Watched Avengers. It was great, easily the current pinnacle of superhero movies. The bit where the Hulk punches that thing? My new favourite bit of superhero cinema. Actually the entire final act/battle was pretty amazing. That being said I think there were a few bum moments and the pacing and structure of the narrative was a little odd/off. They should also stop putting Loki in movies as he always seems to be written and acted so much better than the other characters (also really liked The Hulk and Captain America in it). To expand my thoughts a bit:
The Good
– Haweye and Black Widow were cool. I have never liked Black Widow as a character until this film. I also thought Hawkeye’s quiver was an amazingly elegant and stylish solution to the “Robin Hood” superhero
– Special effect’s – Top notch, not a single gamey looking moment in the film. It really is a tour de force of top notch SFX
– Spectacle – Super hero films are largely defined by spectacle, The Avengers had this in spades – from the early stuff like the Helicarrier to the various battles and particularly the amazing setpiece at the end. It was packed with those “Fuck yeah!” moments that make stuff like this enjoyable
– Loki – Much like with Thor Loki seemed to be written and acted better than the rest of the cast, he was great.
– Hulk – Great, both as Banner and especially as the Hulk (thought the Hulk’s voice maybe should have been a shade deeper but thats a minor nitpick)
The Bad
– Pepper Potts, just terrible, why is she trying to be the female Tony Stark?
– Pacing – the middle section of the film dragged and was unfocused, it seemed full of pointless scene’s which added nothing to the story or characterisation
– Poulson – Why?
– The “something to avenge” – I think it would have worked better in the first act rather than the second
– Chitauri – The whole hivemind bit, while not really addressed, felt like a cop out
– Non sequiturs – Quite a few of the characters make bizarre off the cuff comments that just seem odd rather than funny/insightful/whatever
– The Invasion – While the final act was pretty amazing considering they were invading a world the alien forces seemed weirdly anemic
– Iron Man – I havent seen Iron Man 2 so maybe that has something to do with it, but going from Iron Man to the Avengers Iron Man just seemed, well, flat.
– Team up incompetency – Captain America seemed weirdly useless for the first 2/3 of the film
– Odd tonal shifts – Not that I really minded but there were quite a few moments where the tone of the scene rapidly shifted back and forth from, say, melodrama to comedy and then back. While generally entertaining enough it felt jarring – I’m blaming Whedon for this as his work is redolent with stuff like this
Most of the stuff listed under “The Bad” is really minor and in no way interferes with the film to any great extent, I would most heartily recommend giving this a watch.