A herd of heroes makes The Avengers work

The Avengers (in theatres) - Dir. Joss Whedon. Starring Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson.

The Avengers should never, ever have been as good as it is.

Shameless fan service, an ungodly mishmash of B-list superheroes from a bunch of recent so-so action movies: it should have been an incoherent mess. And who could cast blame if it was? Six heroes is clearly too many for a functional film, and as long as every character appeared on the poster the producers could have made a hundred million dollars with two-hour clip of a guy reading comic books in his underwear.

Instead, The Avengers is better than all of its prequel films put together. It's almost certainly the best superhero movie ever made.

The Avengers, for the unfamiliar, are a loose team of Marvel superheroes whose lineup in this case consists of Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), Captain America (Chris Evans), The Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), and Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner). They are backed by professional badass Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) and the surprisingly entertaining no-nonsense secret agent Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg). Together, they take on Thor's brother Loki (Tom Hiddleston), who wants to enslave humanity because he's bitter that his hair still looks greasy after two lather-rinse-repeat cycles.

The plot is simplistic, but it's impressive that one exists at all in a film with obligations to so many characters. Writer/director Joss Whedon, who perfected the art of working with large and charismatic casts on series like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Firefly, proves himself to be a master here. Every superhero - even the kind of lame ones - gets ample screen time and multiple chances to shine.

It's an endless parade of fan service, but the best kind of fan service: the kind where every hero is set immediately and unreservedly against worthy opponents (which usually means finding reasons for them to fight each other). The kind of fan service where every character's moments in the spotlight are perfectly tailored to his strengths and personality in a way that only have been conceived by a filmmaker devoted to the source material.

The script sparkles with wit. Whedon's typically hit-and-miss one-liners are virtually all hits, and he brilliantly subverts genre clichés like the villain's long-winded speech and the heroine's moment of weakness.

Relentlessly enthralling without a down moment to be found, The Avengers is the payoff - and nothing but the payoff - to the last half-decade of Marvel movie madness.

Rated PG-13 for Whedonism.
5 out of 5

Albert Nobbs (DVD/Blu-Ray) - Dir. Rodrigo García. Starring Glenn Close, Janet McTeer, Mia Wasikowska.

Solemn period piece with a strong presentation on top of a weak foundation.

Glenn Close plays the title character, a woman who has spent decades disguised as a man to maintain employment as a waiter in 19th-century Ireland. She lives in lonely isolation until a painter hiding the same secret (Janet McTeer) makes her believe she can have something more.

Glenn Close's performance is the reason to see Albert Nobbs. Far more than just playing "a woman dressed as a man," Close makes Nobbs a captivating character on his own merits: a man whose careful composure only barely masks an almost unbearable timidity brought on by personal trauma and a lifetime of hiding in plain sight.

The voices and facial structures of Close and her costar McTeer rule out much chance of either of them passing as men, but the remarkable extent of their transformations becomes apparent in a scene where the two of them try on women's dresses. Both carry themselves in such a masculine way that they look like male cross-dressers.

Albert Nobbs aspires to be a film about secrets - about people "disguised as themselves." Nobbs has practical and personal reasons for carrying on her deception, but at some point it ceased to be a disguise and became her true identity. Whether this was out of habit or for deeper reasons is something never made exactly clear.

However, beyond its compelling concept, Albert Nobbs doesn't have much of a hook to rest its story on, and it's hampered by its sometimes crude storytelling. Rather than being shown organically, most of the story's details are clumsily given to us through soliloquies by Nobbs, dream sequences, and updates rattled off by supporting characters.

Albert Nobbs is memorable for its premise and performances, but lacks much content beyond that.

Rated R for androgyny.
3.5 out of 5