind of film that could almost get away with having only a vague semblance of a plot but the story line concocted here is actually quite engaging. When Thor’s wayward brother Loki returns to Earth to dominate all life war is imminent, and with completely unequal weaponry Earth doesn’t stand a chance. It’s in this vein of desperation that Nick Fury of S.H.I.E.L.D approaches our six heroes and enlists them as his personal response team. One by one they come in, bringing tight outfits, baggage and enormous egos with them. After a swift capture of the renegade Loki the team quickly descends into chaos, dragging up each others’ weaknesses and errors as they all quickly lose patience.
This is a heavily character focused film, and it’s in getting these right that Marvel Studios have hit on such success. These superheroes are not perfect. It’s enjoyable to watch Steve Rogers’s struggle to come to terms with the modern world, Thor’s guilt for the errors he made with his brother, Tony Stark’s general playboy arrogance and Natasha Romanoff’s exhaustion as she engages in a final battle that is really beyond her capabilities. It is in these human elements that these characters become likeable, and it makes their final acts of valour all the more awesome. Another great perk of believable heroes is humour that actually works. These are not predictable one-liners shoe-horned in between explosions, they are moments of sarcasm and wit that are genuinely funny and I hate to admit, almost clever.
One key point that Joss Whedon has got completely, one hundred percent right in this film is the balance of screen time. Avengers is not Iron Man and friends or three big names plus two more human tag-alongs and a big green guy. Everyone has their own elements of back-story and their own time to shine. In screen time this really does feel like a team movie, not just a badly weighted spin-off of a previously successful film, without going too far the other way and becoming a revamped X-Men.
Of course, it is not totally perfect. The ending of the film is, as you would imagine, way too convenient to be even remotely believable, though why after watching a half hour battle with the Chitauri (think Orcs from space) I’m not sure why I’m worrying about believability. In some ways Avengers strays into the realms of the ridiculous, I mean don’t get me wrong, if ever a film required suspension of disbelief it’s this one, but I do require some level of logic in my comic book heroes. The absurd science talk forced in to explain away Loki’s use of the Tesseract can quickly get dull, and seems more of a desperate ploy to explain why we’ve been chasing a blue cube around for one-and-a-half films. Meanwhile, the moments of emotion injected into a genre all about heroes and villains feel fairly stilted.
With all the hype that five previous successful films have to offer Avengers Assemble has done well to deliver. Engaging and entertaining this hero film is a refreshingly good watch after a succession of high fliers that fell flat (see Spiderman). My one piece of advice would be to swat up on previous Marvel films before heading down to the cinema, Thor and Captain America are certainly important to the plot and the whole spectacle comes off a little better if you’re already familiar with the characters. All in all this film is an explosive hit with classic one liners, explosions and end of the world peril. Don’t expect to be intellectually challenged but you’d be hard pushed to find a more satisfying guilty pleasure.

Thoughts for the Week

I am approximately 5 feet and 6 inches tall and weigh just under 147 pounds, giving me a body mass index that is closer to the top end of average. I wear size 10 to 12 clothes, well below the British average, and have a moderately good diet. Save for a few years in my late teens I have always felt confident in my own body. This I have recently realised is a rare commodity. Most of the young women I know are dangerously preoccupied with their weight. What started out as teenage fussiness is gradually morphing into damaging patterns of self-loathing, manifesting itself in vanity, lack of confidence and habitual self-inflicted starvation.
Take one person I know, only seventeen years old she is petit and pretty. This weekend she watched a television programme about calories and decided that in order to lose weight she needs to burn off twice as much as she is eating (only 280 calories every day). To save on lost time she denied herself food for the whole weekend and on Tuesday she became delirious and blacked out before making it in to work.
This is not an isolated incident. Over half of the young women I know skip breakfast, under the false assumption that they will lose weight by starving themselves until lunchtime. That means that on any given day in my place of work half of the women present, which could be half the work force, are functioning completely without sustenance and energy from eight in the morning until one in the afternoon. If that’s true of most workplaces it’s a miracle anything gets done before twelve.
I’ve known young, active women make it through the day on caffeine and a single biscuit before heading to the gym for a two-hour work out. Others binge one day and make up for it by eating nothing the next, or starve themselves for a whole day in preparation for an evening date. How is it that intelligent, educated women can be so completely clueless when it comes to the needs and care of their own bodies? No one would ever attempt to deny themselves water for days on end so why do they insist on denying themselves food?
This destructive relationship with food seems to come from years of indoctrination from adverts, films and trashy magazines. If someone completed a survey I’m sure they’d find some sort of correlation between the number of women’s magazines bought and the number of breakfasts eaten each month. Why does the media think it has the right to tell us normal, shapely, healthy women that we are not beautiful, we are not desirable and we will not under any circumstances be involved in a loving relationship if we go up a dress size? It’s this constant comparison to other women that is the problem. Growing up with a size 8 sister never exactly boosted my body confidence and the older you get the more forcefully ideal feminine shapes are forced upon you.
The main issue I have with constant dieting is the effect it has on our relationships. Pretty much all social situations seem to involve food and if you’re desperately trying not to eat then surely that is going to have an effect on your relationships with family, friends and partners. I know that most of the time my boyfriend and I spend together is structured around meal times. We love food. We go out to dinner, we make pancakes for breakfast, my housemate and her boyfriend smoked out the house burning chocolate when making a dessert, but you should have heard them laughing about it. I suppose we are lucky in having had long-term relationships during our formative years. We had love and affection that made us self-confident and easy in our own bodies, making it much easier to ignore the boyish figures of the celebrities constantly thrust in our faces. But I truly believe that feeling comfortable in your own skin starts with how you view yourself, not now others do.
Most of all I’d like to tell all the women I know that they’re my friends because they’re funny, because they’re intelligent and because I value their conversation and their opinions. I have fun with them and that’s not because they’ve got long blond hair and a waist smaller than my thigh. These young women I know are also incredibly beautiful and I can’t understand why they are unable to see it.