Great, but a bit chaotic at times

Rating: 8/10 (1 May 2015)

First off, I'll get this out of the way. Is it better than the first Avengers movie? Not quite, but it's almost as good. In my opinion, of course.
One issue--too many characters for the time they had! They bring in new heroes and you barely have time to remember the name before we've moved on. They bring back minor heroes from past movies, but don't have the time to actually use those characters much during battles. Honestly, if it had been a bit longer, it might have felt less chaotic. I understand that this is just a fact of the comic world, there simply ARE that many heroes involved. But it's hard to keep them straight on a movie screen.
The comedy was decent. Better than in past Marvel movies, where during a climactic battle everyone pauses for some wisecracks. That didn't happen this time, but of course there were still plenty of jokes. I like that, it just needs to be the right time.
It was confusing, I'll be honest. I want to watch it a couple more times. Certain parts were never explained, but again that's comics. So I need to watch it over again to really "get it".
That all being said, I did love it. Each main Avenger got their screen time. Of course it's RDJ-heavy, because this is a storyline based around Iron Man. But no one is really neglected. There was plenty of action, lots of joking, some drama and fun...to me, it's very close to the level of the first Avengers movie. Not quite there, but almost. And that's about what I expected, so I was satisfied.