Nuff Said!

Rating: 10/10 (24 August 2012)

As I missed this in the Theatre, I waited a long time for the Blu-Ray to come out. I knew back in 2008 when Iron Man came out, that The Avengers were Assembling.
I did not understand why Marvel made a second "Hulk" film after Ang lee's marvel-ous work, but that Hulk was a stand-alone story, and not worked into the fabric of the Marvel Multiverse.
Each solo Avengers film introduced characters which were to be in this film, Iron Man was the most developed of them all, The Hulk, Captain America and Thor each developed those characters for this film.
There was one more Avenger that should have been included, Wolverine, but at the time Marvel did not have the rights. Even so, Wolverine was not part of that first Avengers comic so long ago where they Battle Loki, and that is what this film was about.
Joss Whedon was the prefect director to tackle this: His work on his Television shows and the Movie "Serenity" prepared him for it. I was glad that an Underdog was given the Helm, and he succeeded brilliantly.
After being Bombarded by the first Three X-Men films and the Sam Raimi Spidey Trilogy, it was just time to make this film. The Avengers are that one Marvel Property that has threads into all of Marvel's Super Heroes.
The pivotal piece was Samuel L Jackson's Nick Fury - I grew up when Nick Fury was a white guy and he was a much different character. Sometime in the late 90's and early 2000's Marvel recreated all of their Heroes and gave some of them a complete Makeover: But Jackson plays Fury much the same way David Hasselhoff did in the TV Movie. It does not matter what colour he is, white or black, he's the same guy.
It is this one man who spearheads "The Avengers Initiative" - Even though his board of supervisors have put the program "on ice" Fury finds a way to make it happen, he puts together a "response team" to deal with the threat of Loki.
We met Loki in "Thor" - Originally he was Thor's "Brother" and best friend. In "Thor" Loki learns he is actually a Frost Giant (Which is actually part of the Norse Legend) and something snaps in him. The Loki in The Avengers is not the subdued, Quiet Loki we meet in the first few scenes of Thor, he has completely lost it.
This Mirrors the way he was written for the Comic Books, the way I see it, Loki does not really know what he wants, so he is just trying as many bad things as he can think up. In the case of this film, he has made a shaky alliance with some creepo Aliens (We learn exactly who these guys are, at the very end of the film, after the title credits), as "The Other" is talking to his boss, who turns in Profile and he is a SKRULL).
The Tesseract, the "Cosmic Cube" which has been a huge part of Marvel stories, was seen in Captain America, Red Skull was abusing it, it fell into the arctic ice and Howard Stark grabbed it. After the events of the Movie Thor, Fury assigns Dr. Eric Selvig (Stellan Skarsgård) to figure out what the futz this thing actually is.
And they find out, as "Hawkeye" (Jeremy Renner) states at the beginning of the film, The Cube is a doorway, and it is being opened from the other side.
In steps Loki and he has gone even more insane, comparing the Human Race to bugs to be squashed via a Boot. Loki manages to turn Hawkeye and Selvig (This is another thing about Loki which came from the Comics), and the entire complex where The Cube was being tested caves in, huge Radar antenna and all.
From this point on, it's Non Stop. We get to see SO much stuff from the Comics, the SHIELD HeliCarrier, the Avengers Mansion (Which was Stark Tower). But the best thing was the interaction of these guys, they don't get along in the Comics, and they don't get along very well at first here. What surprised me was how well Mark Ruffalo made The Hulk come to life, even though I liked Ang Lee's Hulk better: But Rufallo actually "Acted" The Hulk, which was something not done in the two Hulk Movies.
From this point on, Avengers sets a Bar for Marvel Movies that will be difficult to reach again, let alone surpass.
This film easily surpasses the quality of the first two X-Men films, without burying them.