Terrific CGI, Editing, Story and Acting

Rating: 10/10 (28 September 2012)

Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) brings the Avengers together to locate and obtain the Tesseract, a cube of untold power that could possibly power the whole world, but it is also needed by Loki (Tom Hiddleston) to open a portal for his army to come through and subjugate the people of earth to his will. The Avengers have their work cut out for them once they stop fighting with each other and learn to get along.
This is, perhaps, the best CGI I have ever seen along with fantastic editing. I know in the past we had very good CGI with Beowulf, Live Free or Die Hard, Transformers and 2012 among some others, but a true salute should go to Director Joss Whedon and maybe an Oscar as well. This was truly well organized, and seamless throughout. The story was plausible without getting into silliness and unbelievable cartoon animation effects. And, effective dialogues helped make this as real as possible. Kudos.
Who are the Avengers? Ironman (Robert Downey Jr), Captain America (Chris Evans), The Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), The Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), and Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner). I was not familiar with The Black Widow and Hawkeye. I was looking for Billy Batson (Captain Marvel) but he was from an older time and that is the only explanation I could think of. Poor Billy Batson was probably in a old-age home, and he was never referenced in this. So,.. no "Shazzam" for us. Pity.
The thing I noticed is the storyline kind of continued a slender thread from previous Ironman, and Thor movies. Thor was assured that his love interest, Jane (Natalie Portman) was safe from what was going to happen in this Manhattan, NY location. I am pretty sure we saw Scarlett Johansson in one of the previous Ironman movies, but not as the Black Widow and am not sure what role she did play. And, of course, there was Pepper (Gwyneth Paltrow) Tony Stark's (Ironman) love interest. Yes, she still looks very good, but, at first I thought someone else played Pepper as the actress didn't, at first, look like Paltrow. But it was her. Maybe getting a little long in the tooth does that. Go figure. Hey, it will happen to all of us. Bummer.
Also, we noticed that Tom Hiddleston also played Loki in the movie THOR. So this was like old home week for some of this cast and for us as well. Very good. I don't like giving Oscars to bad guys or in this case, bad gods, but I must say Hiddleston's Loki was very good and may get one. He was almost likable at times. Did I really say that?
All in all this is one terrific movie and the pacing is excellent; and you will forget all about the snacks you brought in to see this movie as your eyes never leave the screen. It's mesmerizing.
There may be some confusion for a while when you do not understand why The Avengers are at each other's throats for the longest time. And, you cannot figure out why Hawkeye is working for Loki (the bad god and stepbrother of Thor). But, stay with it and it will all work out and you will understand.
The acting performances all around are first rate. And, again, not enough can be said about the CGI, the editing, the fights and battle scenes and the cinematography as well. All were terrific. Kudos. (10/10)
Violence: Yes. Sex: No. Nudity: No. Language: No.