Delivers pretty well on the big budget, though still a little over-hyped.

Rating: 8/10 (22 August 2015)

I guess you could call this the staple of the whole Marvel universe. From what I've heard and seen, it sounds like most of the teasers and connections from the subsequent films come together in this collective movie. It was bound to make a lot of money at the time of its release, but the people in charge seemed to take a lot of care with the other movies and create enough of a backstory so that the movie functioned like a sequel, but not so much that you were lost if you didn't see the other movies. They had a very big budget to work with, but I think they spent their money well and it resulted in a pretty HQ movie. That doesn't necessarily mean it will please everyone (though it certainly tries to), but you can clearly see that there was a lot of work and time and stuff that went into the two hours we all spent at the theater.
The story is mostly character driven. The plot is mostly directed by Loki's plan of world domination and disbanding the Avengers, and this is what you'll probably pay the most attention to on your first viewing. There are lots of subplots involving each of the heroes' different problems, and much of this involves background information from the previous movies. The thread involving the Avengers trying to come together is quite prominent, but it's harder to focus on it the first time around because you're probably concentrating more on Loki's scheme. The way Loki uses their volatility and power against each other is great, and the dialogue in those scenes of tension is very well written. To top off this conflict is a conspiracy within SHIELD to use the tesseract as a means to create high-tech weapons.
The six (or seven if you count Nick Fury) superheroes are treated pretty equally in screen time, plot relevance, internal conflict, and combative ability. Hawkeye/Clint Barton seems to get shorted a little bit, but he also isn't really himself for 75% of the movie either. They are all distinctly different and, as I mentioned before, have clashing personalities. The idea of bringing them together kind of defies the idea of a superhero, who is basically supposed to be a one man show. They are well developed too, which is probably helped by the previous movies. Loki is a pretty good villain in a psychological sense, though not the best of his kind by any means. He's intimidating and has some battle skills with intelligence to boot, but his most notable attribute is how he gets into people's heads and exploits their weaknesses and humanity. All the characters have flaws, and all of these are addressed. They're personified well by their actors, though nobody has a spectacular performance. I could talk about each character separately, but I don't think I've got enough space. I'll just say that the featured parts along with the obvious heroes and villains are, Phil Coulson, Maria Hill, Eric Selvig, and Pepper Pots.
The visual effects and action choreography are really good, as they should be with something that has such a big budget. The directing is pretty good for most of it and even has a few outstanding moments. I liked the script for the most part, except when it came to comic relief. Sure some of it's funny, but it's kind of annoying at the same time. I don't think they should have just scrapped all attempts at humor, but either they messed something up, or that's just my sense of humor.
If you like any of the featured superheroes, I would expect you to enjoy this, though I don't know how well it sticks to the comic books. If you haven't seen any other superhero movies and want to ease your way into the genre, this is the best movie to start with, though not necessarily the best of its kind. It's worth seeing twice if you liked it the first time around. If you hate absolutely every character from early on, go ahead and stop. But if you only have a problem with one or two characters, keep going. I absolutely hate Tony Stark's arrogant personality, but I like Bruce Banner and Steve Rogers so it remains a pretty positive experience. It's probably okay to watch it with your kids if your comfortable showing stuff like Pirates of the Caribbean, Narnia, Goonies, or Harry Potter. It is predominantly action, but can cater a little to people who favor other genres. So watch if you're interested, but just know that you don't need background information apart from knowing character names. Overall Rating: 8.2/10.