Finally, The Avengers is here. And does it live up to the hype? OH YES!

Rating: 10/10 (29 April 2012)

The Avengers (titled rather cheesily 'Avengers Assemble' in some countries including the UK) has been anticipated ever since Iron Man in 2008. Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man 2, Thor and Captain America: The First Avenger have all built up to this pinnacle of Marvel movies. The star-packed cast includes Robert Downey Jr. returning as Tony Stark/Iron Man, Chris Evans as Steve Rogers/Captain America and Chris Hemsworth reprises his role as God of Thunder from Asgard, Thor. Also Mark Ruffalo replaces Edward Norton as gamma-ray exposed scientist Bruce Banner/The Incredible Hulk. Scarlett Johannson returns as Natasha Romanoff, aka Black Widow from the second Iron Man and Jeremy Renner stars as expert marksman Clint Barton (Hawkeye.) Tom Hiddleston plays villain Loki and Samuel L. Jackson returns as SHIELD director Nick Fury. Cobie Smulders, Clark Gregg and Stellan Skarsgard round out the cast.
The premise of this movie is relatively simple; Loki wants control of The Earth after the events of Thor and will do this with the help of an alien race and the Tesseract from Captain America. SHIELD then puts together a team of remarkable people to fight the battles that they never could, to quote the inspirational words of Nick Fury. And to quote Tony Stark, these are a demigod, a super-soldier, a man with breathtaking anger management issues and a couple of master assassins. They must protect, or avenge, The Earth.
This film was first heard about four years ago and has gained a substantial amount of hype ever since the teaser trailer in the summer of 2011. Nine months and numerous exciting trailers and TV spots later, it is here. And yes it delivers, very well. One of the best things about this is the characters. Because they are all humans, you feel for them and care about them. And Loki, a fantastic villain played tremendously by Hiddleston, has a way of getting under all of their skins, hence his title of the God of Mischief. The acting is great and it goes without saying that Downey Jr. is amazing and hilarious. As is the whole movie; Joss Whedon's superb script delivers many witty and memorable lines so much so that you will want to laugh out loud in a lot of moments, mostly involving Stark or The Hulk. Particular scene involving the green behemoth and Loki or Thor are outstanding. The action is brilliant as well and I would recommend seeing it in 3D; the last third of the movie is definitely improved in three dimensions. From the fast-paced, exciting, opening scene through recruitment and the Manhattan carnage, this is an exciting, emotional, funny and perfectly executed film with great CGI. Also there are many moments where you just want to yell out AWWW YEAHHH!!!
There are just a few bad points here; but they are minor. First, I would have liked to have seen Nick Fury and Agent Hill fighting more in Manhattan, despite doing some things on the Helicarrier. Also it dawdles a bit too much on the first half, however this doesn't detract at all from what is DEFINITELY a 10/10 motion picture.