Spitting in the Faces of Serious Movie-Watchers

Rating: 8/10 (5 May 2012)

An article I read summed up The Avengers as "The Anti-Dark Knight," which is NOT a bad thing. It's just about as quality, but rather than being dark and gritty, this movie is fun with hilarious, yet intelligent dialogue. This is the truest comic book film. No, we're not given a bad pun about the villain's costume in the middle of really intense scenes. The movie is intense, intelligent, hilarious, and fun, which is a very odd combo for a movie one would expect to be very Hollywood.
This movie spits in the faces of more serious movie-watchers. Even they will get absorbed into this movie for many reasons. Usually, in a Hollywood movie with the success this one was expected to accumulate, you'd see more sex and idiots on screen twisting the plot in the most ridiculous of ways. Well, Scarlett Johansson is not used for seduction on other characters or sexual appeal to viewers. She is here to play Black Widow and be a crucial part of the film! As for idiots, there are none. The characters in this movie are all smart and necessary to the story. All of them do a great job! Even Mark Ruffalo, whose presence will make you forget the great Norton was even the Hulk first.
The story is just about as well-balanced as one could hope for between intelligence, action, tension, and flow. The characters' backgrounds are all tied together very well, and the story isn't centered around one character too much more than another. The main characters all get equal screen time and importance to the movie's monumentally huge and intelligent plot. For those who complain we're not given enough depth on characters, we were given a good amount of depth. If we would've gone any more in depth on any one of the characters, the flow of the movie would've succeeded less. We see enough from everyone.
To cap this movie off, the action was superb! It's always exciting anytime there is fighting sequences, which are plentiful. The special effects are really well-done, which is expected from a movie with such a budget as this one had to work with. The money was all put to good use. Great action, great actors, great directing, great plot, great dialogue, great movie!!
The only complaints one could have is "They didn't stick with the comic books" or "These guys weren't the original Avengers." This is a film. You cannot directly copy a comic exactly when making a comic book movie. It's a movie. It stands alone. Other complaints are just a few bad lines that are easily pardoned with how much the rest of the script outweighs the few bad lines.
This movie spits in the faces of serious movie-watchers. It surely did in mine. I didn't think I'd come across a movie with such an ominous plot in which the manner of the characters isn't totally serious. This is the one great film that was able to do that and still maintain a level of greatness that it does. This is one of the greatest 2000's films. I rank it right up there with The Dark Knight, Return of the King, City of God, Inception, etc. One of the greats of our time.