Marvelous action, but average characters in an average superhero movie

Rating: 7/10 (6 August 2012)

This movie is getting immensely good reviews, universal critical acclaim. I'd hate to be the sore thumb standing out giving the movie an average review, or what sounds below-average compared to all the other reviews, but I was having a hard time enjoying this movie. Part of the problem was an overwhelmingly distracting midnight-premiere audience. I liked it better the second time, a few weeks later when the theater was much less attended, but not a whole lot because of reasons I'll explain next.
Though this is a combination superhero movie, the idea of which I really like, and though it's likable how the interactions between the heroes was important, I wasn't so completely sure the relationships between the heroes was very believable. Sometimes it seemed so, but not really. I expected there to be more time devoted to the heroes getting to know each other, as if they were actually unaware of each other before the start of the movie, but instead they all knew each other pretty well pretty early. It seemed the heroes showed a little less respect to each other than they probably should have. In fact, in several parts, heroes got into fights with each other, which I really don't like seeing in the movies. I would have liked to see Captain America, my personal favorite of the Avengers heroes, in more of a leadership role than what he was given. But would the Captain's shield, forged by mortal Muggles back in the 1940's, really be able to deflect Iron Man's or Loki's power beams (which is maybe just a minor complaint)? Speaking of Loki, he and his brother are back from Thor, and Loki seemed to stand out a little more as a good villain than he did in Thor. But then there is the awkward situation that those characters, as gods or demigods or whatever you call them, contribute to the story. This combination superhero movie makes the point that a team of superheroes can do more than what one superhero could do by himself. But because Loki, a god, was the main bad guy, I spent most of the movie believing that Thor, also a god, would have been the only hero capable of stopping Loki.
I would also have liked to see more of the supporting characters from the pre-Avengers movies show up in this movie. Erik Selvig from Thor and Pepper Potts from Iron Man were good showing up, and it had to have been hard bringing back most or all of the Captain America characters what with them being from the 1940's. But I wish we could have seen Don Cheadle (or Terrence Howard) as Rhodey from the Iron Man movies, William Hurt as General Ross from The Incredible Hulk, Anthony Hopkins as Odin from Thor, or the heroes' girlfriends, Liv Tyler as Betty Ross from The Incredible Hulk, Natalie Portman as Jane Foster from Thor, or Hayley Atwell as Peggy Carter from Captain America (pictures of Jane and Peggy both appeared briefly, so that was okay). The existing supporting characters were good for the most part, particularly Nick Fury and Phil Coulson (though I don't know how Nick Fury's apparent lack of superpowers puts him in a rightful place to lead S.H.I.E.L.D. or a team of superheroes). But I also have to say it was awkward that Natasha Romanoff (Black Widow) and Clint Barton (Hawkeye) were on the Avengers team. Though Romanoff is pretty good at spying and kicking butt, she's not a superhero. I'm sure that some showbiz news story reported back in 2009 or so that Black Widow would be a villain alongside Whiplash in Iron Man 2, but it was a disappointment to me watching Iron Man 2 that she never turned out to be a villain (she's still not a villain in The Avengers). Her name "Natalie Rushman" as used in Iron Man 2 seems to be completely fake, and her name "Black Widow" was used a couple times in The Avengers, which was infinitely more than the number of times it was used in Iron Man 2. And why is she called "Black Widow"? She's not African-American, she doesn't have a dead husband (that I know of), and she was never bitten by a radioactive spider. Hawkeye doesn't have any interesting or significant name either, and his superpower is nothing more than notable skill in using a bow and arrow, and though he appeared briefly in Thor, which I didn't notice the first time I watched it, I couldn't tell how his involvement made the movie much more interesting. So describe this movie as being about four superheroes (not five or six or seven), one supervillain, a supervillain's army of evil baddies, and four Muggle supporting heroes. Maybe I'm just not familiar with the comic books these characters are based on, and maybe I'm just overthinking this a little too much.
On the other hand, the action was marvelous, and if I was to judge this movie entirely by its action, it would be the best or almost best action movie ever made. While still sitting in the theater my first time, I was a little bothered by how pessimistic about this I seemed to be, but walking out of the theater I felt a little more optimistic, that I'm sure I'll like this more when I see it more times.