Definitely Entertaining, But Nowhere Near as Good as IMDb is Making it Out To Be

Rating: 7/10 (13 May 2012)

Its quite laughable that people are saying this is better than Dark Knight, because in reality its nowhere near as good. That's not to say the movie isn't entertaining, because it is. Its just not the epic IMDb's other reviewers would have you believe. The movie has its share of problems.
The good:
I thought Hulk was finally done right in movies, and Mark Ruffalo, I thought, did an excellent job as Bruce Banner. The Thanos spoiler at the end makes me extremely pumped to see the sequel. Tom Hiddleston was a very good Loki. Everyone fit their role quite well (with one exception). The action scenes were stellar in terms of CGI and choreography.
The bad:
1. There was really zero point to Scarlett Johansson aside from providing the male fans with some T&A. They tried to introduce this dynamic between her and Hawkeye, but it ended up going absolutely nowhere.
2.Joss Whedon in the comics tends to write very campy dialogue. As a result, this movie came off as more of a comedy than anything. I can deal with comedy and some of it in this movie was very well done (I loved Loki and Thor's conversation on the cliff, then Iron Man tackles Thor, and Loki speaks to the empty spot and says "You were saying?" That was excellent). However, almost every damn word out of Tony Stark's mouth was a joke or one liner. He was basically comedy relief. I know that Tony Stark is like that in the comics, but he can be very serious as well. Tony was serious for about 2 minutes after Coulson died and then went right back to the jokes. I think Whedon placed way too much an emphasis on comedy.
3. As a result of this comedy, there was almost no character development. I see other reviews mentioning this incredible emotion and depth. They are deceiving you-there was none of either. No one grew or changed. Its a classic good vs evil story where good eventually triumphs, with no underlying messages or tones. That's all the movie really needed to be, but others are giving the movie traits that it doesn't have.
4. I really hated that they kept calling the Cosmic Cube the Tesserack or however its spelled. Its the Cosmic Cube-very simple, no need to change it. Why did they? I haven't a clue, but it was dumb.
5. General plot problem #1: in Lord of the Rings, when the Uruk-hai killed Boromir, from then on you took the enemy seriously. They'd just killed one of the greatest warriors in Middle Earth, the greatest in Gondor, and broken the Fellowship. Hence, in the Two Towers, when an army of them marched on Helms Deep, you really wanted to see what happened because Man was defending against an army of credible foes. In the Avengers, it really takes away from the movie when the giant army Loki has been talking about and building up to finally shows up and are promptly decimated like they were gnats at a bug zapper. They were literally there to get slaughtered with ease and provide a big CGI fight scene. As a result, there was no emotional investment in the final fight because the big enemies were a joke.
6. General plot problem #2: In Thor, Thor beat Loki by himself pretty much. Now comes the Avengers and they're fighting the evil Loki again. Why exactly do we want to see this? Loki lost to Thor in the movie last year-good has triumphed over evil, the story has concluded. Now we're getting it rehashed but one side has 5 more members. When we've already seen the main villain lose to one of the heroes before, it takes a lot away from the movie. What's the point of doing it again?
7. General plot problem #3: the plot itself was very routine, yet they somehow managed to garble it with twists that went nowhere. Loki deliberately got himself caught to occupy the Avengers while Hawkeye under mind control stole some stuff Loki needed. Then they introduced the whole idea that Banner might be subconsciously under Loki's control, which amounted to nothing. Then Hawkeye has to bust Loki out of the SHIELD Helicarrier, when Loki has been shown to have the ability to teleport at will through solid matter. Then there's the whole sub plot of a free energy Stark Tower which becomes the focal point for the final battle while Loki opens up a portal to bring his army in using the free energy, yet they already established that the Cosmic Cube provides unlimited power itself, in which case this also amounts to nothing. SHIELD is found out to be planning to use the Cube to make WMDs and its a big secret that the Avengers are shocked at, yet Fury makes one mention of the Avengers Initiative plan and the WMDs are promptly forgotten. Coulson's death was really a plot device so Fury could smear some blood on his Captain America collector cards stashed in his locker and give the Avengers a kick start to go fight. Then there's the whole thing about going out for shwarma that was really pointless and contributed nothing. Hawkeye and Black Widow also went nowhere as previously mentioned.
Overall, the 8.7 rating this movie has makes it EXTREMELY overrated. I suspect its people just being dazzled by CGI and seeing childhood comic heroes come to life on the big screen that makes them ignore the problems the movie has. They didn't let George Lucas get away with Star Wars Episodes 1-3, and yet this is generally the same thing. I wonder why.
This movie is really a 6/10 but I'm feeling generous and gave it 7. Its fun to watch and I was entertained, but it really doesn't deserve the high rating it has.