The Avengers

Rating: 7/10 (23 May 2014)

I guess The Avengers was the movie many Marvel comics fans were expecting. Finally, after a series of solo movies, a group of the fan favourite heroes were united under the Avengers tag: Ironman, Hulk, Thor, Captain America, Black Widow and that guy with a bow.
The would be hero team bickers a bit in the beginning, as they are reluctantly put together to fight Loki, Thor's brother, who is again trying to take on the world. This time with a help of cube thingie called Tesseract, that opens a portal through which a some sort of biomechanoid warrior race runs through to do the actual conquering.
In order to get the full impact of the movie it would probably be the best to know a lot about the Marvel universe, either from the comics or from the movies, as the Avengers doesn't even pretend to be a movie friendly for new viewers. It's not muddled piece of fan service, but it is filled with things, that are left relatively obscure without prior knowledge of what has happened in the Marvel universe. The Avengers is fully watchable, even if you don't know that much about Marvel's world, but it does feel a bit hollow experience none the less. It just can't escape from its roots, which have been made during many other movies.
As said, The Avengers is not a bad movie. It's filled with great actors from Samuel L. Jackson to Robert Downy JR, almost all of which are familiar from the previous Marvel movies. Thay all do serviceable roles. They make the movie work, but none of them gets huge amounts of time as people, as the movie expects the viewers to be already familiar with them, be it Tony Starks arrogance or Bruce Banners life in shambles caused by his alter ego.
All in all, while the Avengeres is not a perfect movie, it is a nice start for a probably a lot more of them. But I doubt any of them will be aimed towards people who don't already know what they are watching.