Adrenaline pumped thrill ride that delivers near perfection

Rating: 9/10 (4 December 2012)

I did not envy the mammoth task that Joss Whedon had in front of him. Some seriously good characters had been developed in some very impressive comic book films already, so he had to tread very carefully in order to not destroy what had been carefully created. He then had to bring them all together into one film and make sure that they 'all' had a purpose and that one did not outshine the other.
So did it work? Well the answer is YES, beyond anything we could have expected too.
Okay the plot is not original in anyway and it was fairly predictable but I wasn't going to see The Usual Suspects, after all what do comic characters do? They fight bad guys and save the world and that is exactly what we get. What really surprised me, is how some of the characters that only had minor roles in the previous films rose to the occasion and held their own, The Black Widow and Hawkeye really played their part which, before I had seen it, I was sceptical about. Captain America never really over impressed me in his own outing, he was good but that's it, in this he shone through becoming a vital leadership role, coordinating the Avengers throughout the end battle. Thor did his bit, probably the only character that didn't bring us anything special. Loki was outstanding, clever, funny and likable, something that Bruce Banner amusingly points out. Of coarse Iron Man steels the show, did we expect anything less from Downey Jnr, however a close match was The Hulk, who delivers some of the best moments in the film.
The end battle is everything you expect it to be and if you are seeing it in 3D you are in for a real treat. The humour is absolutely spot on. What Whedon does best with all of the characters, no matter what world they are from, they are very human in nature which I think is the biggest key to the success of the Marvel comic book films, everyone has a sense of humour and through major life threatening situations they still keep it. Nobody is too serious.
There are a few people that feel they have to go against the norm and put a film like this down, maybe they feel that by becoming a Simon Cowell and are very hard to please that makes them feel powerful and respected but the truth is that it is very sad that people behave like this. The bottom line is that all films are really supposed to be is entertainment, if you want to cry you go see The Green Mile, if you want to laugh you go see American Pie, if you want gore you see Hostel and if you want to see blockbuster action you go see Avengers Assemble.
A film should be taken for what it is and if you go see this film for Oscar winning performances and clever plot twists then I'm afraid you will be extremely disappointed and quite frankly you should keep your opinions to yourselves. People are relying more and more on reviews to decide whether they should bother to go and see something and a good film reviewer should be flexible enough to see through the eyes of the audience it is aiming for.
Ignore the bad reviews, if it's big scale action with vibrant characters and great humour you are after then you cannot miss this gem, the last time I was buzzing like this after a film was when I saw Jurassic Park on the big screen for the first time when I was 13 years old. Bring on the sequel!