The Definitive Guide to Living in the Capital , Cairo , Egypt

Fling a bunch of superheroes together and you either get the New Year’s Eve of superhero films or you
get a slice of unbridled awesomeness. Thankfully, The Avengers, which crams Captain America, Thor, Iron Man, Black
Widow and Hulk into one film without short-changing any one character, falls
squarely into the latter camp. In fact, it’s mayor of that camp.

Exhibit one of its awesomeness: Scarlet Johansson’s Black Widow gets an
introductory scene that is more badass than her entire Iron Man 2 arc and in fact, she’s one of the most awesome
characters in the film. Exhibit Two: Gwyneth Paltrow’s Pepper Potts, with her entire
three minutes of screen time, manages to come across as smart, hilarious and
generally super cool; three things that can’t be said about her roles in both Iron Man films put together. Exhibit
Three: Hulk, who was previously so mistreated by Hollywood that he needed a
reboot instead of a sequel, is the most badass superhero in the line-up. Although
Tom Hiddleston’s Loki,  in all his power
hungry, revenge seeking insanity, is a joy to watch.    

The film’s plot is rather simple. Loki (Hiddleston), Thor’s (Hemsworth)
brother, is out to take over the world and has assembled an alien army to do
so. All he has to do is get his hands on the Tesseract – a super powerful
energy source – and use it to open a portal through which his army can join
him. Nick Fury (Jackson), director of S.H.I.E.L.D. decides to reactivate The
Avengers initiative and calls on the world’s superheroes – Iron Man (Downey
Jr), Captain America (Evans), Black Widow (Johansson), Hulk (Ruffalo), Thor and
Hawkeye (Renner) – to counter this extraterrestrial threat. Despite the fact
that they can barely stand each other, they’re forced to put their planet-sized
egos aside to save the world from Loki’s dominion.

We could go on and on about everything that makes this film far superior
than all the other superhero films that came before it, but it can really all
be summed up in two points: the dialogue, and the visuals. The dialogue here
has Joss Whedon written all over it. Seriously, anyone who’s watched one
episode of Buffy, Angel, or Firefly will recognise his voice from
the very first one liner. The relentless onslaught that follows only solidifies
his status as the king of quips. This film is so hilarious, that you’ll
frequently miss jokes because you’re laughing too hard at the one before. And
no, they don’t all come from Iron Man. It also has to be said that the actors
really prove their comedic skills here whether with outright jokes or more wry
material.

As for the visuals, they’re Transformers
good. It rivals anything Michael Bay has put out in sheer thrill factor alone.
The main difference though, is that there’s space to breathe. In between all
the mayhem and destruction, the characters get time to take a moment, get back
on their feet, trot out an epic one liner then throw themselves back into the
fray. It’s awesome! The combination of The Avengers’ skill sets makes for
really interesting fight scenes where the characters’ personal fighting styles
and weapons of choice come together in really exciting ways.

You don’t need to have seen each character’s films before seeing The Avengers but a basic knowledge of
the superheroes is actually recommended – Thor and Loki in particular as it’s
their relationship that drives the story. While not technically a sequel, it
does tie all of the characters’ previous story arcs together and relies to an
extent on the fact that the characters have all been established already.