Not great but certainly mildly entertaining...

Rating: 5/10 (30 April 2012)

I certainly have an affection for the Marvel universe and some of the vast catalogue of recent films have been decent efforts. This one is certainly a decent effort but it's not the thrill ride you would expect from such a stellar line up.
The plot is basically "evil god tries to take over the world...and would have come close if it hadn't been for those meddlin' heroes...yadda, yadda" Well, you get the idea.
CAST: There are some great actors in this movie who do a decent job with what they have to work with:- Iron Man, Thor & Hulk (especially) are the real backbone for me. There are some miscasts here are well:- Black Widow, Loki & the almost instantly forgettable, Hawkeye.
SJ as Widow just doesn't fit for me. She's a great actress but not really an action hero. The dialogue is poor and she doesn't seem to know what attitude the character should portray.
TH as Loki, he just doesn't seem to have been written a great part but there's something not mischievous enough about his portrayal. He neither hams it up or puts any sort of humour into the part.
JR as Hawkeye has no screen presence or can manage any sort of chemistry with SJ when they are attempting to give some sort of validity to their respective part in this tale. It's all very wooden. That mainly comes from the limp script they're both given. Instantly forgettable.
One mention should go to Samuel Jackson - dude looks as bored doing this as he did doing Star Wars! Surely he's rich and famous enough to go back to decent acting jobs, such as Long Kiss Goodnight? ;)
PLOT: Too many threads makes this a long film (although it doesn't drag on). The setup seems to be mainly a precursor to getting The Hulk into the action. It's very wordy but it's not too much in-between huge bouts of action.
SCRIPT: Pseudo BS (as all these movies are). There's a smattering of humour (really only from Stark) but in the main it's bearable. There are character weaknesses, like I've said above, but it ain't the script you came for and this isn't Shakespeare.
ACTION/EFFECTS: My god, this looks great, even the 3D is pretty effective. There are some 'dull' action scenes (particularly the fight between Thor and Iron Man...Zzzz) but in the main, it's decently directed. One point of note though. Some of the 3D shots are so out of place it's laughable. Towards the end there's a shot through a cab rear window and it completely stops any flow the movie had for a second or two. Bizarre! There are more but that one just struck me out of the blue.
SUMMARY: Not the best Marvel film and certainly not on par with other comic book films such as; X-men First Class, Nolan's Batman/Dark Knight or Raimie's initial Spiderman reboot but it's certainly better than Captain America and Green Lantern. The latter being one of the worst films I think I've ever paid to see.