An amazing symphony of perfectly intertwined moving parts.

Rating: 9/10 (11 May 2012)

I'm not the biggest fan of the setup movies for The Avengers. I think they're tremendously hit and miss, and not through some comic book fan need for accuracy but as stand alone films on their own merits. See, I like the odd comic book, but I'm certainly not a comic book fan. What I am a fan of is good, solid storytelling. You know - characters that evolve, logically sound motivations and tensions, good pacing, an antagonist defeated through skill rather than luck - that sort of thing. From this perspective, the setup movies fell mostly flat for me. Iron Man was fabulous fun but it's sequel was poor. The Hulk was meh. Captain America spent far too long without any actual Captain America in it, and Thor - hmmm was just a bit of an all round mess and lacked even eye candy set pieces to elevate it.
So back a few years ago when it first became whispered in nerd circles that The Avengers was going to surface to tie all these movies together, I didn't really get much of a sense of excitement. A few years later, as the end credits rolled on Thor, I pretty much made up my mind that The Avengers movie was going to screw up badly. If the industry couldn't pull off a good movie with just one hero in it, how could they ever pull off one with six?
Then I heard that Joss Whedon was writing and directing and my interest rekindled. After all, I've seen him handle symphonies of characters before - with the Scooby Gang and the Serenity crew. If anyone could do it, Whedon could.
But still I was wary. Just didn't want to let my expectations get too high - superhero movies are notoriously difficult to get right after all. Maybe even Whedon would screw it up.
Boy was I wrong.
I don't think I've had this much fun at the cinema in years. Since the first Matrix movie in fact which was, what? Twelve years ago? (God I'm old). The Avengers had everything a good popcorn flick needs - major action setpieces, beautiful sfx, some neat and effective humor, yada yada yada. But none of that is what left my jaw on the floor. What really blew me away - and what compelled me to come here and write the first review I've done on IMDb in quite some time (years probably) - was just how perfectly done the script was. Every character is given their moment to shine, every interaction is perfectly in tune, this whole movie was the audiovisual equivalent of listening to a perfectly wrought symphony. Every moving part clicked into place so well that you couldn't have taken out one single character - not even the arguably 'second tier' characters of Hawkeye and the Black Widow - without the whole thing coming apart.
This is no Batman or Pirates of the Caribbean, or Spider Man movie; because while those multi-protagonist movies were all quite adequate and entertaining, the characters and plots were often an out of focus mess. Not so in The Avengers. Everything clicks so perfectly I can't even find the words to describe it. You'll just have to go see it for yourself to see what I mean.