The Avengers assemble for blockbuster return as they take on their ultimate enemy

From left, Andy Serkis, Jeremy Renner, Paul Bettany, Scarlett Johansson, Chris Hemsworth, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Chris Evans, Elizabeth Olsen, Robert Downey Jr and Mark Ruffalo at the premiere of Avengers: Age of Ultron in London last week. Joel Ryan / Invision / AP PhotoShow less

Three years after saving the Earth – and breaking a few box-office ­records along the way – the Avengers are back with a power-packed punch this week in their latest blockbuster adventure.

Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, Black Widow, Hulk and Hawkeye take on a new baddie who wants to wipe out humanity in Avengers: Age of Ultron, which will be released on Thursday.

This time, returning ­director Joss Whedon also pits the ­superhero gang against their own shortcomings as they take on their ultimate enemy – and plays about with the chemistry that developed between them in their first ­get-­together.

In 2012, The Avengers became the third-highest grossing movie in cinema history, taking more than US$1.5 billion (Dh5.5bn) at the box office, beaten only by ­Avatar (2009) and Titanic (1997).

The pressure on Whedon was therefore enormous – but the 50-year-old said he drew most inspiration from the first film’s success, and from the interplay between the characters.

He says he looked for “what little moments are there between these characters that I haven’t gotten to do yet”, adding: “What conversations they haven’t had yet, what haven’t I shown?”

The relationships are indeed richer between Iron Man/Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr), Captain America (Chris Evans), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), Bruce Banner/The Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) and Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner). There is also more humour to temper filmgoers’ pure adrenalin rush.

“The main thing was to make sure that everybody had their moment, that it’s all connected to the movie, to the main thing,” says the filmmaker, who spent hundreds of hours editing the movie. The result is two hours of turbo-driven action, superhero fist-fights and technology, all at the service of a story full of surprises, which American critics have already hailed as a huge hit.

Industry journal Variety called it a "supersized spandex soap opera that's heavy on catastrophic action but surprisingly light on its feet, and rich in the ­human-scale emotion that can cut even a raging Hulk down to size".

James Spader, best known these days for his roles on TV in Boston Legal and The Blacklist, plays the baddie Ultron, a robotic assassin who is able to reproduce itself and is determined to annihilate the Avengers. He wins the unexpected backing of twins Wanda and Pietro Maximoff, also known as Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver, played by Elizabeth Olsen and Aaron Taylor-Johnson.

Jarvis/The Vision (played by Paul Bettany) is introduced as a ­counterweight to the power of Ultron, who emerges as a kind of a ghost in the Stark Industries mechanised machine.

“They embody a little bit of [Tony Stark],” says Whedon. “But I do see them as two sides of the same coin, sort of a core between the two of them. There’s something beautiful about the fact that they see the same thing and react ­differently.”

The climax of the film resolves certain storylines from the first film, and opens new horizons for those to come, including The Avengers: Infinity War, the third part of the saga – which Marvel is dividing into two movies due out in 2018 and 2019 – and Captain America: Civil War, which will pit Iron Man against Steve Rogers, and is due out next summer.