It's Iron Man's world, apparently the rest of The Avengers just live in it...

Rating: 8/10 (26 April 2012)

As one of the seemingly few who's not a fan of the Iron Man character or his films, and after seeing the trailers for this film, I had my reservations about The Avengers. Was it going to be Iron Man 3, guest starring the rest? Well, yes and no. It's clear who Joss Whedon's favourites are, as they get the most character development. Those who come out on top - Tony Stark (of course), Black Widow and - surprisingly - Bruce Banner/the Hulk. If you're a fan of these characters/the actors who portray them, then you should be satisfied with the amount of screen time they get. Captain America gets his moments of leadership. Hawkeye & Nick Fury do alright for themselves. Even Agent Coulson gets a fair amount of screen time/development. Sadly, Thor gets the short end of the stick...or hammer. I'd thoroughly enjoyed Thor in his solo movie and Chris Hemsworth in the role, so I was hoping he'd get the respect and focus he deserved as part of this ensemble cast. It seems Tony Stark's one-liners and the Hulk beating the crap out of characters for laughs were more important, however.
Fans of Tony Stark, who don't mind his attitude and want nothing more than him spouting snark aplenty and blowing crap up, should be happy. Annoyingly, even his love interest gets to be the sole love interest to appear in this film (too bad for Jane Foster or Peggy Carter - both of whom I prefer as characters. Though at least we get to see a picture of them each, and thankfully it's mentioned that Jane's safe. I wish Thor had been allowed to reunite with her before he left again). RDJ does his thing, and he's naturally fine doing it, but I'm probably in the minority who prefers him as Sherlock in the Sherlock Holmes films.
Scarlett Johansson gets to kick sufficient arse as Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow. She also does a good job of subverting the obvious - something Whedon is a fan of (that and scenes where everyone yells over the top of each other). There's a few moments you think she's showing signs of weakness, but then it's turned on its head and you see she's smart and more than capable/not to be underestimated. There's not really any 'beauty taming the beast' thing that the trailers may have led some to believe in regards to her character and the Hulk. Quite the opposite.
Speaking of the 'other guy', as Bruce calls him, this Hulk looks better than the two previous movie versions, thanks to motion-capture allowing Mark Ruffalo to actually portray the not-so-jolly green giant. Hulk's face even bears some resemblance to Ruffalo. Bruce gets to be all brooding and restrained for the bulk of the movie, but when he eventually Hulks out, he does plenty smash-o-crash. The Hulk is also played for some rather annoying laughs at times, like when he punches Thor after they've just teamed up to take down a baddie (why? Because it's funny!) or he cuts Loki off mid-speechifying by pounding him into the floor repeatedly, thus kinda undoing all the time & effort Tom Hiddleston had been spending making Loki menacing. There's a few moments where Loki really shows why he was the best villain to use in this film, despite the Hulk taking care of him pretty easily.
Cap thankfully gets to retain his likability and calls Tony out on his BS. These two come to blows verbally on more than one occasion while Thor resorts to fisticuffs with Iron Man and the Hulk...and yet he never seems to be allowed to have a true victory. This is the real disappointment of the movie - a character who had undergone a true hero's journey in his film, and deserved to be taken seriously, is disrespected/treated as a joke more often than not. Sure, he & Mjölnir get to kick a fair amount of butt, but not nearly enough as they should have. He doesn't even get to be the one who takes down Loki in the end or saves everyone. That would be the Hulk and Iron Man. Tony winds up being the one to save the city, he and Pepper in the Stark building are the last ones we see before the movie ends (not counting the mid-credits scene, that is. And no, there's no scene after the credits. At least not in the version I saw). Such a shame that Thor gets screwed over...though he does get at least one good line. It'll be interesting to see the next Thor film pick up where we leave Thor & Loki at the end of this film.
Hawkeye fans might be a tad miffed that he spends most of the film as a 'bad guy', but he does eventually return to the side of good and has a back-story between him and Natasha explored. Nick Fury gets to be all sneaky/manipulative and jumps on the 'Let's blame Thor' train. He also shoots some stuff, as does his offsider Agent Hill (Cobie Smulders)...when she's not providing exposition or miraculously escaping death. The one actual good guy casualty of the film? You can probably guess.
Having said all this, and my few qualms aside, the film is actually exceptionally well-made. Whedon proves he can do action with the best of them, and his direction is blissfully free of overuse of shaky-cam. It's quite the feat, bringing all these characters from different films/universes together and actually making it work, but he does it. Splendidly. Not a dollar of the movie's considerable budget has been wasted. It's all up there on screen. Some of the humour works. All the actors do well in their roles, but I personally am looking more forward to further individual adventures with Thor and Cap in their own movies than I am the inevitable sequel to this movie. Though I wouldn't say no to seeing The Avengers reassemble.