The viewpoint of an old classic movie fan who does not read comic books...

Rating: 10/10 (5 April 2017)

... but is the ultimate fan of Joss Whedon.
I came to this film with virtually no background in the Marvelverse, so I was a bit confused at first. My husband helped fill in the blanks by stopping the film when I had questions, but I have to admit the script did a good job of filling in the blanks minus a few details. This is an excellent film of its genre that incorporates everything special effects can do today with great character development, courtesy of Joss Whedon who wrote and directed this blockbuster masterpiece. Do you know how rare it is to have blockbuster and masterpiece in the same sentence? He has to know that at some level that he, once again, did the impossible. He took what could have easily been a disaster and he produced gold. He created a movie that was fun, and exciting and shaped and brought cohesion to the Marvel Movie Universe and gave each character their time to shine. It has great acting; quippy dialogue; tons of very well done action; and a decent, if underplayed, level of ambiguity to the morality of the characters. They worked individually, they worked collectively. It had lots of Ultimate Alliance moments. Hulk shoves a piece of armor into the giant worm and Thor hammers it into his head, Thor brings his hammer down on Cap's shield and causes a huge shockwave, Thor shoots lightning at Iron Man and causes his suit to boost up to like 400+% giving him a supercharged shot. I love that all of those moments were added. I also love how Joss had a bunch of the heroes fight each other in a way that made sense in the context of the movie. Thor vs Hulk, Thor vs Cap, Thor Vs Iron Man, Hawkeye vs Black Widow, Black Widow vs Hulk. You can't help but love each and every fight.
Will people still be talking about it 80 years from now the way they talk about Citizen Kane? Probably not. But Whedon accomplished in the 2010's in making a film in which I was completely engrossed for two and a half hours, had a wonderful and fun time and wondered where the time had gone when the credits rolled. And isn't that why we go to the movies in the first place?