Greatest Movie Weapons

Many weapons have been used by our favourite characters throughout the history of cinema, but only rarely do those weapons become so ingrained in the mythology of the film that they become extensions of the characters, and even become symbolic of a franchise. In the following list, I've selected (in no particular order) what I think to be the most interesting, inventive and iconic weaponry to grace the screen over the past few decades.

M41-A Pulse Rifle (Aliens)
The primary firearm of the Colonial Marines from James Cameron's Aliens, the M41-A is an assault rifle capable of firing 10mm caseless armour piercing rounds, and is also fitted with a pump-action underslung grenade launcher and a digital ammunition counter for monitoring the capacity of its 95 round magazines. The prop itself was constructed from a live firing WW2 era Thompson sub-machine gun, the action of a Remington 870 shotgun and the casing from a SPAS-12 assault shotgun all fused together under a manufactured carry shroud. The principal weapon design was sketched out by Cameron himself, and its distinctive firing sound is instantly recognisable.

Alien and Prometheus

Space Jockey in Alien, 1979

With Prometheus only a few short days away, I find myself trying to understand the film I'm about to see. Is it a fully fledged Alien prequel, or an entirely original film with minor Alien influences? Will it be a horror film, or is it a sci-fi epic with horror elements? Will the film conclude where 1979's Alien began - despite the Director insisting that it doesn't contain the planetoid or the crashed alien vessel from that earlier movie - or will it expand the series in new directions? We know the Space Jockey will feature at some point, but will the original alien organism also make an appearance? Or are we getting an entirely new variant of the Xenomorph's life cycle?

Call Of The Military FPS

Battlefield 3 - Quite stunning on a high spec PC

It's hard to think that running around on a virtual battlefield, trying to shoot the opposing player in the face to score bonus points towards your next weapon unlock was once a novel idea. While it was fresh and groundbreaking in the likes of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, the formula is now as tired and predictable as the cliched action heroes who were once the stars of the the previous generation of corridor action shooter. Now, we get a new Call of Duty game every year, each one being nothing but a minor readjustment of the previous outing on the same tired and dated graphics engine. Once upon a time, material like this would only have been fit for an expansion pack. And in some cases, that expansion pack would have been free.

But in this modern gaming age, hordes of fans swarm to the shops to pick up the latest edition of their favourite title (currently COD 4.3) even though they essentially own the same game already. They pay £40 for it (£60+ for collectors editions), and then they start forking out for add-on packs to enhance the experience. If they're simple minded enough, they'll even pay an extra £40 a year to subscribe to Call of Duty Elite, essentially paying for a game twice and binding themselves into an agreement to play the game relentlessly until all DLC has been released and they've got their money's worth. It's almost forcing the buyer into a contract with the game - if they decide to trade it in or walk away before it finishes its DLC run, the publisher doesn't have to worry, because they've already got the customer's money. They're essentially helping themselves to the wallets of millions of narrow minded gamers who play these mainstream shooters because they are 'fun' or 'everyone else is playing them' or they get a vague sense of achievement in their lives from prestiging ten times and getting a shiny gold gun. If you were to argue this point with any of these fanboys, they would defend their COD hobby to the bitter end, insisting on its importance despite the fact that all their efforts to level up and 'achieve' will be pointless once the next game comes along, and they have to start the process all over again. Rinse and repeat.

But it's not just Call of Duty. EA's Battlefield 3 is heading down the same path, set to announce a paid subscription service later this year and also pulling support for its official servers, instead leaving it to the players to rent servers through the game interface at extra cost. While Battlefield's more sandbox approach to the genre is admirable, and it pushes the envelope in terms of graphics quality and scale, it's clearly a game living in the shadow of mega blockbuster Call of Duty, and the pains the developers are going through to try and emulate COD's success are starting to become obvious. Battlefield - a once genuinely innovative PC shooter and a leader in its field - is dumbing it down in order to appeal to the mass market of twitch shooter junkies.

But again, it's not just Battlefield. Any developer who wants to release a shooter these days must add an obligatory Call of Duty inspired multiplayer mode - complete with awards and killstreaks - in order to stand any chance of success. The upcoming FarCry 3 - which you might expect to be a single player experience about a man fighting for survival on a sandbox tropical island - contains a multiplayer mode with points for kills, weapon unlocks, levelling and killstreaks. It's sad that all of these games will be merely living in the shadow of COD. By sacrificing their own multiplayer identity in favour of trying to pick up a few stray COD fanboys, they will never be recognised as anything but poor imitations of an overrated formula. Originality is dwindling due to the ridiculous demand for more and more of the same, much in the way the demand for sequels and remakes has damaged the film industry.

Achievements?

I'm not saying this as someone who hates video games or military shooters. I love them. I bought every Call of Duty game up until the first Black Ops, and I've played almost every Battlefield game DICE has released up to and including the current Battlefield 3. But then I realised the lengths the developers of current titles were going to in order to gain access to my wallet long after I'd paid for the game in the shop. I realised there were an extraordinary number of gamers who would walk into a video game store and be utterly oblivious to the fact that there's anything else worth playing except Call of Duty. I realised the rinse and repeat setup of the games was driving me nuts and making me rage at my Xbox like a murderous psychopath, but I couldn't stop playing due to my unconscious desire to obtain another weapon unlock or modification.
While all video games have to deliver a certain sense of accomplishment in order to make the experience rewarding for the player, the current wave of military shooters have refined this formula to perfection. The format is painfully addictive, using stat tracking and achievements to take advantage of the human need to compete, complete and collect. And once they have a broad market of players wrapped up in their multiplayer world, the publishers of these games can charge whatever premium they want for downloadable content. Sure it's good fun to play, but once you've delivered the same template in six nearly identical Call of Duty games in as many years (and that's not including its imitators), it starts to become quite stale. But the average gamer laps it up year after year, and that's why Call of Duty will always stay fundamentally the same. The developers have been pressured into a corner where they're encouraged not to change anything substantial for fear of it not selling. And thus the creative barrier is reached.

Call of Duty 4 - The last time the series was truly innovative

With my current Battlefield 3 playtime at an astonishing 7 days 10 hours and 47 minutes (which I'm sure is nothing when compared to some), and Call of Duty long out of the picture for anything but alcohol fuelled splitscreen gaming parties, I've decided to take a step back from the military shooter in an attempt to find something more daring and original. Aliens Colonial Marines looks promising from a horror/shooter standpoint, as long as it utilises the strengths of the movie franchise to create a unique multiplayer experience and doesn't try to emulate Call of Duty.
I might even try a niche, low-budget WW2 flight simulator while I'm at it (Birds of Steel) which is currently being reviewed as the best combat flight simulator on the console, if not on any platform. I wonder how many people might thoroughly enjoy that game, but will miss it entirely due to the dominance of Call of Duty or Battlefield 3 in their console experience? My local supermarket isn't even stocking this new release simulator, possibly because their shelf space is taken up by dozens of pre-order cases for Call of Duty: Black Ops 2, which isn't even due out until November.
Infact, I may even go back and finish Deus Ex: Human Revolution, which was a gripping single-player adventure with a genuine sense of player choice and atmosphere, and had me gripped until Battlefield reared its head and all other games were all but forgotten.
I know I'll eventually go back to Battlefield in order to rejoin the online ranks of multiplayer, and I'll no doubt grudgingly part with my cash in order to get the most from the game I'm playing. It's a predicament all current-gen gamers face - they know they're being taken for fools, but the temptation is all too much.
There's a whole world of video games out there, and it feels refreshing to acknowledge their existence, even for a little while. Indie and low budget game studios are struggling to stay afloat despite their valid concepts and lesser financial motivations, and if we want innovative games for the future, we need to start supporting them now, and not lining the pockets of studios who have limited their creativity to 'whatever sells.' Dare to play something different.

Outpost: Black Sun - Review

Straight to DVD releases are an odd sort of film. You can rarely recommend them due to their low production values and unoriginality - they're quite often just inferior ripoffs of whatever popular cinema trend happens to be making big money at the box office at any particular time. They're always the films on the bottom shelf at your local supermarket with the overly photoshopped cover artwork and ridiculously cliched titles. One would think they might have become obsolete by now due to the competition of blockbuster Blurays and the incredibly cheap prices of mainstream film on DVD, but the direct to shelf releases just keep on coming, whether we want them to or not.

The first Outpost movie had lots of this...

But once in a while, a director with a good idea doesn't get the funding he deserves to make his intended debut masterpiece or alternative horror flick, so his film ends up on these shelves too.
2008's Outpost was one such film. With a budget so small it could barely afford to expand beyond one primary filming location (the producer mortgaged his home to raise £200,000 to fund the movie), and featuring a cast of straight to DVD regulars including Ray Stevenson and consistently typecast psychopath Richard Brake, it wasn't looking as though it would deliver much. But instead, Outpost was a low budget gem steeped in eerie atmosphere, depicting a team of mercenaries hired by a scientist\businessman named Hunt with a top secret agenda to investigate the ruin of a German WW2 bunker in Eastern Europe. There, they discover a machine constructed by the Nazi occult, designed to develop and sustain an army of supersoldiers capable of crushing the Third Reich's opposition. But the Nazi soldiers who were used as experimental candidates for the machine back in the 1940s are still being kept alive by the machine's electro-magnetic field, and like apparitions - not quite alive but not quite dead - they materialise out of the shadows and brutally exterminate each of the protagonists one by one.

...and this...

It may be derivative of the typical 'haunted house' formula so popular in Hollywood, and it certainly gives a nod or two to the famous Wolfenstein video game series, but there's nothing quite so creepy as seeing the shadowy figure of a Nazi soldier in jack boots and trench coat lunging out of the dark with bloodied rifle bayonet in hand. The film is also tightly shot - almost claustrophobic in it's use of enclosed spaces, exaggerated light and shadow - and maintains a suspenseful, serious tone throughout despite its potential to slip into the ridiculous. The antagonists are genuinely quite threatening, and what's more, there's a subplot of corporate/financial betrayal beneath it all (a la Alien) to give the film some unexpected depth. Drawing strength from the fact that the Third Reich did indeed conduct bizarre scientific experiments during World War 2, the film uses this popular conspiracy theory to help root itself in some sort of reality.
For a film with a budget so minuscule, it's remarkably impressive.

...and this

Outpost was bought up and distributed by Sony, and was quite a broad success in terms of straight to DVD film making. It even managed to gain a limited European cinema run after Sony recognised the film's potential, and Director Steve Barker was encouraged to make a sequel once the market for supernatural Nazi horror films was realised. Before long, Barker had written a sequel and a prequel alongside original co-writer Rae Brunton, and production of the sequel - Outpost: Black Sun - began.

With Black Sun being written and directed by the same individuals as the original Outpost movie, you might expect it to be a film of equal quality. I wouldn't be too quick to get your hopes up. I will admit that Black Sun certainly looks like a sequel to Outpost - the same eerie use of exaggerated light and dark dominates the movie. It's certainly shot very well and can't be faulted as far as its visual aesthetic is concerned, but that's where the similarities end.

Outpost Black Sun has some of this...

The tag line of Black Sun is 'War in Hell,' and with a budget quite dramatically increased from the first outing (but still significantly low enough to call this a budget feature), Black Sun literally tries to stage a war against the Nazi supersoldiers within the expanding range of the electro magnetic field. Allied British and American soldiers (the presumable peacekeeping force) battle it out against the undead stormtroopers in woodlands and suburban areas, while our protagonists - a female 'Nazi hunter' and male investigator - try to make it through the 'warzone' alive in order to reach the source of the electro magnetic field - the Nazi machine from the first movie - and shut it down. Ofcourse, everyone else is trying to reach the machine too for their own personal or financial gain, including Klausener, the elderly Nazi scientist who built the machine in the 1940s and wants it back. Apparently, or so we are told, Klausener hired Hunt in the first movie, who was ofcourse attempting to retrieve the machine from the bunker for his employer. And despite us believing that Hunt died at the end of Outpost, Black Sun tells us that he is infact still alive and being used by the undead Nazi force to keep the machine working.

...and some of this...

This is the first and possibly most major problem with Black Sun. There is simply too much going on. The first movie was a simple, tense and elemental horror movie. Black Sun tries to strike up a tale of dramatic action on an epic scale, with obligatory cutaways to military commanders giving orders from field HQs and shady background conspirators. There are too many non-essential characters throughout, and too few developed characters with any real weight. For a film on this budget especially, its own ambition weighs it down.
Another issue is that by bringing the undead Nazi force out of it's bunker, the filmmakers have simply 'bypassed' one of the most crucial devices from the first movie. The stormtroopers no longer materialise from the shadows and disappear at a whim (the previous film describes this as the effect of 'unified field theory.') They now run and sometimes shamble about in broad daylight, waiting to be shot at by nameless, faceless soldier patrols. This departure from the first film's concept is never explained, and therefore the Nazi undead in this movie do not come across as mysterious, supernatural apparitions with the potential to lunge at you from any dark corner. Now they are generic 'Nazi zombies,' and the suspense and horror from the first movie is almost entirely absent. With the atmospheric formula so well balanced in the first entry, I'm genuinely surprised they didn't make a more concerted effort to stick closer to that idea.

..and this

Also disappointing are the two primary cast members. In Outpost, Ray Stevenson hardly delivered an award winning turn, but atleast he had some balls and bravado. In Black Sun, we get Catherine Steadman as Lena the female Nazi hunter, and while she certainly looks the part, her questionable acting/overacting really grated with me. I'm sure she's a capable actress in the right role, but here she feels drastically mis-cast.
Then there's Richard Coyle as Wallace, who is much more convincing in his role but lacks any of the heroism or personality that we expect from a leading male. He is a weak lead, and considering the first film was all about tough men with big guns taking on invincible Nazis, I certainly expected a more dominant male character.
And the group of swearing, grimacing soldiers they encounter midway through the film are lacking much in the way of character development - most of them are there just to act as fodder for the killer Nazis later on, and serve little other purpose. Atleast the mercenaries in Outpost were fleshed out a little bit more and instantly identifiable.
Taking the questionable conclusion to the movie into consideration aswell, which features a climactic scene that I can only describe as Castle Wolfenstein Lite and a plot twist that felt included for the sake of having a plot twist, and I have to say I can't heartily recommend this movie. It just felt like the filmmakers tried to cram too much into one film, and strayed too far from the original formula. It's a sequel to Outpost, but it's almost in a different sub-genre entirely.

This time they're in your Nan's living room

I must admit, I did enjoy seeing the new characters enter the familiar bunker complex from the first film, but that's purely because it was a reminder of how great the original Outpost was. In the latter half of Black Sun, the bunker complex suddenly opens up into a conveniently undiscovered underground stronghold via a hidden elevator. The creators might say this was an expansion of their original vision, now unrestricted by a much larger budget, but the underground stronghold is cliched and full of oddities that begin to stretch the limits of credibility. And the return of Johnny Meres' sinister SS Brigadier General was also welcomed, but the undead Nazi leader is used in barely two scenes, which is a shame since he was one of the more potent elements of the first film.
The film just isn't exciting enough either. When you think about its limited locations and scope, not much happened in the original Outpost film, but the consistent suspense and atmosphere kept it gripping and it maintained a steady pace. Not much happens in Black Sun either, but there's just no tension to fill in the void left by an overstretched narrative. Outpost felt like a substantial blockbuster movie mistakenly released straight to DVD, but Black Sun feels like the direct to DVD shelf is exactly where it belongs. I don't dislike the film, but it just isn't exciting enough to recommend either.

Outpost: Black Sun is an admirable effort from a low budget, independent production team, but ultimately it will be forgotten much more quickly than its predecessor. Unless you absolutely must watch every Nazi themed horror film in existence, you can probably afford to give it a miss. There is a planned prequel on the way titled 'Outpost: Rise of the Spetsnaz,' which will apparently show the origins of the Nazi supersoldier programme and pit the undead troops against Russian special forces. But considering the nature of Outpost and its surprise success, I don't anticipate the prequel will be of the same standard either.
But I encourage you to watch 2008's Outpost at the first available opportunity. It's a creepily atmospheric Nazi themed horror topped off with a quality finish that belies its painfully low budget status, and it's also an incredible lesson in how to make a good movie without Hollywood production values.

Avengers Assemble - Review

I've never been an avid follower of Marvel's comics, having missed the opportunity to become a regular reader at some point during my youth. While I'm more than aware and respectful of their contribution to popular culture, my knowledge of comic book lore isn't exactly all that impressive.
My experience of the famous names of DC and Marvel is largely limited to their depiction in TV and film, and unfortunately for me, those adaptations have scarcely been any good.

In my opinion, comic book movies don't usually offer much of merit. They are quite often poor films, designed to keep film studios afloat with eye candy that is proven to sell to pre-established audiences. There are obviously a number of exceptions - most notably The Dark Knight - but these are the exceptions to the rule.
Perhaps expecting every comic book adaptation to display the intelligence of Nolan's Batman series would be foolish though, as many of these characters deserve a more lighthearted and colourful approach. But regardless, it is true that many adaptations struggle to strike up an even balance between character development and action. Adapting from comic to film presents the challenge of trying to translate decades worth of comic lore onto the screen - which is no doubt a daunting task - and the difficulty of trying to determine the right tone for the film and grounding its protagonist in any sort of reality. Few directors are successful in overcoming these challenges.

Whedon demonstrates a scene

It's true that my interest in The Avengers (or Avengers Assemble if you're in the UK) piqued once I learnt that screenwriter/director Joss Whedon was co-writing and directing. Whedon is a skilled creative individual who has made quite a name for himself with pulp entertainment fans, and you've likely seen some of his work whether you know it or not. To learn that he was taking up the reigns of a major studio production was good news indeed. My first and only concern was, will his creative streak shine through despite the financial pressure of such a big budget production, or will he fall foul at the hands of the studio system?
For those unfamiliar, Whedon has had many ups and downs throughout his career. Being a younger director, he first saw success in the 1990s with cult TV shows Buffy and Angel, and was then screenwriter for 1995's wildly successful Toy Story. He then had his screenplay for Alien Resurrection (which is actually quite good in literary form) turned into a visual catastrophe, before moving into the world of animation where he wrote Titan A.E and Disney's Atlantis: The Lost Empire. He then had his sci-fi TV series Firefly cancelled before he could complete a single season, but later managed to conclude the story by bringing the show to the big screen in the movie Serenity. This is the first (and only) time a cancelled TV show has subsequently been adapted for cinema. He was also responsible for writing current horror/thriller Cabin In The Woods.
Whedon - being a skilled writer/director and a huge comic book fan - was the logical choice to make The Avengers the success Marvel studios wanted it to be, especially since many of his previous works dealt with ensemble casts and the simultaneous development of various characters.

With the Marvel movies Iron Man, Captain America: The First Avenger and Thor all directly leading into Avengers via their post-credits teasers, it's obvious that Marvel has been gearing itself up for this event movie for some time. Avengers is a convergence of plot lines from all three of those films, and in that sense it has an awful lot to live up to, delivering a satisfactory continuation to each individual series but also being an exciting introduction to the famous collaboration of fictional heroes. For viewers who haven't seen any of those three comic book adaptations (or read the comic books), the opening portion of Avengers may seem a little confusing due to many of the characters' origin stories being featured in each of the preceding films, but once it picks up speed, you can rest assured that it's all self contained from there.

Tom Hiddleston as Loki

Having said that though, the premise of the film is fairly simple. Villainous Loki - the antagonist in Marvel's Thor - has come to Earth and stolen the Tesseract - the blue cube of immense power featured in both the Captain America and Thor movies. Loki's threat is to use the Tesseract to open another portal to Earth and bring through it an extra-terrestrial army called the Chitauri. To counter this threat, Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) of fictional espionage agency S.H.I.E.L.D is tasked with assembling a response team consisting of recently defrosted Captain America (Chris Evans), Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner), and Black Widow (Scarlett Johanssen).

It's important to consider that on paper, this film sounds like the recipe for certain cinematic disaster. You've got atleast 8 major characters all needing precious screentime and fleshed out story arcs, a concept which is incredibly hard to sell with any degree of realism and credibility, loose narrative threads to tie up from the previous films, a crisis to introduce and circumvent, an army of critical fans waiting to jump on the bandwagon at the first sign of disloyalty to the comics, and within the Marvel studio itself, a massive budget on the line and the potential for one incredibly expensive box office failure. But somehow, the film is not only successful in avoiding these potential failings, it's also one of the most enjoyable cinema experiences I've had.

Mark Ruffalo (Banner/Hulk) and Robert Downey Jr. (Stark/Iron Man)

For those who are familiar with Whedon's work, his trademark is (fortunately) all over the film. From the witty banter between the lead characters, to the humour that gives the characters a streak of vulnerability and humanity. The overall package is well balanced, with an equal measure of superhero action and equally important character dialogue and development. None of the characters are short changed in favour of another. Each member of the Avengers team is treated equally in terms of their role in the film.
This isn't Shakespeare, it's a Marvel movie and Whedon is aware of that as the film parodies its own seriousness at points for a pleasantly more lighthearted approach. But for what it is, it's incredibly well written. At one point, Captain America is warned not to engage in a fight with Thor and Loki as they are 'basically Gods' and their power is far beyond what the Captain may be able to handle. Leaping into the fray regardless, he replies 'There's only one God miss, and I'm pretty sure he doesn't dress like that.' That single line of dialogue sums up the Captain's attitude in a dangerous situation, his old-fashioned view of the world and religion and it delivers a few laughs along the way. It's not Shakespeare, but considering the genre, it sure is clever.
The pacing of the film, while not perfect, was consistent enough to maintain my unwavering attention throughout. Again, considering the multitude of elements the film had to address in its opening stages, it's incredible that pacing was consistent at all. To those reviewers who claim that Avengers is a 'slow movie' with 'too many dialogue scenes' and 'poor pacing,' you are idiots. Take away those 'slow dialogue scenes' and this would be just another comic book movie without any narrative purpose and with poorly established, unidentifiable characters. It's these character developing scenes that enhance the action later on, and it's these scenes that make Avengers stand out as the most accomplished Marvel film yet.

Samuel L. Jackson (Nick Fury)

While it does borrow a story beat or two from The Dark Knight (you'll know it when you see it), Avengers makes the smart decision of preventing its heroes from actually 'assembling' until the final act. The film is constantly building up towards the final confrontation, and this escalating tension is crucial in making the conclusion as exciting as it is. This doesn't prevent plenty of conflict from emerging during the earlier parts of the film though, with plenty of friction between the protagonists as they work out their personal differences and reveal their issues and concerns.

Some of the characters are actually portrayed better here than they were in their own origin movies. Captain America and Thor seem to be particularly more exciting and effective in a fight (the Captain actually throws his shield and Thor demonstrates plenty of hammer slinging and lightning bolt action) and the combat is visceral and dominated by large scale stunts rather than poorly composited high speed footage a la The First Avenger. With a twinkle of humour, Whedon's script repeatedly references the Captain's disappearance and subsequent lack of knowledge of the last 50 years. He emphasises the character's flaws, and reminds us of the humanity behind the hero, which is crucially important if you want an audience to invest emotionally in your film.
Hulk, who has recently been featured in two poorly received modern adaptations with two different lead actors, finally gets an appearance worthy of his character, and it's frankly quite amazing that a film with such broad ambitions manages to depict the character so well. Mark Ruffalo is fantastic as Hulk alter ego Bruce Banner, playing the role of the socially awkward scientist in the midst of a crisis situation. Making another smart choice, Whedon's screenplay prevents Banner from unleashing 'the other guy' until the latter half of the film, leaving the audience to wonder how long he can truly contain his anger and when he does lose control, where he will direct his rage. It's quite a potent buildup, and does more for the anti-heroic status of the character than the two Hulk movies combined.
Loki himself, who is often recognised as the weakest element of Marvel's Thor, is a much better villain this time around. He isn't written particularly intelligently, but his self obsessed ranting and self indulged moments of scheming make you quite happy to see him get the beating he deserves.
Newer characters Clint Barton/Hawkeye and Natasha Romanov/Black Widow, who were featured briefly in Thor and Iron Man 2 respectively, are given their own subplot this time around to integrate them fully into the story - testament to Whedon's caring treatment of even the lesser characters.
Robert Downey Jr.'s Tony Stark is a show stealer as always, getting most of the witty lines and some incredible set pieces, most notably at the end of the film. His conclusion does border on the realm of cheesiness, but it's quickly rescued by sharp, humorous dialogue.
Joss Whedon seems to write with the philosophy of, 'if it doesn't quite seem credible, make it funny instead,' and for the most part it works. The final act itself - with its epic scale urban destruction - might have seemed reminiscent of Michael Bay's Transformers if it wasn't for the snappy dialogue, humour and well developed team character dynamic. This a blockbuster action picture that's been lovingly crafted by a writer/director who knows the importance of grounding a film in some kind of reality - albeit a heightened on - before launching the characters into larger than life situations.
Quite simply, all the characters here do what you would expect them to do, they look good doing it, and for many Marvel fans I'm sure that's a huge relief.

Avengers succeeds greatly despite the odds being stacked so heavily against it. Despite its protagonists being an odd squad of superheroes with bright latex costumes, Whedon gives them a dash of humanity and they almost become fully formed, believable characters. The action is slick and well conceived, and when the film reaches its final act, the climactic battle is mesmerising to watch. I found myself amazed not only by the stunning visuals and well conceived set pieces, but by the fact that I was engrossed in an adventure of such absurdly epic proportions and loving every minute of it. Joss Whedon deserves an enormous amount of praise for pulling off a feat as extraordinary as any depicted in the film. I sincerely hope he gets the credit he deserves for making the unbelievable so believable. It's bizarre to think of it this way, but essentially, it took the creator of Buffy The Vampire Slayer to show Hollywood how to make a decent Marvel film.