The mother of all superhero movies.

Rating: 10/10 (13 April 2015)

When The Avengers first came out in May of 2012, I passed it up, figuring that it would be just another boring superhero movie, but when I sat down to watch this film, it completely amazed me with it's fantastic special effects, witty dialog, awesome action scenes and great performances.
The film opens with a cool shot of the Tesseract and a chilling voice saying that the cube has awoken and the time is ripe to invade the Earth with Loki leading the Chitauri in an attack and only The Avengers can stop him from conquering the planet but at the same time, the team must learn to work together despite their differences.
Now, I never read any Avengers comic books before I saw this film, but it is definitely a dream come true seeing Iron Man, Thor, Black Widow, The Hulk, Hawkeye and Captain America come together to save the world is something that we wanted to see ever since it was first teased in Iron Man back in 08'. This is clearly a movie made for fans of Marvel and Joss Whedon does such a great job with respecting the source material, handling all these egotistical superheroes with different personalities and giving them all an equal amount of screen time while making all the fans happy with this film and so far, the only other comic book movie directors who have been able to pull that off are Bryan Singer and Matthew Vaughn with the X-Men films.
The way the characters interact and play off one another is done perfectly here and while there isn't a lot of character growth in The Avengers as that was what the set-up films were for, Joss does a wonderful job making the interactions between the lead characters feel more real. You might think that with so much going on that the movie would collapse under it's humongous expectations, but thanks to Whedon's directing and writing, the film works wonderfully. The dialog had me laughing my ass off more then a few times while I was watching the film The acting couldn't be better with each actor bringing their acting chops to the table and putting it to good use.
I honesty can't see anyone else play Tony Stark/Iron Man other than Robert Downey Jr. He slips into the role so easily, allowing his charm and appeal to shire through and he has some of the best lines in the film. Chris Evans hardens himself in this film as Capitan America/Steve Rogers and truly owns the role in this film bringing a great deal of heart and genuineness to the role and the dialog between him and Stark teases later events in the MCU. Chris Hemsworth once again rocks it as Thor by being more honorable and less conceited not to mention having quite a few funny moments throughout the film. Scarlett Johansson is great as Black Window and proves that she is more than just a pretty face and kicks some serious ass during the battle scenes. The one character that didn't get enough screen time was Jeremy Renner's Hawkeye, but thankfully, he isn't chucked aside and does a splendid job playing this character. Hawkeye is right up there with Legolas and Robin Hood as one of the best archers to ever adorn the movie screen. Being the most current actor to play The Hulk, Mark Ruffalo does a great job playing both the angry green giant and the nerdy Bruce Banner with incredible ease and while I do prefer Edward Norton as the Hulk, Mark is a fine replacement and during the film, the Hulk is at his most imposing in the final battle and the scene where he smashes Loki into the floor is just awesome. Samuel L. Jackson gets to stretch his legs a bit as Nick Fury in this film and he glides easily into the role. Clark Gregg returns as Agent Coulson, Cobie Smulders adds a nice touch as Agent Maria Hill and Stellen Skarsgard pops up again as Dr. Eric Selvig as does Gwyneth Paltrow as Pepper Pots, but Tom Hiddleson is the true star of this movie as Thor's villainous half-brother, Loki and one would think that a role like this would be difficult to play dealing with all of these strong personalities and overwhelming individuals, but Tom nails it and his performance shouldn't be ignored, because it's one of the movie's strong points and Hiddleston comes across as a scheming megalomaniac but without being cartoonish or over the top and he steals the movie every time he's on screen, but Tom also handles the comedy incredibly well with his exchange with Robert Downey Jr. being extremely funny.
With a run time of just over 2 hours, the film has a great pace and never once did I get bored while I was watching it. The special effects are state of the art, the musical score by Alan Silvesteri works very well and the action is some of the best I've ever seen in any movie. No body feels cheated when it comes to the battle scenes and the final battle in New York is right up there with the battle of Helm's Deep and the assault on the Death Starr as one of the best on-screen battles ever and the climax delivers an earsplitting level of action that is breathtaking and awesome to behold. Also, be sure to stick around for an end credits scene which provides a nice little set up for future Marvel films.
I went into this movie with pretty high expectations and all of them were met. While this movie isn't the best superhero film in my opinion, there is no doubt in my mind that The Avengers is a purely awesome film. It should be watched by any comic book film fan. So go give it a watch if you haven't already, you'll enjoy it.