The Avengers (or Marvel Avengers Assemble) (video review) (2012)

The man behind Buffy The Vampire Slayer and comics giant Marvel team up to create one of the most enjoyable blockbusters of recent years.

Blu-Ray extras

The Blu-Ray release of Marvel Avengers Assemble in the UK is a disappointingly “vanilla” affair. While the film still stands up, despite an odd edit involving a spear, the extras amount to nothing more than a gag reel, some interesting but generally inconsequential deleted scenes, a rather perfunctory featurette and a new ‘Marvel One-shot’.

The One-shot continues the story of the movie in a roundabout kind of a way with a couple finding one of the Chitauri weapons and is, as all these little short films have been, an interesting and well made little episode. How relevant it will be to the ongoing continuity of course remains to be seen.

The deleted scenes give us a few extra little touches and the most interesting bits go to Cobie Smulders who obviously was set to have a slightly larger role originally, but its clear why these were cut, though it hints that she could become a fuller character as the Marvel universe continues to expand on film.

This disappointing set of ‘bonus features’ is a real let down as a film like The Avengers really does lend itself to a load of featurettes and commentaries for geeks like me to delve into, though I wouldn’t be surprised if we see a special edition release somewhere down the line as a Joss Whedon commentary certainly exists.